{"id":11325,"date":"2012-05-17T13:14:32","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T17:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=11325"},"modified":"2012-05-17T13:31:02","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T17:31:02","slug":"are-americans-finding-god-in-cyberspace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2012\/05\/are-americans-finding-god-in-cyberspace","title":{"rendered":"Are Americans finding God in cyberspace?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will the church of the future be on line?<\/p>\n

We seem to be heading that way, says think-tank president Ron Sellers who points to recent findings <\/a>that among American adults who use the Internet, 44 percent\u00a0use it for religious purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This is particularly common among younger Americans,” says Sellers, who heads up Grey Matter Research in Phoenix, Ariz.<\/a>\u00a0“There is tremendous diversity in how the Internet is used for spiritual purposes, including interacting with religious leaders on social media, visiting church websites, going online for religious instruction, reading religious blogs, and numerous other methods.”<\/p>\n

And that bothers Rector David Grant Smith of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to believe that people can sincerely experience God in just about any setting,\u201d Smith recently told the Voice of America’s Religion Project<\/a>. \u201cBut I do worry about the online experience cheapening our human connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Smith is used to helping people along the sometimes bumpy path of belief. With a membership of around 110, Smith has the luxury of genuinely getting to know his parishioners \u2013 their experiences, hopes and battles,” notes the VOA report.\u00a0“The Internet, he says, has become a forum for spiritual exploration:<\/p>\n

And thanks to numerous search engines, people are able to type in a few words that deal with spirituality or religion, and then they have at their fingertips a globe of information on that one topic. For someone who loves information overload, it\u2019s heaven. For somebody who really has a hard time parsing through large volumes or possibilities, it could be a patch of hell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Associate professor of religion at Ithaca College Rachel Wagner calls that experience of having the world at your\u00a0keyboard fingertips \u201ca taste of infinity\u201d \u2013 an experience that the told VOA comes as close as humans have ever gotten to omniscience:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s so many possibilities that come up we cannot possibly process them all. Almost anything we would want to learn something about, we can learn in a moment\u2019s notice. Almost anyone we would like to be, to project ourselves as or imagine ourselves as, those things are possible online. Almost any kind of power that we might wish that we had, we can temporarily experience that online. And that mimics a lot of the desire that is part of religious history throughout time. The virtual represents for us a dream of what is possible, and that is part of its attraction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She\u00a0writes in her book GodWired: Religion, Ritual and Virtual Reality<\/em> that\u00a0\u00a0it\u2019s only natural that people are taking their spiritual journeys online with them.\u00a0She cites the many\u00a0new computer and cellphone applications and\u00a0the wealth of religious\u00a0websites geared toward expanding the viewer’s faith. Yet, she worries,\u00a0it\u2019s precisely that profusion of products and devices outside the bounds of traditional religious institutions that has some faith leaders concerned:<\/p>\n

There was a lot of debate a few months ago about a Catholic confession app. It was developed by a pious Catholic and it was initially approved by a bishop and then the Vatican stepped in and said, somewhat cryptically, “Well, we really prefer that you engage in confession with a real, live embodied person.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rector Smith also sees the Internet as a mixed blessing. For example, members of his church will often read something online concerning their beliefs and come to believe it, rather than coming to him to discuss questions they may have, he told VOA:<\/p>\n

Rather than questioning the source, they seem to take either comfort or a disturbed spirit toward whatever they found online. It can be an interesting way of having a conversation begin about things spiritual; it can also be aggravating because in the cases where people have read something that might necessarily be true or complete, it can be kind of disheartening to the people who come to me with “Oh, I found out this online.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Smith finds himself having to advise them, \u2018That\u2019s not really all that kosher.\u2019\u201d And he says there\u2019s a much larger aspect of digital religion that concerns\u00a0him \u2013 the things that get lost in an online-only experience. In particular, the Vatican’s conern: our need for actual contact with real, living people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grey Matter Research surveyed a demographically representative sample of 1,011 American adults who use the Internet and explored their use of the online world. Their findings\u00a0show a variety of ways online Americans are using the Internet to seek the Almighty:<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Nineteen percent<\/strong> have, in the past six months, visited the website of a church or other place of worship they are currently attending
\n\u00b7 During that same time frame, another 17 percent\u00a0<\/strong>have visited the website of a church or place of worship they were not attending
\n\u00b7 Nineteen percent<\/strong> have visited a website designed to provide religious instruction or learning during the last six months
\n\u00b7 Seventeen percent<\/strong> read religion-oriented blogs once a month or more
\n\u00b7 Fourteen percent<\/strong> have a pastor or other religious leader as a friend on Facebook or a similar social network site
\n\u00b7 Eleven percent<\/strong> have visited the website of a group or organization from a religious faith that is different from their own during the last six months
\n\u00b7 One out of ten<\/strong> have \u201cLiked\u201d a church or other place of worship on Facebook or a similar social network site
\n\u00b7 Eight percent<\/strong> participate in religion-oriented discussions online (e.g. bulletin boards or forums) once a month or more
\n\u00b7 Two percent<\/strong> follow a church or other place of worship on Twitter
\n\u00b7 Another two percent <\/strong>follow a pastor or other religious leader on Twitter<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And these aren’t only little old ladies searching for Sunday school materials. Among online Americans, Internet use for religious purposes is particularly common among the young. Fifty-seven percent of online adults under age 35 use the Internet for religion, compared to 48\u00a0percent who are 35 to 49 years old, 36\u00a0percent who are 50 to 64, and 31\u00a0percent who are 65 or older.<\/p>\n

“It is likely no surprise that people who are religiously active are particularly liable to use the Internet for religious purposes,” says Sellers.\u00a0“For instance, 69\u00a0percent of those who attend worship services once a month or more use the Internet for spiritual purposes, compared to 27\u00a0percent of those who do not attend worship regularly. Similarly, religious use of the Internet is 70\u00a0percent among people who read the Bible or another sacred text at least once a month, versus 28\u00a0percent among those who do not.”<\/p>\n

However, religious use of the Internet does not tend to vary much according to which religious identity people claim. Protestants and Roman Catholics are equally likely to use the Internet for spiritual purposes, according to Sellers’ findings. People who identify with a non-Christian religion are just as likely as those who identify with a Christian group to do so. One exception is evangelical Christians.<\/p>\n

Ninety-one percent of evangelicals who are online use the Internet for religious purposes, which is much higher than for any other religious group measured.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What may be a bit surprising is how much the Internet is used for religious purposes by people who are not religious. In addition to the fact that 27\u00a0percent who don\u2019t attend religious services still use the Web for religious purposes, the Internet is used in this manner by 23\u00a0percent of atheists and agnostics, along with 19\u00a0percent of online Americans who claim no particular religious identification.<\/p>\n

“Of course, use of the Internet by the irreligious does not necessarily mean they are using it for spiritual purposes the same way religious people are,” says Sellers.<\/p>\n

He points\u00a0out that the religious community online does not necessarily look like the offline religious community.<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung people are especially likely to be using the Internet for religious purposes, and considering that older Americans in general are less likely than younger people to be online at all, the gap is even greater when that\u2019s taken into consideration,\u201d says Sellers. \u201cYet younger Americans in general are less likely than older people to attend worship services or claim any specific religious identity. Involvement in spirituality and expressions of faith differ considerably by generation \u2013 and young people are obviously looking to the Internet to be a significant part of their faith experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of this diversity online extends beyond age. \u201cPartly because of the younger skew of people using the Web for religious reasons, religious Internet use also is especially common among Latinos, Asian-Americans, and African-Americans. It\u2019s also fairly common in locales that tend to show lower worship attendance \u2013 urban areas, the Northeast, and the West included,\u201d Sellers says.<\/p>\n

The Phoenix group’s\u00a0study also has a more specific definition of \u201creligious use\u201d than have some other research studies connected to religion and the Internet. For instance, Grey Matter Research did not include things such as sending online Christmas cards or sending an e-mail with spiritual content as use of the Internet for religious purposes, since those activities may or may not truly involve religion at a personal level. For example,\u00a0many people have only a vague notion of Christmas as a religious holiday, so it is questionable whether that can truly be considered religious use of the Internet for them.<\/p>\n

Sellers also noted how much diversity there is in how the Internet is used for spiritual purposes. \u201cNo one type of religious use or method dominates Internet religion,\u201d he explained. \u201cEight different activities we evaluated saw participation from between eight and nineteen percent of online adults, from blogs to church websites to social media. There\u2019s tremendous diversity in who is using the Web for spirituality, but also in how it\u2019s getting used for that purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will the church of the future be on line? 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