Facebook suspends Arlington Heights-based church's page

A Facebook page run by the Arlington Heights-based Church of Christian Liberty was shut down for not complying with the social media company's policies, church officials said Friday.

Church leaders say they weren't told exactly what led Facebook to ban the Christian Liberty Press page, but they speculate it has to do with expressing their Christian views.

On Friday, they sent an email to church members, families and alumni asking for prayers that the matter be resolved and the page be reinstated.

Pastor Calvin Lindstrom said the earliest that could happen is Monday morning - seven days after the account was suspended and Facebook began its review of the matter.

The page administrator still had access earlier this week, but that's since been suspended, Lindstrom said.

The page operator has formally appealed the decision through Facebook, Lindstrom added.

"We don't post radical things, though people might not like everything we stand for," he said.

Christian Liberty Press, the church's publisher of books, tests and curriculum materials for home-schooling families, posts products it sells on the Facebook page, and sometimes news stories.

Lindstrom said one of the stories shared on the page a few days before the ban had to do with homosexuality.

"I don't think we were intentionally trying to violate any guideline," he said. "The page wasn't trying to push the envelope. It's our own theological reflections, but we're not trying to engender some specific controversy over a matter. But now we're banned from the page and can't review anything from the past."

The church operates two related Facebook pages that are still in operation - one for its Christian Liberty Academy School System, its K-12 home-school program, and the other for Christian Liberty Academy, the preschool through 12th grade day-school on Euclid Avenue in Arlington Heights.