Zach mentioned this a month ago, when it was timely, but since it is a Sunday morning I’ll bring it up again: There is a virtual God.
Or at least there was a major service held this past Easter in a virtual world. LiveChurch.TV conducted special services in Second Life this year at their new in-world facility. The organization—which claims almost 20,000 parishioners gathering in metro churches to watch simulcast sermons—drew a diverse collection of avatars, both in terms of appearance and religious perspective, to their April 8th Easter Service. LCTV, under the direction of Terry Storch, launched a new version of their web site this spring and will be working to open an Internet campus in the next quarter.
Since avatars there have everlasting life and can imagine themselves as anything they want, perhaps we’ve discovered sim-Heaven. Eric Stillman, author of The New Life Blog, wrote:
LifeChurch.tv is obviously on the extreme cutting edge of church, attempting to reach out to those who are more likely to check out a virtual church than a real one. But it certainly seems almost comical, doesn’t it? After all, they’re ministering to fake people!!! If an avatar responds to an altar call and gives her life to Jesus, what does that mean??? I’m pretty sure I can’t remember anything in my theology books that prepared me for that, and I’m having trouble locating “avatar†in my concordance. But LifeChurch.tv knows that behind these fake people are real people who may never be reached any other way, and as I shake my head in wonder I have to give them credit for boldly going where no church has ever gone before.
Eric goes on to predict the creation of an SL Bible, with edits to verses such as John 6:19-20—The disciples saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water, and Peter said “Big deal. I can teleport.”
MSNBC covered the event after the fact and hinted at yet another recurrence of brick-n-mortar anxiety. The article says Elaine Heath, an ordained minister and professor at Southern Methodist University, insists people have to be in a community living out faith together to really have a church. While I don’t believe online life is a replacement for the real one, neither is community solely a product of face-to-face interaction. If authentic connections are being made through mediated communications, that counts.
God and technology are mixing more and more. Tony Morgan, a pastor and tech guy for NewSpring Church, wrote a list of mistakes churches make when confronting IT. Two of them—Letting technology drive the ministry rather than letting ministry drive the technology, and Not making technology a priority to reach today’s culture—could be viewed as the impetus for the SL church project. In His traditional delivery, God is not accessible to a large segment of the population. The same advantages computer-mediated communication bring to other communities, such as anonymity and managed interaction, can lower barriers to entry for religious community, too. Some are recognizing this by leveraging Web 2.0 technologies. More importantly, they are using the tools to share strategies.
On that note, here’s your weekly meditation, courtesy YouTube:
(Thanks, again, to Zack for this.)