Return to the M.B.Herald Vol. 38, No. 1 Home Page
If Jesus had had access to the Internet, would He have needed 12 disciples? Or could He have used just one guy with good typing skills and a high-speed data line? Paige Braddock posed this question in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution recently.
The more fundamental question this article raised was whether using computers and the Internet to spread the Good News alters the message itself. The opinions were mixed. Billy Graham said, "No." For him, addressing one person directly or millions by television or the Internet are basically the same. Neil Postman, a communications professor at New York University, said, "Yes." He sees the possibility of the media altering what is meant by religion, by church and even by God.
I have heard Mennonite theologians echo Postman's concern. Fundamentally, they feel, faith is a personal experience shared personally with others. Remove the personal, face-to-face interaction, and it can change the meaning of faith.
Anabaptist theology, with its emphasis on close community, some feel, is ill-suited to Internet evangelism. What happens to faith when any individual is allowed to offer theories and theologies without the testing and accountability that a face-to-face faith community exercises? What kind of faith is a faith with no filter for authenticity? Besides offering biblical truth, the Internet serves as the breeding ground for some pretty far-fetched theologies.
The Apostle Paul struggled with how the message was to be faithfully communicated, with what was truth and what was not truth, when making his rounds to the churches. In that sense, I suppose today is not that different from what Paul encountered. Still, I suspect that, overall, face-to-face accountability carries more weight than computer-to-computer accountability.
Like it or not, religion is big business on the Internet. After sex and money, religion is the most popular topic. Devotional sites by the thousands are accessed primarily in the morning, at lunch and in the late afternoon, meaning that most Americans are hitting these sites from work. (This raises interesting issues for employers if their employees are surfing the net when they should be working.)
On the other hand, churches and their agencies have been somewhat slow to use the Internet as an evangelism tool. More often they use it as a super-fast version of the common letter, or as a means of supplying better "customer service" to those who are already their supporters. Prepared statements, articles, brochures and other promotion items are what you will find on most religious Web sites.
When it comes to individuals networking together, the Internet is a custom-designed dream machine. The speed with which prayer concerns can now circle the globe is truly astounding.
Julio Ruibal, a church leader and evangelist from Cali, Colombia, had the dream of uniting the evangelical churches in his city. In working toward this goal, he drew the wrath of the drug cartel, and one day, while en route to a church meeting, he was ambushed and killed. His wife Ruth carried on his ministry. Now she and her family receive regular death threats from the same group that killed her husband. Each time a new threat is made, she sends prayer requests to a large network of friends and concerned individuals. The international profile she has thus gained and the prayers of many saints have so far kept her and her family alive.
So, what do you think? Would faith in Jesus Christ be the same if it had been communicated from the beginning primarily through computers and the Internet? It seems to me it could easily have taken a different turn here and there. I, for one, think I would be missing something by holding fast to a purely techno-faith. On the other hand, God is still much bigger than the Internet, as big as it is. It is a useful tool when used in combination with all the other tools God has given us to spread the Good News.
Burton Buller is executive director of MB Communications, a Manitoba MB Conference media ministry.
Return to the M.B.Herald Vol. 38, No. 1 Home Page