NEPTUNE, N.J. — The Rev. Cedric A. Miller has had it with Facebook and what he says it is doing to couples coming to him for counseling.
So he is giving his married church leaders until Sunday to get off the social-network website or resign their posts.
The senior pastor at Living Word Christian Fellowship Church, an interdenominational and evangelical church here, said a large percentage of his counseling in the past year and a half has been for marital problems, including infidelity, stemming from Facebook.
When people just met with old friends from high school in a platonic way, Miller said, he saw no problems.
But he sees a change, and now people are reigniting old passions and connecting with people who should stay in the past.
“It’s to the point now that this Sunday, anyone in our church in a leadership position and who is married and is on Facebook has to resign their church position if they do not give up Facebook,” said Miller, 48.
He plans to speak on the subject at the 9:30 a.m. Sunday service.
“Married couples are going on Facebook, and what happens can end up in my office,” the pastor said.
He said he is giving the ultimatum to church officers because he has authority over them but not the congregation at large.
“The average citizen is going to see my action as controlling — not that I care about that,” Miller said. “I’m not concerned with being politically correct. I’m trying to save families and marriages.”
Hazel Samuels of Asbury Park, N.J., who chairs the church’s board of trustees, is single and not on Facebook but understands Miller’s concern.
“He has been heartbroken over this situation” she said. “It’s a misuse of Facebook. People just don’t use it properly.”
Miller said he has a Facebook account that he uses to check up on his six children. His wife and a church elder have his password.
But he will drop off Facebook by Sunday.
Facebook, founded in 2004, has more than 500 million users worldwide.
“I wouldn’t say Facebook is the problem,” said William Rosenblatt, an Ocean Township, N.J., psychologist and therapist. “Facebook doesn’t create dissatisfied marriages. People who are dissatisfied now have better means of creating support systems and networks that are much more vast, and it’s much easier to connect with people that way.”
