Americans use the Internet for multiple purposes, and
increasingly this includes the practice of religion.
Americans use the Internet for multiple purposes, and increasingly this includes the practice of religion.
A recent report by the Pew Research Center (available online, of course, at www.pewinternet.org) found that ’64 percent of the nation’s 128 million Internet users have done things online that relate to religious or spiritual matters.”
Among the most popular and important online activities are the following:
•38 percent have sent or received e-mail with spiritual content
•35 percent have sent or received online greeting cards related to religious holidays
•32 percent have gone online to read news accounts of religious events
•21 percent have sought information about how to celebrate religious holidays
•17 percent have looked for information about where to attend religious services.
The conventional wisdom was that online “virtual” religion might replace the traditional variety, with people staying home alone rather than gathering in community to worship.
This study, however, found that “faith-related activity online is a supplement to, rather than a substitute for, offline religious life.”
Most South County religious groups have homepages which are informative about their beliefs and programs. To access these simply requires typing the group’s name into a search engine such as www.google.com. Posted there will be such information as service times, staff names, special events, phone numbers, maps for locating places of worship and links to related denominational sites.
The Religion Newswriters Association recently published a list of Web sites most frequented by journalists who write about the topic of religion. Below are descriptions of some of these, called “the most useful places on the Web.”
•Americans United for Separation of Church and State: This religious liberty watchdog group educates about the importance of church-state separation in guarding religious freedom. It has news articles about topics like the Pledge of Allegiance case currently before the Supreme Court and President Bush’s Faith Based Initiative. www.au.org
•The Vatican homepage is available in many languages with access to daily news bulletins, online tours of the Vatican’s fabulous museum collections, messages from Pope John Paul II on various topics, and an opportunity to make financial contributions (“Peter’s Pence”). www.vatican.va.
•The Religion News Service is the country’s only secular news and photo organization devoted entirely to unbiased coverage of religion news. Currently, it has articles about denying Communion to Catholic politicians who don’t follow the Church’s teaching on abortion, topics like the changing role of college chaplains, and a review of “Godsend,” a new motion picture dealing with the issue of human cloning. www.religionnews.com
There is even The Witches’ Voice, billing itself as a “neopagan news/networking” site with articles, essays and poems written by or about avowedly heathen and pagan groups around the world. Currently a piece is posted there reporting that Mel Gibson is planning to follow up his tremendously successful “The Passion of the Christ” by producing a movie about Boudicca, the Queen of ancient Britain who united Celtic tribes to fight against Roman invaders. www.witchvox.com/xwrensnext.html.
Chuck Flagg teaches English at Mt. Madonna High School. Write him c/o The Dispatch, P.O. Box 22365, Gilroy, CA 95021.
