Snejana Farberov, a master's candidate at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, points out that churches have been slow to take advantage of Internet technology, but that times are changing. Here is some salient points:
Trinity [Episcopal] Church in Downtown Manhattan has managed to keep up with the changing times by getting wired. When one of Trinity's parishioners moved to China in 2000, the rector of the church came up with the idea of online worship. Seven years later, a new rector was appointed to head Trinity, and he too embraced the Internet, naming cyberspace the third sacred space -- right after Trinity Church and St. Paul's Chapel.
On a recent Sunday, a female vicar opened the sermon by welcoming "those who are worshiping with us on the Internet." Donna Presnell, Trinity's assistant manager for public relations, said that now every service begins with these words.
Trinity offers live and on-demand webcasts of its services and weekly choir performances to about 4,000 viewers from as far as China and England. Other churches in the United States, including the Washington National Cathedral in Washington [also Episcopal], D.C.; Grace Church in Eden Prairie, Minn.; and Little Creek Baptist Church in Hartville, Mont., have also gone online.
Sixty-four percent of wired Americans use the Internet for religious purposes, and 86 percent say that religion remains important in their lives, according to a 2004 survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Web entrepreneurs and religious groups have caught on to this trend, flooding the Web with millions of sites dedicated to spirituality and God.
GOD, CHRIST: QUESTIONS & FAITH: Christianity on the Internet
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