Guy Wheatley
The Texarkana Gazette

Imagine my surprise to learn that God is for sale. Actually, "www.god.org" is for sale.
The Internet is impacting every aspect of modern life. Surely it must also be having an impact on religion as well. I decided to take a look at religious representation on the World Wide Web. I used several techniques to locate religious content on-line. One was to simply try promising URLs.
I decided to start my electronic pilgrimage in search of God by, well… looking for God.
The first URL I tried was http://www.god.com.  I got a message that the specified server could not be found. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, God isn't supposed to be a commercial venture. I modified my search slightly and tried http://www.god.org. As I said earlier, imagine my surprise. By contacting bilfish@beer.com, you can own http://www.god.org. beer.com? There's plenty of material there about "high" minded ideals, and "spiritual" developments, but I've got bigger fish to fry at the moment.
http://www.god.gov. didn't return anything either. I guess it must have something to do with that separation of church and state thing.
http://www.christ.com took me to an interesting site. According to geektools, the site is registered to Brittan Consulting in Seattle, WA. This is the best Christian site I've been to. They have the expected sponsor links to other Christian sites, but they also have a lot of free stuff. Over the years, I've looked for biblical lexicons. While every search engine I've tried returns thousands of hits, every one I've checked out so far wants a credit card.
I don't think the Vatican could afford some of those sets. http://wwwChrist.com has a free on-line Greek and Hebrew lexicon, as well as several Bible search engines. There is also plenty of other Christian oriented material.
http://www.Christ.org took me to an evangelical site that appears to be maintained by an individual. The e-mail address is to an AOL customer. The site has a spiritual message, and pretty animated graphics. There are no sponsors or links to other sites. There's not even a place to enter a credit card number. It seems that this guy is more interested in getting a message across than in making money. How did someone like that get into religion? As with the other .gov attempts, http://www.Christ.gov couldn't be found.
Another way to search the internet is to use a search engine. I heard about a recent USA Today survey on religion. I couldn't find it on their site, so I used a popular search engine to look for religious surveys. My browser will only list 1000 hits, so all I know is that there are at least 1000 surveys about religion on-line.
There was a lot of diversity in the religions I found on-line. Most of what I found from searches for "Christ," or "God," were Christian sites. When I broadened my search to "Religion," I started getting groups I had never heard of. More than half of the hits were from non-Christian organizations.
Most of the surveys I looked at were done by a church or religious organization. To my surprise, many of these were studies about limited geographical areas. Churches appear to be using on-line surveys to evaluate expansion of physical or evangelical resources. Many of the other hits were posted results from traditionally done survey's, seeking on-line feed back. Religious organizations posted several surveys directed at members of their own faith, seeking feedback on various issues. The Internet, it appears, is being heavily used as an internal management tool by faith based organizations. There is a feeling of "preaching to the choir," in what I found. I didn't find a lot of evidence of this media being used to reach people outside the various religious groups.
According to the USA Today poll, most of us, 96%, believe in God or a Supreme Being, and 73% of us consider ourselves religious. Barely half of us, 65%, belong to a place of worship, and less than half, 45%, attend at least once a week. That's a lot of people who have been sold on their need for a product, but haven't decided on which brand yet. It's time for some marketing.
I went to several ad driven sites including network sites, search engines, and provider home pages. I saw a lot of ads for cars, other web sites, movies, and television networks, but nothing on religion. Several sites had a religion link or section, but this was invariably an unobtrusive little line buried with the other links to sports, astrology, and classifieds. It's extremely unlikely that anybody, who wasn't specifically looking for such a link, would find them.
I subscribe to several on-line technology magazines. One of them had an article about First Baptist Church of Springdale, Arkansas http://www.fbc-springdale.org. They offer a live web-cast of their service. This is a savvy site demonstrating technical and creative competence. A slick Flash file will download and play. The site is esthetically pleasing and easy to navigate. The web-cast is simply the televised sermon, sent out over the web. Those who don't watch it on TV probably won't watch it on the Web. If you're a member and out of town, log on to make sure they really do have church when you're not there.
The site itself is interesting enough that people normally unaffiliated with religion will send a little time looking around. During that time, FBC of Springdale has a foot in the door. The problem is getting people to the site in the first place.
Many observers of religion complain that churches have become exclusive country clubs. Church members home school their children, or send them to parochial schools. Most of their social activities revolve around the church. There is less and less interaction with non-church people. The Internet reflects this mindset.
Some of the larger religions can afford to set up sites that will draw people in. Offer free music. Material on which the copyright has expired, preformed by local volunteer groups, keep it legal. Church choirs doing Christmas music is one staple that would surely get a lot of traffic. Another way is to offer web sites and chat rooms that help with homework. Then, advertise so that people know you're there. If startup companies can afford a few display ads, I guarantee you that the major religions can.
Ultimately, the Internet will reflect the morals and values of the people who take the initiative to use it for their message. If religion is not well represented on-line, it won't be the Internet's fault.

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