Comments on: The Internet – faith and evangelisation

By: Tim Bulkeley

Tim Bulkeley — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:56:32 +0000

It seems to me that the onus is on those who want to make a distinction in kind between Internet and all other forms of communication at a distance. Was Paul “doing virtual church” when he wrote letters to Christians far away, for them to listen to much (= weeks at least) later? Yet Paul’s letters are “virtual” and “asynchronous”. Christianity has always since the beginning lived with both virtual and “real” expressions of faith and life. Get over it

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:02:01 +0000

I get frequent visitors to my Daily Office website who write, “Thanks for showing me how to do this and explaining things. I’m a new Episcopalian (or just back after many years) and I don’t want to bother people at my church asking such basic questions. On your site I can take things at my own pace and look around without bothering other people.”

If by evangelism we mean introducing people to Jesus, then no, I don’t do much of that. But if evangelism includes nurturing people taking their first steps on the Way, the web can be very helpful.

By: Kirkepiscatoid

Kirkepiscatoid — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:08:17 +0000

I think the important thing is coexistence of both a faith life on the internet and one in “real time.”

The “cyber-funeral” that I recently attended on Facebook (FB) that I blogged about some time back is a good example of this. The deceased had many friends who were blog/FB friends who had never met him in real life. They were grieving same as for someone they know in real time. Many were bound by being “Episcopalian friends.” Doing a BCP rite II funeral service on FB connected us all to the healing that we have come to find in the BCP funeral service but it would have been impossible to have attended his “real time” funeral. Very powerful.

By: Joan

Joan — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:24:04 +0000

I think on the internet there is more of a possibility of a “meeting of true minds” without the impediments of time, place, social and physical conditions. On the internet I can share freely with an interdenominational group of friends and exchange converse which has some depth rather than being restricted to social inanities. I am liberated from sterotypical ideas about people based on extraneous factors which persist on intruding into “real time”. I am available 24/7, internationally. “Real time” is but a shadow of that Time in which every tear shall be wiped away and we shall see him as he truly is. In the Internet we come closer to our true being.