Book Review: Digital Jesus: The Making of a New Christian Fundamentalist Community on the Internet

Abstract

Digital Jesus: The Making of New Christian Fundamentalist Community on the Internet. Robert Glenn Howard. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2011. 213 pp. $75 hbk. $24 pbk.Ask most Americans about the end of the world, and they might mention The Late Great Planet Earth, Hal Lindsey's 1970 bestseller (still in print) that tied the apocalypse to events in Israel and the Middle East. Or they might mention the sixteen LeftBehind novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins that captivated tens of millions of readers with stories of violence and destruction inflicted on the earth after the rapture.Newsy Americans are likely to recall Christian radio host Harold Camping's much publicized prediction that Judgment Day would take place last May. They might even point to the Mayan calendar that ends with flood in 2012. Almost everyone, though, will overlook thousands of websites, where, according to University of Wisconsin communication arts scholar Robert Glenn Howard, ritual deliberation on the end times is widespread. Fortunately, Howard corrects this oversight, using interviews, participant observation, and historical study of Internet discourse.According to Howard, end times deliberation began on the Internet in the 1980s as posts to Usenet newsgroups, but these messages were likely to elicit derision, so they migrated to private email lists where outsiders would dismiss or ridicule them. By 1995, however, interest in end times deliberation had grown large enough to support the creation of the newsgroup alt.bible.prophecy, the community's first public Internet forum. At the same time, Web browsers and search engines were making the World Wide Web easily accessible, so Web pages about the end times began to multiply. Subsequently, Web 2.0 technology with centrally moderated blogs and discussion forums proved to be an ideal medium for end times communities, which strive to uphold tenets of Christian fundamentalism while they foster discussion. Howard stopped counting end times websites years ago when he reached five hundred.One of the most prominent end times websites is Bible Prophecy Corner, which Marilyn Agee has run since 1996. Having mystical experiences such as reading the Bible and seeing a rectangle of light shining on the command to publish and conceal not (Jeremiah 50:2), Agee writes with certainty that she is being led by God. Bible Prophecy Corner showcases Agee's apocalyptic timeline, her explications of signs of the last days, and her three books. Not surprisingly, her website provides few links to other sources, but it does encourage reader emails, archived in massive Pro and Con index. These email exchanges, though, never change Agee's mind, and she ignores criticisms of her penchant for making false predictions, which earned her the sobriquet Queen of Date Setters. Marilyn's blog was as deliberative as it appeared, Howard observes. …