The Soul of Cyberspace by Jeff Zaleski is a “on the scene” book of interviews during vistis to several “Web incarnations” of attempts to strike up theological conversatrions with people on the Web.
If 55% of the world’s Christians are Catholic, but less than 25% of the sites categorized by Yahoo in 1996 were Catholic, what does this tell us? Something more, I think (and is echoed by Zaleski) than the demographics of the Web (dominated by America) and of World Religion (most of America is Protestant, therefore affecting the percentages of Catholic-leaning Web fare). The issue of authority and of the value and role of “conversation” in theology is also a key factor. This one small example with wide implications from Zaleski is exemplary of the wealth of sociological and psychological explorations that can be mined from this book.
This book is definitely NOT to be confused with a similar title “The Soul IN Cyberspace” by Doug Groothius, which was a treatment which basically advanced a bibliolatry heresy, glorifiying the book, and making it a divine ordination; advancing the exclusivity of revelation from all channels OTHER than the written word (the “proof” adavanced was the Ten Commandments.