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Web Plays Host to Religion

By Rev. Charles Henderson

June 01, 2001 — CIO —

I am frequently asked how I decided to trade my pulpit for a computer. As the organizing pastor of the First Church of Cyberspace, I am also asked how this somewhat whimsical name for a church came to mind in the first place.

As new age as it sounds to some ears, I chose to name my new congregation following a venerable tradition. In the early years of the Republic, when Presbyterians moved into newly chartered communities all across North America, they named their churches in chronological order. So the First Presbyterian Church of New York City was followed soon thereafter by the Second Presbyterian Church and so on, as far as required by the number of Presbyterians residing in particular neighborhoods. Owing to the lack of reliable transportation systems, each of these churches of necessity was within walking distance of the congregation’s membership, religion being then, as it is today, influenced by the technology available for communicating the faith as well as gathering and sheltering the faithful.

So I selected a name, learned HTML, created a homepage and began gathering my new congregation, much to the consternation of numerous members of the brick-and-mortar church that was then paying my salary. Though the lay leaders of the Central Presbyterian Church in Montclair, N.J., agreed to sponsor this journey into cyberspace, some members clearly felt that their pastor had blasted off with a homemade rocket on his back. This digital Icarus would be quick to fall.

I can report today that I not only survived liftoff but have prospered in this new medium. Rather than preaching to a congregation of 200 or so on a Sunday morning, I now communicate on a daily basis with a congregation numbering in the thousands?a virtual family that spans the globe. Every week, I record more than 200,000 hits at the First Church of Cyberspace homepage and the newer spinoff, Christianity.about.com, where I serve as one of 700 "guides" within a publicly traded media company. I have also shepherded a 50-year-old religion journal, CrossCurrents, into the digital age, carving out its presence on the Web and attracting a new generation of readers.

For me, the transition from sacred text to hypertext has been an exciting ride. I have come to realize that in terms of the religious life of this nation (and perhaps the world), we are only about halfway through a transition more important than any other since the Protestant Reformation. In fact, what we are witnessing today might be understood not so much as something radically new but rather as the next logical step in the way religion is organized and practiced.

 

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