On the Internet, the Bible cuts both ways. It is able not only to pierce the soul of those who seek the truth but also to cut the church off from the prevailing culture of cyberspace. The message of the gospel is as relevant to Net culture as it is to any traditional churchgoer. Yet in cyberspace, where "timeless truths" are measured in nanoseconds, the eternal Word seems to have little influence.

If the church truly believes that the Bible holds the power to change lives, then we must make it a priority to introduce Netizens to this wonderful book. At the same time, we must understand that our much-loved "Good Book" must be transformed. It must be released from the tyranny of the printed page to reach a wired, digitized, hyper-connected world. In the words of Paul-Gordon Chandler of the International Bible Society, "We need to effectively re-open the Book, and have non-Christians meet a Bible they never knew existed, leading them to consider the case for the Christian faith." [1]

It won’t be easy for a church conditioned by hundreds of years of word-based Christianity. While our postmodern culture celebrates the "triumph of the image"[2] over the written word, the traditional church is mired in Enlightenment-era rationality, a world in which "the word was the primary unit of cultural currency." In today’s culture, where the image is the primary unit of cultural currency, the word-based church finds itself facing a huge deficit.[3] Granted, much online communication is textual, but it is a different kind of text-based communication than the church is accustomed to. In his book Virtual Faith, Tom Beaudoin explains that in cyberspace, "Even our common text, hypertext, behaves more like a picture -- or an icon -- than like a printed word."[4]

In this environment, we need to release the power of holy scripture from the confines of the book and present it in new ways. "Our challenge," the International Bible Society’s Chandler writes, "is to release the Scriptures, to set them free to achieve the purpose for which they were sent."[5]

The Internet offers the church a wide array of opportunities to share Christ in a culture obsessed with image. And several organizations are taking advantage of the Net’s video and audio capabilities. For example:

-- Campus Crusade for Christ International’s  Jesus Film Project has translated the global success of its "Jesus" film to the Net by uploading the two-hour movie of Christ’s life and making it available on the Net, in fifty different languages. The Internet site also provides an audio drama that allows visitors to hear the Greatest Story Ever Told.

-- The International Bible Society’s "Discovering Ancient Wisdom" presents Old Testament truths from Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in contemporary English, along with a RealAudio soundtrack from Phil Keaggy.

-- Online versions of the Bible, such as the World English Bible and The Bible Gateway, present the Bible in a hypertext format, making it more accessible to the online world.

Of course, hypertext documents -- with their key words linked to other hypertext documents, creating a non-linear reading experience -- are nothing new. Hypertext is the lingua franca of Web sites, CD-ROM software and other computer applications. Most Bible software programs rely upon hypertext to connect readers to related verses, concordances, commentaries or other background information.

Writer and theologian Leonard Sweet hails hypertext as "the narrative mode and model of postmodern culture."[6] But not everyone welcomes its arrival with such enthusiasm.

In his book The Soul in Cyberspace, Christian philosopher and social critic Douglas Groothuis warns that the hypertext’s "malleable and movable" nature could render the traditional view of texts meaningless. Hypertext, Groothuis says, may threaten scripture’s status as unassailable and unchangeable. "This shift in emphasis dovetails with the postmodernist or deconstructionist attack on objective meaning, on the legitimacy of comprehensive worldviews, and on the integrity of literary texts as expressing the determined intention of their authors."[7] Quoting journalist Benjamin Woolley, Groothuis worries that hyperlinked communication in cyberspace, where scriptures may be easily connected to other, less authoritative documents, images, sounds and movies, "subverts the view, enshrined in the Bible, that books 'are written to be read in the order and fashion set out by the author.' "[8]

Charles Henderson, the organizing pastor for  the First Church of Cyberspace, does not agree with these assertions. Hypertext "bears surprisingly close resemblance to the biblical text," Henderson writes, adding: "The worst possible approach to the Holy Scriptures is to read it in one uninterrupted, linear progression from start to finish. It is far preferable to wander in circular patterns in and around and through its varied poetry, history, saga, parable and story. As one does so, one finds that one passage plays itself off against another, though they were written hundreds of years apart by people who spoke entirely different languages. And as one threads a path through the text, one finds that its images and ideas emerge and play off against each other and against the situation in which one is living."[9]

Virtual Faith author Beaudoin echoes Henderson’s ideas about the Bible as a "hyper" document. "When we read scripture," he writes, "we click consciously or unconsciously on fragments of the text (we each have our own favorites), clicking mentally on a sermon we heard on this text, clicking on something a friend said, clicking on our last meal with that friend, clicking back on the text with a new perspective on it, clicking onto a book we read that gave us insight into this text, clicking on the friend that loaned us the book, clicking back on another scriptural text that reminds us of this concept and helps us understand it. It seems that our clothbound Bibles are already well versed in the ways of cyberspace."[10]

While the Internet puts a virtual library of hypertext Bibles and study resources at the touch of a keystroke, we should proceed with caution. It is now easier than ever to string together snippets of scripture without understanding their context or historical setting. As Groothuis explains, "Information retrieval is not synonymous with handling the truth wisely. Since computers cannot discern meaning, we cannot expect them to deliver wisdom. That is up to us, with God’s help."[11]

The Internet is truly a liberating medium. It makes scripture -- and therefore God -- more accessible to a culture alienated from traditional Christianity. Chat room Bible studies, cyber-scripture and the many other online Christian resources are helping to spread the Word on the Net.

The availability of online Bibles and other religious writings signals a "virtual" return to the pre-literate society at the time of Christianity’s founding. Christian gatherings on the Internet bear more resemblance to the primitive church’s house meetings than to the regimented weekly services of most Protestant denominations. Closely aligned to the broader postmodern movement for a more experiential faith -- even though it may be considered only "virtually" experiential -- the Christian presence in cyberspace can use the tools of the computer world to make God more real to those who seek Him.

In postmodern terms, the availability of online texts, religious or otherwise, provides "an experience of the eroding frontier between high and mass culture."[12] By making sacred texts accessible online, we not only make God more accessible, but we also tear down the boundaries between elitist, literate culture (which the traditional church, in the eyes of many, has become) and the egalitarian, "secondarily-oral" culture of cyberspace (which is more similar to the early church than the modern church).[13] Information once held in the hands of an elite few is now available to all with the means to attain it. We break down the barriers between traditional church and the cyberchurch. In doing so, we are following a pattern set by Jesus Christ Himself, who through His crucifixion ripped away the temple veil that separated humanity from God.[14] By embracing the Net and its technology to share the powerful message of the scriptures, the church has the chance to again tear away the veil that separates the postmodern world from the elitist modernist church.

Of course, it is important that we use this newfound freedom to "access God" appropriately. Merely trying to incorporate traditional modernist Christianity into the postmodern, non-linear world of cyberspace is doomed to failure. To put the new wine of postmodernism into our Enlightenment-era wineskins just won’t work. As Jimmy Long notes in his book Generating Hope, the church that hopes to minister to postmoderns must emphasize the heart over the head, and relational learning over cognitive, intellectual learning. "Bible study," Long adds, "needs to be more interactive and free-flowing."[15]

This is true both on the Net and in "real life" church. An interactive, liquid, free-flowing approach with scripture online can open doors for us to introduce the citizens of cyberspace to God and His Word. From this foundation, we can begin to make digital disciples through the creation of a new, vibrant form of community.

Notes

[1] Paul-Gordon Chandler, "Opening the Book ‘Starbucks Style,’" Light Magazine, April 1999

[2] Os Guinness, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think and What to Do About It (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1994), 95.

[3] Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennial Culture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 200.

[4] Tom Beaudoin, Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1998), 156.

[5] Chandler, "Opening the Book ‘Starbucks Style.’"

[6] Sweet, SoulTsunami, 207.

[7] Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace (Grand Rapids, MI: Hourglass Books, 1997), 68.

[8] Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace, 69

[9] Charles Henderson, "The Emerging Faith Communities of Cyberspace", Computer-Mediated Communication Magazine, March 1997.

[10] Beaudoin, Virtual Faith, 125-126.

[11] Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace, 146.

[12] Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 275.

[13] For more about the "secondary orality" of the Internet, see Charles Ess, "Prophetic Communities Online? Threat and Promise for the Church in Cyberspace".

[14] Matthew 27:51; Ephesians 2:14-16.