The Question of Christian Community Online: The Case of the 'Artist World Network'

Abstract

The Question of Christian Community Online: The Case of the 'Artist World Network' Heidi Campbell Patricia Calderon Introduction The past decade has seen a steady growth of technologies and practices that can be described as religion online. In many respects Christian groups and users have led the way in using the web for spiritual practices. From church websites becoming a common form of congregational advertising and communication to the rise of cyber churches and online prayer meetings, numerous forms of Christian practice have been transposed online. The Christian community has also been at the forefront of debates over the potential impact of 'doing religion' online. Concerns voiced by theologians, pastors and Christian scholars have included the potential that technology might become a substitute for God, the Internet could draw people away for organised religion towards individualised spiritualities, and that the Internet might re-shape notions of traditional ritual and community. In light of these questions a new area of research has developed which involves exploring how Christian religious practice is being transformed in the age of Internet technology. The development of the study of Christianity online can be conceptualised in sequential terms by what Hojsgaard and Warburg identify as three waves. The first wave of research on religion online focused on the new and extraordinary aspects of cyberspace, where religion 'could (and probably would) do almost anything'.1 In the mid-1990s the Internet was seen as a tool for religious and social transformation. Initial interest in many studies was on how this new technology created possibilities for new versions of Christianity or at least provided parishioners the possibility to reinvent traditional religious practices online. First wave studies were often overly utopian or dystopian in their views; the Internet was seenas either building or even transforming Christian solidarity or potentially [End Page 261] destroying traditional forms of Christian community and morality. The second wave built upon early descriptive studies but moved towards a 'more realistic perspective' by seeking concrete ways to define and compare different forms of online religious phenomena. Researchers began to understand that it was not simply the technology, but people who were generating these new forms of religious expression online and moved towards studying more the motivations on Christian online users and how online Christian religious practices mirrored or influenced offline religious ones. As research has further matured, Hojsgaard and Warburg surmised that a third wave of research 'may be just around the corner'.2 They describe this research as a 'bricolage of scholarship coming from different backgrounds with diverse methodological preference'.3 Current third wave research is being marked by more collaborative, longitudinal and interdisciplinary explorations, looking at what religion online has to tell us about the religion in general in an information age.4 Within such studies, the question of Christian or religious community online continues to surface as a central area of concern. As more andmore Christian Internet users become involved in various chat, emailand blogging groups, they are increasingly seeing and referring to these online social networks as religious communities. For many believers their Christian community involves both online and offline friendships and affiliations, a concept still problematic and contentious to many religious leaders. Thus, the purpose of this article is to investigate what constitutes a Christian community online and the possibilities and challenges that exist when Christians who gather for religious purpose online begin to conceive of their group as a Christian community. This is done by exploring a particular Christian online bulletin board, the 'Artist World Network', in order to understand how this group sees itself and functions as community. This investigation provides a way to address the question of what constitutes an online Christian community. It also opens up discussion on the possibilities and challenges online religious communities pose for offline Christian community. Defining and Studying Online Community Since the 1980s, many examples of religious groups using computers to facilitate new...