Religion on the Internet

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Religion on the Internet: Community and Virtual Existence Franz Foltz and Frederick Foltz Bulletin of Science Technology Society 2003; 23; 321 DOI: 10.1177/0270467603256085 The online version of this article can be found at: http://bst.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/23/4/321

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10.1177/0270467603256085 Foltz, ARTICLE Foltz / RELIGION ON THE INTERNET

BULLETIN OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY / August 2003

Religion on the Internet: Community and Virtual Existence Franz Foltz Rochester Institute of Technology Frederick Foltz Pastor Emeritus, St. James Lutheran Church There is considerable controversy concerning the ability of the Internet to provide communal experiences. This article looks at the ability of the World Wide Web to foster religious community, particularly from a Christian perspective. It looks at the nature of religion and community and shows to what extent the Internet has and has not been successful in recreating religious community. It looks at the reaction of two particular groups of users and categorizes Web sites into five types: research sites, extensions of local community, independent sites, spiritual retreats, and online worship. Finally it discusses the limitations of disembodied experience and argues that most individuals use the media within these limitations. Keywords: religion, technology, Web, Internet, community

There are many books written concerning science and religion as well as many conferences dedicated to addressing the perceived conflict between them. However, very few people really look at the implications of technology for religion. Although technology affects all areas of church life, it is usually acknowledged only in normal business and communication decisions. Like all other modern institutions, churches are constantly challenged with the claim that they cannot operate without the latest device, whether a fax machine or networked computers. Sometimes, these advances are embraced with little contemplation, and sometimes the challenge is met with a concern that these gadgets divert attention and time from the essential personal presence ministry. A more fundamental challenge relates to the nature of technology and what that means for the church. Is

technology simply a neutral tool that the church must be careful to use appropriately? Andrew Careaga (1999), a leading advocate for the church going online, spoke of the Internet being only as good as the people who use it. “It is just a tool that can be used to further God’s kingdom or that of darkness” (p. 13). Or is technology “a gift given by God” so that the church can more efficiently hasten God’s mission? Leonard Sweet (1999) called on Christians to “hoist sail and catch God’s tidal wave” when referring to her use of the Internet (p. 21). Or are technology and the church rivals seeking people’s devotion? Albert Borgmann (1984) claimed they are “not simply opponents, but . . . forces that confront one another at the deepest level” (p. 305). Of course, this challenge is not unique to the church. It has also been one of the central concerns of STS. Many classic STS works address the issue of society treating technology as simply a neutral tool without any implications other than how humans choose to use it. For decades, we have been discussing these ideas as father and son, parish pastor and interpreter of science and technology. We have continually striven to explore the relationship between our two worlds. This study is an attempt to expand our informal dialogue into something with more substance. There are many types of technology on which we could focus, but we chose to look at the Internet. We found church members usually talk first of the computer and Internet when asked for the greatest cultural changes in the past decades. And as Luther used the printing press to launch the Reformation, church people are using the Internet for similar religious purposes. The Pew Internet & American Life Project reports 28 million Americans, 3 million a day, 25% of all Internet users, have gone online for religious purposes.

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 23, No. 4, August 2003, 321-330 DOI: 10.1177/0270467603256085 Copyright  2003 Sage Publications


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That is more than those who “have gambled online, use Web auction sites, traded stocks online, placed phone calls on the Internet, done online banking, or used Internet-based dating services” (Larsen, 2001, p. 2). The Barna Institute (2001) predicted, By the end of the decade we will have in excess of ten per cent of our population who rely upon the Internet for their entire spiritual experience. Some of them will be individuals who have not had a connection with a faith community, but millions will be individuals who drop out of the physical church in favor of the cyberchurch. Brenda Brasher (2001, p. 6) estimated there are at least a million religious Web sites. Many people speak of these as the “Online Church.” We will examine this online church and see how it compares to the traditional church. In particular, we will explore the concept of computer-based religious “cybercommunities” and see how they compare to traditional ideas concerning church and community. We do this by asking one cyberreligious group a pair of questions and examining a similar poll taken by another online religious community. Finally, we explore numerous religious Web sites to see exactly what they are offering.

Community While exploring official statements, theological interpretations, religious Web sites, as well as numerous books and reports on this online church, we encountered many challenging issues. But we always came back to the same basic concern, the promise of a “new and improved” form of community. At the root of our concern seemed to be fundamentally different conceptions. The church when examined as a social institution has primarily regarded community as gatherings of people in localized communities. Many in information communications technology describe a version of community bound together by electronic mediums. Our article will examine what kind of community, if any, can be found on the Internet. It will report the experience of people who have used the Internet for religious purposes and analyze Web sites that purport to be the online church. Finally, we shall offer some guidelines for appropriate church use of the Internet.

Two Forms of Community Though the concept of community has many possible connotations, we will use it in its simplest form. By community, we mean the way people interrelate to each other. Standard sociological literature provides two forms in which community can come, which we shall label local and associative. Our analysis will be based on these two forms. Most people think of the local form first when they hear the word community. This is also the most common definition of community found in sociology. It focuses on an aggregate of people who share a common interest in a particular locality. By definition, local community is related to a specific geographical location—an environment shared by all members of the community. Ferdinand Tönnies’s (1957) concept of Gemeinschaft readily maps onto an idea of local community. It can be defined totally as “territorially based social organizations and social activity” (Bender, 1978, p. 5). “Community as a place and community as an experience were one” (Bender, 1978, p. 62). Because of this, local communities must be thought of as more than just groups of people living in specific locations. They are specific groups of people who interact with each other in specific ways, because they live in close proximity to each other. The idea of local community “evokes images of people who take care of each other and of themselves, of quiet, of peacefulness, of safety, of freedom and self-determination, of easy access to the resources necessary for survival, of the security of home” (Vanderwolk, 1991). An important component of a local community’s shared experience is that these experiences are environmentally dependent (Vanderwolk, 1983). By this we mean that the geographic locality provides a significant contribution to the experiences that members of local communities share. If the community would be moved to a different location, these experiences would be different, and hence the community would be significantly altered. Therefore, a Midwestern farming village and a New England fishing village are both communities, similar in many respects but also very different. Neither would fit into the other’s specific location, but neither would ever try. Very few people have examined associative forms of community. Referring it to Tönnies’s (1957) Gesellschaft does it an injustice but may be the best way to understand it. The rise of professional communities provides us with the best example of research. Technological innovations in communication, espe-


Foltz, Foltz / RELIGION ON THE INTERNET

cially in the written word, created a plethora of magazines and journals on every imaginable topic. People became linked through magazines to people with related interests (Bledstein, 1978). Through the written words, ideas could be shared with thousands of people without requiring face-to-face contact. More than 200 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville (1945) showed the influence that the written word had for bringing together groups of Americans and linking them together into associative groups. When Bledstein (1978) reported how these factors combined to create “the vertical vision of the middle class,” he revealed a possible restrictive aspect. This vertical vision included the idea that everybody could become a member of the wealthy elite and that the professionalization of the middle class was the road to becoming rich. This created a distinct focusing on moving upwards while totally ignoring one’s neighbors and fellow middle-class members. As this happened, the worth of geographical communities broke down. Professionals now attributed belonging to a dispersed group of individuals with some shared attribute that could be a vocation or even a leisure activity like hiking or bird watching. The shared experiences of the local community were replaced by similar experiences with no connection to the local neighborhoods. This group stays in contact through some printed magazine or journal or, in our case, the Internet. The Internet and Community The Pew Internet & American Life Project finds people are using the Internet to intensify their connection to their local community. They employ email to plan church meetings, arrange neighborhood gatherings, and petition local politicians. They use the web to find out about local merchants get community news and check out area fraternal organizations. (Horrigan, 2001, p. 2) The survey showed 84% of Internet users, about 90 million Americans, have used the Web to contact a group. About 26% or 28 million people have used it to contact or get information about local groups, “particularly church groups.” The report suggests these findings offer some correction to those that chart how electronic media is destroying local community. It speaks of these online communities as “virtual third places” where people can “hang out with others or more actively engage with professional associations, hobby

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groups, religious organizations, or sports leagues,” but it sees signs that they augment rather than negate other forms of community (Horrigan, 2001, pp. 2-3). Many regard this as just the beginning of an evolution that will completely transform community as we know it (see Barlow, 1996; Kurzweil, 2000; Moravec, 1988). These individuals believe that cybercommunities will provide users with richer experiences than now offered by local communities. This group usually cites Moore’s law, which reports the processing power of the microchip doubles at least every 18 months, as somehow ensuring the formation of a new global community arriving in the near future, whether we are ready or not. They speak of the Internet replacing rather than strengthening local community. One such group of futurists, Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, and Alvin Toffler (1994), in their oft-cited Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age, claimed, “The central event of the 20th century is the overthrow of matter. . . . The powers of the mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things” (p. 1). They called for a redefinition of community, claiming we are on an “electronic frontier” of knowledge. This inevitable global community will feature electronic neighborhoods bound together by shared interests not geography. Putting “advanced computing power in the hands of an entire population will alleviate pressure on highways, reduce air pollution, allow people to live further away from crowded and dangerous urban areas [italics added] and expand family time” (p. 8). Suddenly, there is an electronic place called cyberspace where people can meet and form new communities. The Internet is no longer simply a form of communication around which people can form associative community. Now, it is a place where people can build a new community that assumes roles formerly played by the local form. Graham Ward (2000) observed, “What had once been a praxis, is now regarded as reality in itself” (p. 149). Therefore, it follows that the main thrust of this “magna carta” is clear and enforceable property rights are essential for markets to work. Defining them is a central function of government. Most of us have “known” that for a long time. But to create a new cyberspace environment is to create new property—that is, new means of creating goods (including ideas) that serve people. (Dyson et al., 1994, p. 3)


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Many call on the church to become part of this “emerging electronic community.” Although they usually mention the dangers, such as making the market the standard and equating anonymity with freedom, they believe the Internet has great potential for creating new communities that will foster global understanding and peace. Some seem to be caught up in the hype and pass too quickly over some basic Christian concerns. Church and Community The church expresses herself primarily as local community. At the same time, she has always exhibited characteristics of associative community. And she confesses herself to be a global community when she speaks of the “holy Catholic church.” Although there are many church traditions with many varied definitions of community, they all want to be founded on Jesus’ words in Matthew: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). One sees this reflected in the very minimalist Lutheran definition that defines the church simply as a gathering of believers around word and sacrament (Tappert, 1959, p. 32). Community demands at least two people: one to speak the word and one to hear, one to confess and one to forgive, one to pour the water and one to receive the water, and two to share a meal. The local community is needed at least to perform the ministries demanding personal presence. When we say that a human being is “personally present,” as a rule we mean that this person is with us “as a whole” in her full identity. Not merely an image, a letter, a representative, a shared conception or memory, but this human being is bodily present. (Welker, 2000, p. 93) Those ministries would include the sacraments, such as baptism and Eucharist, but also other acts demanding touch. Certainly caring for the neighbor in need is most fully enacted in local community. The associative community of the early church interrelated through letters, some of which are retained in the official canon. The letters primarily communicated information, such as current events and teachings. But they also bestowed blessings and reprimands as well as requests for prayer and financial assistance. The foundational character of the local congregation is acknowledged when the letter writers often promise a

future personal appearance when fuller communion will be possible (Romans 15:22-33). Graham Ward (2002, p. 62) and the Pew Project (Horrigan, 2001, p. 2) used the economic term glocalization to characterize the church’s position. The term originates in the desire to overcome the radical break between global and local community associated with the term globalization. Glocalization tries to bring together the interests of the two communities. Two characteristics of Christian community are important for our study. The first is its inclusive nature. The church has always accepted Paul’s description— “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28)—as her standard, even if this has not always been evident in her practice. A customized community based on the common interests of the same kind of people would be an incomplete Christian community, especially if it was formed to escape the pain experienced by others. Paul emphasizes if “any part suffers, all suffer” (I Corinthians 12:24-26). Official church statements about Internet use usually address the “digital divide.” The National Council of Churches (1995) and the Vatican call for including all people in the benefits of the Internet. The Vatican maintains a basic principle of communication ethics must be that “the good of persons cannot be realized apart from the common good of the communities to which they belong” (Vatican, 2000, No. 22). Solidarity is identified as the relevant virtue with a comment seemingly directed at a constant danger of associative communities. “It (solidarity) is not a feeling of vague compassion and shallow distress at other people’s troubles, but a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good of their communities” (Vatican, 2002, No. 3). The second concern is the bodily presence of people in the local community. Although the church is often, too often, pictured as disparaging the body, in truth, like all Western religions, it is very materialist and concerned with bodily needs and presence. Until recently, most biblical scholars believed the Hebrew concept of the human found in both Old and New Testaments had no concept of the person apart from bodily presence. They felt the Bible never speaks of an incarnated soul but rather an animated body—never speaks of the soul having a body but a body that is alive (McCasland, 1962, pp. 243-244). Recently, some scholars have pointed to some few exceptions while still accepting Nancey Murphy’s (Brown, Murphy, & Malony, 1998)



suggestion that the Christian understanding of the human can still be described as “nonreductive physicalism” (pp. 127-148). This is so central to Christian belief that its basic creedal statement, the Apostles’ Creed, affirms “the resurrection of the Body.” This reflects the scripture’s description of the resurrected Jesus as embodied, deliberately eating with his followers and inviting them to touch him. Jesus remains embodied even after his ascension in the church that is named “the Body of Christ” and, for some, in the elements of the Eucharist. Perhaps Matthew means much the same when he speaks of helping “the least of these my brothers and sisters” as helping Jesus himself. Embodiment plays a crucial role in church community. By confessing life after death will be an embodied life, the creedal statement affirms bodily presence as essential for defining personhood.

What Church People Say About the Community They Find Online We examined what kind of community, if any, people have found online. They certainly report having found an associative form that has enabled them to interrelate with others who use the Internet. However, the overwhelming majority do not think this replaces the need for local community. In fact, most see online community to be quite a bit less satisfactory than local forms. The results of the two polls reported below correspond with views expressed in many personal conversations. One Group’s Response We queried a group that participates in online devotions written by Pastor David Sonnenberg. The group is about 300 people, mostly from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Maryland’s sophisticated Montgomery County. With the usual forwarding of e-mails, the group now reaches people across the country. We received 40 responses, more than we expected from a group organized for another purpose. The first question we asked was, Is Jesus present when people meet online for religious purposes as he promised to be when two or three gather in the local congregation? Most of the respondents were very careful in answering. About half spoke of God’s omnipresence, enabling him to be “present in cyberspace.” The other half emphasized God being present when people meet. This second group spoke of the Internet

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as a medium like books and phones. One wrote Jesus is present “just as when one reads a religious book, the author and reader are communicating.” Well more than half of the participants qualified their answers with something such as, “Jesus is not ‘present’ when I face the monitor the same way he is present when I gather with others in his name.” Two claimed Jesus is present if we invoke him. We then asked, What differences do you see between meeting for a religious purpose online and at a local congregation? We found the people who responded to the poll and others we queried in conversation became obviously enthusiastic when they began to list or debate the difference between associative online and local congregational community. They spoke most frequently of the need for embodied presence. This was often in terms of “hugs.” One woman wrote, “When my fellow Christians hug me, God is hugging me.” Another wrote, I love the smells of my church, the touch of elderly women who fawn over my small children, who offer me their sweaters if I look cold, the smell of the coffee and food in fellowship hall, the sight of the cross. Of course that is lost online. But the online may be better than none at all. And yet another wrote, “The touch, the observed smile or tears are hard to ‘see’ ” (online). One spoke of the need for the “holy kiss.” A number referred to body language. Some pointed to the danger of people “isolating themselves from face-to-face interaction and in-depth conversation” by going online, just as “one can use reading to isolate themselves from the community if they wish, instead of using it as a tool to enhance the worship experience.” Some cited the Internet’s capacity for ministry to shut-ins and those relatively isolated in small towns. The Ooze Poll We also examined a poll taken by “The Ooze, Conversation for the Journey” (theooze.com). This is a sophisticated online community that regards itself as part of “the emerging church.” Although The Ooze qualifies as an associative community, most of its participants seem to be members of traditional churches throughout the United States. Their question was, Is it okay to only attend church in cyberspace? It was a pop-


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ular topic, with 960 people responding: 128 or 13.33% replied “yes,” 770 or 80.21% “no,” and 62 or 6.46% “not sure.” The Ooze also invited people to participate in a scroll-down forum discussing the question. For this portion, the leader posed the question as, Can someone only attend church in cyberspace? What would they gain or lose? There were 151 responses, some from the same people offering multiple comments. Most spoke of attending a local church. A few described themselves being or once having been ministers. A few made clear they were through with traditional churches. Those traditional churches were often described as the “physical” or “flesh” church. Much of the discussion echoed that of the Good Shepherd group. Those who spoke for the necessity of the traditional church mentioned the need to feed the hungry, care for real people, be accountable to others, see, hug, and kiss. A few wondered how pastoral acts such as baptisms and weddings would be done without a local community. Many spoke of eating together either in Eucharistic worship or simply coffee and donut fellowship. The lack of discipline online was central at one point. The discussion revolved around the need to have checks and balances on one’s opinion, which the local face-to-face community offered. Online church groups, including The Ooze, were criticized as shallow. One described them as “talk, talk, talk, an extension of the Protestant problem of making Christianity a buffet where you pick and choose.” Another lamented that there is “too little opportunity for people to irritate you” online, to which some replied there was plenty of that online as well. Those who championed The Ooze as a church cited its convenience. You could attend when you felt the need. Only one spoke of the impossibility of attending traditional church. He was always on the road traveling. Online community was described as a safe place. A few spoke of being “scared” by the flesh church. Some felt online was more intimate because they could say what they wanted. There was a great deal of kidding about faking it online as well as in offline churches. In fact, we could not always tell what was sarcasm and what was serious. Both of these groups discussed the weakness of present traditional churches, wondering if online Christian groups are a reform movement. One spoke of The Ooze placing a shot across the bow of the church. One mused whether The Ooze is only a temporary stopgap until normal congregations reform or if “this

is birthing something new?” Only a couple said they would never return to traditional congregations.

Community Found on Web Sites We also searched Web sites for evidence of community. People speak loosely about every kind of site being the online church. Many could hardly be regarded as serving community. We did find sites that served as extensions of local community, others that were used by associative forms of community, and others that claimed to offer functions traditionally linked to local communities. Research Sites By far, most church Web sites offer information, serving a research function as the Internet was originally intended to provide. They are primarily offering resources pastors and laypeople can use in their personal or church lives. The Pew Project indicates this is exactly how people are using the Internet for religious purposes. Most do not use it as a place to meet people but “as a vast ecclesiastical library.” Sixty-seven percent use it to access information on their own faith. Fifty percent have used it to access information on other faiths. After September 11, 23% of Internet users turned to online sources to get information about Islam (Larsen, 2001, pp. 2, 13). Two examples among a multitude of Web sites are http://www.textweek.com and http://bible.gospelcom. net/cgi-bin/bible. The first offers the pastor all sorts of aids in planning each week’s worship. The second enables searches of many versions of the Bible. Extensions of Local Communities Most of the calls for the online church are simply pleas for traditional churches to use the Web in extending their ministries. The Web sites maintained by regional and national traditional church bodies provide this kind of service by offering information, official statements, help for congregational life, and aids in finding a local congregation near you. They feature little or no interaction. The Barna Institute (2001) estimated one of every three congregations had a Web site in 2001 and reported this number is quickly growing. Ginghamsburg.org is the home page of a very large united Methodist church that is often cited as having an exemplary online ministry. The site acknowledges it is not a substitute for its face-to-face ministry. Instead, it is regarded as offering



information and providing aid in building Christian community. In conversation, the leaders reported that by far the site is visited most often to download sermons. Its current emphasis is on “transformation,” a ministry that encourages the congregation to read the same Bible passages and use the same devotionals daily. These are sent by e-mail and promoted at Sunday services. The site also provides local and global “cyberministries” opportunities. These enable people to participate in scroll-down forums with others sharing common interests. The local ministry opportunities include topics such as raising a family, home schooling, and singles’ connections. The global cyberministry forums seem to focus primarily on local activity as well. They offer discussions on educational and music ministries as well as small group and lay leadership opportunities. They also advertised and discussed conferences. Christdesert.org is cited frequently as an example of the Internet overcoming distance barriers. A Benedictine monastery located far into the New Mexico desert, it offers a ministry over the Internet that again focuses on providing study resources and spiritual life guidance. Its “seeking God” feature simply offers the homily from the daily chapel services, receives prayer requests to be offered at those services, and makes available chants that one can play while using the site. The site is essentially an extension of the local monastic community’s ministry. Those who use the service are somewhat like the traditional monastic oblates, lay supporters of the monastery who are allowed to use its resources. Such extended ministry sites can be extremely helpful in unusual crisis situations. When Spiritus Christi Church in Rochester, New York, left the Roman Catholic community because of controversy, members kept contact with each other through its Web site (www.spirituschristi.org). This was crucial as the parish met for a long time at different locations each week. Independent Sites That Offer Associative Community Partenia.org claims to be a “diocese without borders.” Jacques Gaillot, a Roman Catholic bishop, was essentially exiled after he got in trouble with the Vatican. When his diocese in France was declared vacant, he was reassigned to one surrounded by sand in Algeria. Rather than remain silent, he established a Web site. Again, he primarily offers a chance to study, par-

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ticipate in text-based forums, or seek personal advice. Like a large number of sites, this one seems to offer what would traditionally be regarded as pastoral counseling. The bishop also writes freely about controversial issues, such as the war in Iraq. The site also adds a chat room that operates periodically each day. Chat rooms are often cited as examples of how the Internet offers great interactivity. There is obviously greater interaction in a conference phone call, but the chat room is more accessible. A large number of people with whom we spoke reported they received valuable support speaking to someone else with the same problem in a chat room. Some established lasting friendships. However, none of these were on church-related sites. Those evaluating online church chat rooms with us spoke of the conversations being shallow and dominated by pushy evangelism. Another Web site is dailyguideposts.com, an online prayer circle. It accepts prayer requests, more than 20,000 a month. Prayer volunteers promise to ponder the requests and spend about 3 minutes in prayer over each. The Pew Project reports about 38% of those who use the Internet for religious purposes say they have sent or received e-mail prayer requests. After September 11, 41% of all Internet users, many who never considered themselves online spiritual seekers, sent or received such e-mails (Larsen, 2001, pp. 2, 13). Certainly, theooze.com qualifies as an online associative church community. This sophisticated site, “The Ooze, Conversation for the Journey,” operates somewhat like a professional journal. Those who use the site are invited to an annual convention that moves around the nation. Its leader, Spencer Burke, states in “cliff notes for the emerging church” that the church has no essential structure. All that matters is “the inward journey, the outward journey, and the journey together.” Spencer believes online church groups like his might be accepted as primary Christian communities in the future. Right now, we are to wait and see, leaving all options open. True to its name, the site tries to offer conversation. Participants can suggest questions for polls and contribute to “discussion threads,” such as the scroll-down forum we reported above. Chat rooms are available for a chance to speak with people of similar interests. “The Wall” is a bulletin board on which participants can “spray paint” graffiti. They can also rent films and videos from the theater. Those participating are invited to submit articles for the site and artwork to “the gallery.” At present, they are seeking funding for a new feature, oozetank, “a collaborative digital workspace where


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artists, musicians, literary storytellers, and theologians can come together to create and share their creative work.” In spite of all these opportunities to interact, the chance to download essays on culture, faith, ministry, and community is most prominent. Sites That Serve as Spiritual Retreats A lot of Internet religion functions like an online spiritual retreat center, available when you need it. People report they like this feature of online devotional services. When things get tense at the office, they can take a break with the devotions to gain perspective. The sites also provide a safe place to discuss issues such as homosexuality and peace. Traditional retreat centers have always offered safe places to discuss topics more difficult to confront in some local congregations. Ericelder.com presents itself as a virtual retreat center. It is the site of the full-time Eric Elder ministries. “The Ranch, a place of healing and restoration,” offers the options of taking a walk in the woods, listening to soothing Christian music, hearing an inspirational story, or sometimes talking with someone. It invites people wanting personal conversation to enter the chat room that is promised to be manned some time during most days. Like many such sites, it offers essays people might download that provide information, counseling, and support on controversial issues. Sites That Offer Online Worship Some sites do offer worship opportunities that would normally be considered a function of the local congregation. The Pew Project reports only 4% of religious surfers have ever used the Web for worship purposes (Larsen, 2001, pp. 1, 13). Godweb.org is the Web site of the First Church of Cyberspace run since 1994 by a Presbyterian minister, Charles Henderson. Henderson is also the executive director of the highly respected Cross Currents magazine. Besides the usual music, sermons, multimedia bible, movie reviews, art gallery, forum discussions, and evening chat room, Henderson provides a sanctuary where one can worship. Icons and other symbols that can be changed according to your preference appear on your monitor. Interestingly, a communion cup was featured as one of the symbols, even though the Eucharist is not offered. Those “entering” the sanctuary are offered a variety of sermons, music, and prayers from which they can choose what they need. A link directs attention to the homeless as object of

prayer. If one follows that link, he or she ends up on the Web site of the National Coalition for the Homeless. Its ministry is described and funds are solicited. The worship experience certainly demonstrates a customized religious experience that is often criticized as a failure of associative church communities. We did not participate in a “multiuser virtual reality church.” In many ways, these are less welcoming than traditional local congregations, perhaps because the worshipper needs certain technological knowledge. They also seem to be very private. In fact, because of this privacy factor, researchers are attempting to form ethical guidelines for reporting on them. Ralph Schroeder, Noel Heather, and Raymond Lee (1998) reported on these communities in which the worshippers use avatars to represent themselves. It is a form of Sim church, where individuals can move their avatars around. They described the worship as an informal, “charismatic-style” prayer meeting (p. 7). The authors reported, The relationships between participants in the EChurch world . . . are quite weak and unidimensional: what the believers know about each other is typically limited to . . . the difficulties they are seeking relief from (which form a large part of the service), their religious ideas, and the like. (p. 5) For instance, when a speaker spoke of his marital problems, one of the leaders first offered counseling and then revealed he was coming to divorce himself (pp. 10, 11). The authors discerned some practices that were transformed by the technology, and may detract from the sense of a religious gathering: verbal exchanges become shorter, emotional solidarity with co-participants is weaker, and there is less orderliness to the prayer meetings. But the technology also brings certain gains: the virtual church allows for more candid exchanges between participants, it enables a kind of access from all over the world that is not available in conventional services, and it permits experimentation in the use (and prior to that, the design) of the virtual space that is less constrained than a church in the real world. (pp. 5, 11) It would seem worshippers could use their avatars to celebrate baptism and Eucharist, as well as weddings and other rituals. However, the authors reported that



the most activity they observed was when the participants rearranged their avatars so they could become more intimate by facing one another. After reading this report and examining some related sites, we felt the impact of such worship was much like that of a video game.

Discussion/Conclusions Our study finds Christians are using the Internet extensively and enthusiastically. Some are forming associative communities. We did not find evidence of many, including those most involved in the “emerging electronic church,” regarding these communities as replacements for local church communities. We found those Web sites that did try to replicate personal presence local ministries to be extremely shallow. The findings would seem to agree with writers such as Graham Ward (2000), Katherine Hayles (1999), Hubert Dreyfus (2001), and Albert Borgmann (2000), who spoke of the necessity for embodiment in order to fully experience one another and “hold on to reality.” Borgmann wrote, We are essentially bodily creatures that have evolved over many hundreds of thousands of years to be mindful of the world not just through our intellect or our sense but through our very muscles and bones. We are stunting and ignoring this ancestral attunement to reality at our peril. (p. 220) Most people using the Internet for religious purposes feel strongly the local church community can benefit by extending her ministry online. We characterized this as extending local community, very much as the church has always done through communication media. The Internet also provides a vehicle of great potential for gathering an associative form of community, such as The Ooze. Because this remains a weaker, narrower, shallower form, some theologians, such as Robert Jenson (1995), refuse to name it “community” at all. He believes the media cannot create or foster a community. What they create and foster is precisely a mass, a collection of persons who have a common purpose . . . but who contact each other, if at all, only by way of that focus. (p. 158)

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Regardless of our difference in labeling, our findings agree with Jenson when he claimed the political and technological structure of the Internet prevents the church from fully proclaiming the gospel through it (Jenson, 1995, p. 161). A proclamation over the Internet, such as “God loves you and so do I,” remains almost as shallow as when expressed over television. He did believe the church can use the Internet “to teach theology” and “to invite the world’s observation” (Jenson, 1995, p. 162). Our findings suggest users would add many other functions, such as sharing experiences and opinions, bestowing blessings and reprimands, making requests for prayer and other needs, providing resources and teaching, calling to action, and praying for one another. It is also obvious that many Christians are turning to the Internet and online churches to seek help for personal problems and support on controversial issues. We characterized this function as a spiritual retreat center. Perhaps, more than anything else, we found Christians using the Internet to share experiences and prayers. This might be expected when contemporary society, largely as a result of the electronic media’s influence, regards all teaching as opinion. Dreyfus (2001) also did not believe the Internet can be used for religion as it undermines unconditional commitments. He viewed cyberexperiences to be similar to playing games and watching movies. They are interesting, but because the disembodied nature of the Internet eliminates risk, it is simply unreal theater. Like Jenson, Dreyfus believed the Web with its vast nonhierarchical nature cannot produce a community. Caught up in limitless information without any means to bring order, the best it can yield is a mass. The end result is despair. Although we agree the media itself provides no hierarchy or risk, we found this limitation is abated by the way the church people we studied use it. The study found that most people using the Internet for religious purposes use it wisely, well aware of the limitations of electronic communities. It is the media that is limited, not the participants. Most participants realize the poor and hungry are not found in cyberspace, especially not in customized disembodied communities. Most warn against using the Internet as an escape from the real needs of real people. Most are aware that we have more to say to one another than can be conveyed in binarystructured sentences. At the same time, we did not hear people speaking much about the need for an electronic global commu-


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nity. Nor did we find much evidence of such on the Web sites we visited. Mention was made of communicating with people around the world, and hope was expressed that this might lead to better understanding. But most people again recognized the limitations of the electronic media in accomplishing this. They would observe that lack of information is not the cause of our failure to solve even the basic human problems such as hunger and homelessness. Many noted the Internet is not going to unite a world when only a third of its people have electricity 24 hours a day, another third a few hours a day, and the final third no electricity at all.

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Franz Foltz is an assistant professor of Science, Technology and Society at Rochester Institute of Technology. His research interests include public participation and technology, research policy, and social impacts of technology. Frederick Foltz is a retired Lutheran pastor living in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He recently completed a 35-year experiment in Christian community in which the clergy operated without hierarchy and shared ministry with a large congregation.
