The debate over online worship and it’s legitimacy is an extremely polarized topic. Ally Ostrowski’s article “Cyber Communion: Finding God in the Little Box” serves to observe the online worship community of Church of Fools, through a study conducted by the Pew Foundation. The Church of Fools is an online interactive Christian Church. It was formed in UK in May 2004, and has grown to over 8,000 members. The survey was conducted with a specific focus on the ritual act of communion in the online context, and it’s legitimacy.
Ostrowski’s concern in the article is with communion. She postulates that if communion must be undertaken in the presence of others in a communal setting, can it be held in an online forum as well. On the Church of Fools website members can log on and go into a virtual church, and sit with others, just like a real church. Ostrowski contends that online worship seeks to blend the lines between physical and metaphysical parts of life.
She goes on to give a statistic of the Pew Foundation’s findings. According to the study, 67% of people search for information about their religion online. 10% participate in an online chat room and only 4% participate in an online religious service. With this Ostrowski states that there is a separation between those who are curious about their religion, and those who actually want to participate in it online. According to Christopher Helland in his article “Online-Religion / Religion-Online and Virtual Communitas” which Ostrowski uses in her article, there is a divide also between religion online, and online religion. Religion online, are sites that provide information about religion. Online religion refers to practice of a religion online.
Ostrowski then moves onto the study itself. An ethnographic approach was used to conduct the survey. This approach was used because it had experience in developing native terms from the population. The approach also deals with exploring the perspective of the participant, as well as the fact that religion has a very well defined structure. Several questions were asked in the survey to determine the relationships the participants displayed with religious communities offline, to see if they believed that communion was necessary in religious practices. Another question was their reason for the visit to the Church of Fools website. Many participants stated that they visited the site because they had heard about the Church in reputable online sources like CNN, New York Times, ABC, as well as being curious for online worship.
Ostrowski then goes on to the results. Many of the participants acknowledged the drawbacks of having no contact with other members, but said there was still a strong bond between the members of the community. Other’s condemned the Church’s replication of the “real” church in that they put all the bad parts of real life church like the congregation not being able to shape the service, in that you can only listen. Other participants stated that they could not attend church in real life often due to physical disability. Many believe that it’s a portable sacred space to those who want to go to church, however they can’t make it there. Another thing that participants liked about the church is that you can stay as long as you want.
Ostrowski then discusses the relationships between the members, and their relationship to the question at hand. Many felt a strong bond with other members in that they contacted them via e mail or post card outside of the Church. Half of the participants wanted to take part in an online communion while the other half didn’t. Many participants believed that since God is everywhere, why shouldn’t he be online. Those opposed to the online communion believed that in order to receive communion you must actually receive the physical bread and wine.
Ostrowski ends the article stating that since the internet has become an endless land of possibilities, that communion in an online Religious forum should be one of those possibilities. She also states that the survey suggests that there is no correlation between friendships and relationships with those on online communities being less strong than offline ones.
