Truth be told, I am not prone to flashbacks — even though I did come of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Anyway, I had a big flashback recently while reading a very interesting New York Times feature that ran with this headline: “Facebook’s Next Target: The Religious Experience.” In this case, the subhead is also crucial: “The company is intensifying formal partnerships with faith groups across the United States and shaping the future of religious experience.”

Whoa. What does “shaping the future of religious experience” mean? I imagine that to learn details, readers would have to hear from some of the participants in this trailblazing online work. But there’s a problem with that. When asked about some specifics, an official with the Atlanta branch of the trendy Hillsong Church couldn’t answer, because “he had signed a nondisclosure agreement.”

Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Anyway, here’s the passage the stirred up lots of conversation, and my multi-decade flashback, during the recording of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in).

A Facebook spokeswoman said the data it collected from religious communities would be handled the same way as that of other users, and that nondisclosure agreements were standard process for all partners involved in product development.

Many of Facebook’s partnerships involve asking religious organizations to test or brainstorm new products, and those groups seem undeterred by Facebook’s larger controversies. This year Facebook tested a prayer feature, where members of some Facebook groups can post prayer requests and others can respond. The creator of YouVersion, the popular Bible app, worked with the company to test it.

Now, combine that mind-spinning information with this passage, which very gently raises the issue that millions of Americans — on the cultural right and left — are convinced that the Facebook gods have lost control of much of the information that is located on their platform:

The company’s effort to court faith groups comes as it is trying to repair its image among Americans who have lost confidence in the platform, especially on issues of privacy. Facebook has faced scrutiny for its role in the country’s growing disinformation crisis and breakdown of societal trust, especially around politics, and regulators have grown concerned about its outsize power.

This brings me to my flashback to a graduate-school class at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign that changed my life.