CYBER WORSHIP ... Congregate Online
The Web changes the context of life and will again alter belief and how people practice it.
Before organized religion, the home was the center of spirituality. Now, in-home multimedia screens are replacing pulpits and stained-glass in communicating spiritual doctrines and stories. Today’s Web-savvy click-n-brick church, synagogue, temple, and mosque is already delivering words of wisdom in streaming-video format over the Internet to futuristic families at home.
More than a million websites – the Vatican’s gets by far the most traffic – are devoted to various faiths. Tens of millions of people worldwide go online daily for spiritual readings and prayers. Many people download content onto laptops and PDAs, or print it out to take with them on business trips and family excursions.
These trends will build a powerful cyber-prayer congregation in and among various religions. Indeed, a growing pluralism will gradually break down sectarian barriers as people create their own inter-faith spiritual community online. About 25% of Internet users regularly look for religious or spiritual information. Each month, some 30 million American and Canadian adults of every creed – from Adventists to Zoroastrians – turn to the Internet for religious expression. This makes online religious material more in demand than popular services such as online banking, stock-trading, or e-Bay auctions.
Online spirituality also is a two-way affair and the Web provides a unique way for congregations to stay in touch with far-flung members – at college, in the military, or working away from home. Congregational use of e-mail has become a binding element for many faithful. In 90% of “wired” churches, religious leaders use e-mail to communicate with members who also exchange e-mail among themselves for fellowship purposes.
Thanks to broadband, global online inter-faith congregation will be an “always-on” phenomenon, turning the Web into a cosmic cathedral of communion and community congregation. In turn, the home will again become the main spiritual hearth, providing comfort and meaning in a vastly-changed outside world.
Millions of people also now talk of their general online experience itself in spiritual terms. They see the Internet evolving by “a force” they neither understand nor control, as with life itself. For sure, how people think of God has changed with the times:
• Stone Age: God spoke from Mountaintops
• Agricultural Age: God was God of Nature
• Medieval Age: God was spoken of as a King
• Industrial Age: God seen as Great Designer
Today, God can be seen as an ever-present supreme “WebSource” of networked knowledge, visible in and through the web-like global fabric that connects humanity.
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