In Habits of the High-Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age, Qunetin Schultze takes on the “hype” about the Internet. I read this book in early 2003, and wrote quite a few posts questioning his portrayal.

The posts were in my older blog, under my Book Bloggin’ section, and I did quite a few retorts.

I was thinking earlier about the “Virtual Church”. I am now convinced that it cannot be church except as a tool which helps to express church. To the extent that churches fail to provide the avenues to radical friendship and deep commitment to one another on the journey to call and mission and reconciliation, the online conversations that re happening are “better” at being church, but I also do not feel that “church” is happening in those places which fail to provide a way to “be” church. So the question is not “can one have or “do” church online, but HOW MUCH of church is being transmitted? Traditional churches ; those “real churches” as opposed to “Virtual churches” , are in a very real sense more “virtual” than some “virtual churches” (ie. Online).

There are things about being “Authentic Church” that require “finding those who share my vision of church” that can very possibly be siginificantly aided by the ways in which online tools help find related conversations. And once these “localities”; these “places of meeting” with those who wish to explore this with us are found, the online tools can help us to keep the conversation alive in times and places and ways not previously experienced. I still have hope that my visi on for online community is not to remain “disembodied” (even though in many ways, there is a sense of “embodiment” in online conversation. In a very real and authentic way, I have come to know a certain part of a significant group of people, and these are real people who truly respond, and to whom I have truly responded. There is no anonymity here. We know each other’s names, we share our thoughts via the blogosphere almost daily, and we “contact” each other on a frequent basis. Regardless of the experiences I have in discovering people driven by a similar vision of r being church as I am, the online fellowship will continue, even as they hear about my experiences in bringing my hopes into an embodied, intentional community.