quo vadis, cuber church

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Quo vadis, Cyber Church?

by Ralf Peter Reimann

ECIC 7 / June 10, 2002

Quo vadis, Cyber Church?....................................................................................... 11. Introduction: The Church on a Postmodern Marketplace ................................. 22. Church Communication on the Web: A Paradigm Shift?.................................. 3

2.1. Times of Change.............................................................................................. 3

2.2. The Web as a Hostile Environment.................................................................. 3

3. Niebuhrs Typology ofChrist and CultureTwo Extremes................................. 53.1. The Christ and Culture Typology...................................................................... 53.2. Christ against Culture: Exclusivist Approach.................................................... 53.3. Christ of Culture: Harmonious Approach.......................................................... 6

4. Economics............................................................................................................. 84.1. Reality Check................................................................................................... 84.2. Portals and Search Engines............................................................................. 8

5. Niebuhrs Typology Continued: Alternative Answers ..................................... 115.1. The Alternative Modells.................................................................................. 115.2. Christ above Culture: Synthetic Approach...................................................... 115.3. Christ and Culture in Paradox: Dualist Approach........................................... 125.4. Christ the Transformer of Culture: Conversionist Approach........................... 13

6. Conclusions ........................................................................................................ 14


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1 . I n t ro d u c t i o n : T h e C h u rc h o n a P o s tm o d e rn

M a rk e tp l a c e

Life was simple and well-defined in medieval times. The church dominated medieval

society in Europe. This implied that that the church also fulfilled the function of the

government and regulated public discourse. In medieval cities, the church and town

hall are located on the marketplace next to each other. In modern society, not only

the church lost its dominance, but also government has a different role. It regulates

the market which often is dominated by transnational companies. Economic

globalization and Postmodernism have changed our society; public discourse is very

different from what it was fifty years ago. Our culture has changed and the church

or better: the churches have to respond to this change.

How does the church communicate within a postmodern society? How does the

church define its role in a cultural environment that is no longer exclusively shaped

by Christianity? One reflex is to look back to the good old days when the church was

still privileged in society and try to retain as many of these privileges as possible for

as long as possible. In Germany, the churches still have guaranteed airtime on

national and local television often even free of charge for the church -- due to the

constitution. However, these articles of the constitution do not apply to the Internet.On the Web, the church is one content provider among many; the church has to pay

for its Web space and is in no ways privileged, it does no longer have a monopoly on

religious discourse in public, the church is one player among others in a postmodern

market place.


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will increase church attendance by having a new youth center and save the youth

from the street. In order to show our modernity, we open a new virtual youth center

instead of a physical one. However, I wonder if this will really advance our cause,

because what we are doing is to project our traditional thinking on the Web. We try to

fix the loss of the youth by promoting a new and modern project without dealing with

the underlying issues. Biblically speaking, we are pouring new wine in old skins

instead of getting new skins for new wine. The underlying issue is the relationship

between the church and the world. Let me elaborate this point. Instead of hoping to

draw more traffic to our Web site by a new project or hoping to create a new

community for the youth on our server, we could use the allocated funds to place our

content on commercial portals and thus improve already existing youth communities.

Instead of going where the traffic is and show presence on those Web sites we try to

divert the traffic from them to our Web site. We create our own Christian Web sites in

opposition to the larger Web community. It is us against them. As far as I can see this

is the prevailing attitude for most Christian or church-sponsored Internet activities.

Without serious reflection and analysis, we follow the paradigm of opposition.

However, there are other paradigms and possibilities. Let me make this clear, I am

not criticizing the establishment of new Christian Web sites, but I am disapproving of

doing so without further reflections. There are others ways for the Cyber church to

relate to the world wide Internet community and culture.


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3 . N i e b u h r s T y p o l o g y o f C h r i s t a n d C u l t u r e Two

E x t re m e s

3 . 1 . T h e C h r i s t a n d C u l t u r e T y p o l o g y

I am arguing for a well-considered approach to the problem and you have to bear

with me if I am going to use my theological toolkit now. Every student of theology

who has studied in an Anglo-Saxon country knows of Richhard Niebuhrs approach

to the problem of the relationship between church and culture. Niebuhrs typology

has become a standard way of viewing the relationship between Christ and culture.1

3 . 2 . C h r i s t a g a i n s t C u l t u r e : E x c l u s i v i s t A p p r o a c h

The first approach emphasizes the absolute authority of Christ and

uncompromisingly rejects loyalty to culture because culture is fallen. The conflict

between Christ and culture is conspicuous in this "either-or" position. It interprets the

world dualistically; "Whatever does not belong to the commonwealth of Christ is

under the rule of evil."

Although it is an inevitable Christian answer, Niebuhr asserts that it is also an

inadequate response. First of all, the radical approach, withdrawal from society or

rejection of culture, is not directly effective in changing culture. Historic

representatives of this approach include the First Letter of John, Tertullian, and Leo

Tolstoy, and although not mentioned by Niebuhr, the Amish people.

The paradigm of Christ against Culture applied to the Cyber Church means we

establish our own Christian Web community separated from the world wide Internet

community. Let me be clear, I am not saying, all of our internet activities follow this

pattern and every typology needs to simplify, and in reality types overlap. However, I

believe, Christ against Culture is a commonly followed attitude of how Christians

approach the Web.2

1I am following James F. McGrath's presentation of Niebuhrs typology, see

http://www.geocities.com/jamesfrankmcgrath/biblical_missions/Mission04.htm.2

There is an interesting parallel. The Christ against Culture attitude was very often practiced by the

early Christians because the Christian community felt very small against the pagan Roman Empire.


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If you look at many Christian Web sites the above attitude is at least partially true. A

simple proof is to see what other Web sites they are linking to. It is mostly Christian

Web sites but not to other community-related Web sites. Once you have entered the

Christian realm you will hardly ever leave it has no links to the world. It seems we

love our own Christian segment of the Web with no or few links to the rest of the

WWW. Ultimately, the Cyber Church will be placed in the deep web, hardly

accessible and not indexed on big commercial portals because they carry offensive

advertising. Christians following this train of thinking will access the Internet through

Christian ISPs that block unwanted Web sites. A Christian community separated from

the rest of the WWW will be established, the Cyber Church will enter the virtual

ghetto.

3 . 3 . C h r i s t o f C u l t u r e : H a r m o n i o u s A p p r o a c h

The second extreme approach according to Niebuhr -- relaxes the tension between

Christ and culture. It is a "both-and" position and harmonizes Christ and culture by

overlooking conflicting elements in the New Testament and society. The adherents of

this harmonious approach are selective in their attitude both to Christ and to culture,

and their Christ tends to be rational and abstract rather than historical and concrete.

Their Christ is regarded as the greatest human achievement, or one which should be

treasured, yet not as Lord of culture.

Niebuhr observes this type of Christianity in various people: Jewish Christians who

tried to hold Christian faith and Jewish tradition, Christian Gnostics, Abelard, and

Culture-Protestantism (Protestant Liberalism). Niebuhr also has the least positive

assessment of this type of approach. Cultural Christianity is not fully Christian nor

fully cultural.

The approach ofChrist of Culture is also widespread in how the church approaches

the Internet. Because its adherents tend to belong to the cultural establishment the

Internet is often viewed as a new and shabby medium which cannot compare to the

quality of other media like print, television or radio. For example, Internet

broadcasting is viewed as low-quality television and therefore discarded. The

The same may be said of the Christian Web community in relation to the big commercial portals that

dominate the Web.


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potential of innovation is neglegted because traditional standards are applied to the

WWW. The anarchistique and bottom-up structure of the Web is treated with

suspision because it might lead to a lesser quality of content as there is nobody who

oversees the adherence to certain standards. This approch to the Internet takes

away the zealous drive of webmasters and often leeds to indifference towards the

Web. If the Christ against Culture approach often leads to resignation concerning the

Web it is us versus them the Christ of Culture approach often leads to

indifference because the complexity of the change brought to us by the Internet is not

understood. Not understanding how the Web lives and breathes leads to Web sites

that are translated from other media mostly print to the WWW. This may lead to

up-scale Web sites with little value to users or to cooperation with publishing houses

whose primary field of competence is not the Web. Cultural Christianity is too much

part of the establishment as to understand and value the lively and sometimes

uncultured way of the Web.

Niebuhr favors other modells of the relationship between the church and culture,

before exploring them, I would like to analyze the Web as a marketplace in a little

more depth.


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4 . E c o n o m i c s

4 . 1 . R e a l i t y C h e c k

We can define our approach to the church and culture in Cyberspace theologically

but we have to implement our strategy within the existing economic environment.

Before we can identify our partners for cooperation and before we can forge strategic

alliances we must analyze the terrain we are dealing with. In the early days, the

Internet was a relatively free and non-hierarchical place that was dominated by

individuals and not by commercial interests. The Internet now is the corporate

marketplace for global players with little regulation. Amazon.com is an example of

how money was poured into the market with only a long-term hope of returning the

investments. Dominance in the market seemed to be more important than actual

profits. Corporate players are competing for a highly unregulated WWW and the

churches only have a fraction of the financial resources of the global players.

In the early days, access to the Web was limited, and those who had access were

computer-literate. Now, the Web is open to everybody, with and without computer-

education. The average Internet user needs orientation, otherwise he or she will get

lost in the ocean of available data. To guide the surfer thru the ocean is the function

of portals.

4 . 2 . P o r t a l s a n d S e a r c h E n g i n e s

TV Magazines help to choose among the programs of various TV stations, whose

number fits on a remote control. In the Internet, there are millions of servers, which

offer their information at the same time. Search engines and portals structure the

abundance of available information. Search engines and portals, however, are notcharities but commercial enterprises whose goal it is to keep the user as long as

possible on ones own Web sites in order to gain revenue from advertising banners

or to lead the user to partner Web sites that offer services.

Web Statistics for Germany clearly show the leading position, which television

stations have acquired for the Internet sites. Among the four mostly-visited Germany


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Web sites, two are private television stations; one is a freemail service, and one is a

consortium led by a group of publishing houses.3

A careful analysis of the content of the two most widely used Web sites yields that

church-related or Christian content does not exist on these Web sites; however, there

is a lot of similar content ranging from horoscopes to life-style topics that is easilyreachable from the start page and therefore will attract the attention of many users.

The three biggest ISPs in Germany either send their own starting page to the

browser of the user, offer their own surface, which places their own offers

prominently, or deliver browsers to their clients whose home page is the one of the

ISP. This development is therefore dangerous, because there is no longer a

separation of Internet access providers and content provider nationally and globally.

Now nearly all media giants of the old Economy forged alliances. Time Warner

merged with AOL; Bertelsmann supplies services to Lycos/Terra; and there is talk

about a take over of Yahoo by the American Viacom (Paramount, CBS, MTV)

3IVW-figures for first quarter of 2001 according to www.ivw.de:

Top 10 Web SitesPI March

(Millions.)Visits March

(Millions.)PI Feb. (Millions

GMX 447,3 110,4 411,1

RTL World RTL.de 200,6 54,3 168,2

Comdirect 199,7 54,2 n/a

Fireball 101,0 26,3 95,6

mobile.de 89,4 11,5 71,6

Coupe.de 78,4 8,2 73,3

Infoseek 72,5 23,0 66,5

Onvista 60,7 10,6 59,9

AutoScout 24 59,2 12,8 49,9

AOL 58,9 7,2 48,5

ZDF (zdf.msnbc.de) Yahoo are not IVW-listed. GMX, the RTL-Group, Gruner+Jahr Electronic Media

Service AdSales (EMS, including the online editions of the Gruner + Jahr Group and the partners joind

in EMS (among them: evita, the Portal of Deutsche Post), and the Pro-Sieben-Group (Pro 7, Sat1,

Kabel1 etc.). are the for most visited websites according to the IVW-listing if figueres of various Websites held by the same coporate parent are added. also see:

www.netzeitung.de/servlets/page?section=926&item=138714.


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Using the analogy of television, the manufacturer of the TV set and the TV station

belong to the same company, on the purchase of a TV set, the remote control is

automatically programmed with the stations of the same company, and quite some

tedious work and some skills are necessary to re-program the remote control.

This analogy shows, we are witnessing a process of economic concentration of

content providers and Internet access providers on a national and international scale.

The self-determined and independent user of the early days of the Web has become

the brand-loyal consumer who is being delivered various services right to his browser

by the same company.

Content is a hot commodity on the Internet. The user demands added value from

Web sites, so many webmasters buy content or make barter deals according to the

rules of supply and demand. Astrological content is in great demand and sells well.

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Often the same content is offered in various designs so the process of concentration

is quite invisible. www.contentsyndication.de offers content of all kinds from a news

ticker to Formula One, only religion is not in store.

Next to portals, search engines structure the way we move in the web. Here we can

observe similar tendencies. In this case, a top listing is the commodity, and who pays

most, gets a good listing, often it is only hard to discern that a good ranking has been

bought.

Where does this leave us? If we do not heed this development, the cyber church will

be placed in the virtual ghetto, the church will pertain to the Deep Web. However,

there are other options.

4

This is the conclusion of MARKET 12 23|02|2001, p.17. Astrological portales offer their contentto Focus, Pro Sieben, Telekom and Yahoo. GMX receives ist astrological content from the online

magazine Tomorrow.


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5 . N i e b u h r s T y p o l o g y C o n t i n u e d : A l te rn a t i v e

A n s w e rs

5 . 1 . T h e A l t e r n a t i v e M o d e l l s

Niebuhr's other three types remain in between the two extreme types already

mentioned. They are described as superior answers to the former two, and share

common convictions which distinguish them from those extreme positions. Nature, on

the basis of which culture is produced, is good. Therefore Christ cannot simply be

against culture. Moreover they believe that humans are responsible to God in actual

and concrete situations. Being given freedom and ability, developing culture is part of

human obedience to God. While exclusive and inclusive Christians tend to disregard

the radical nature of sin, they believe that humans can never attain to holiness.

Human culture is possible only by divine grace; and the experience of grace leads

one to actualizing the law in society.

5 . 2 . C h r i s t a b o v e C u l t u r e : S y n t h e t i c A p p r o a c h

The synthesist approach is a "both-and" response like the harmonious approach. It

acknowledges the gap between Christ and culture, and affirms the priority of Christ.

Nevertheless the synthesists regard culture as having positive value of its own,

although imperfect, and their Christ is the instructor rather than the judge. They think

that Christian teaching and good products of culture are different but not always

contradictory. We can infer that the synthesists by Niebuhr's definition do not accept

any and every aspect of culture, but affirm culture conditionally and selectively.

Niebuhr describes the synthesist position as an attractive choice. The synthesists

open the door for the co-operation between Christians and non-Christians at theground floor level. At the same time, they maintain a distinctive Christian message.

Transferring this approach to the Internet, it allows for cooperation with non-Christian

Web sites while still maintaining our unique center, the gospel. We are free to join

project-related cooperation with non Christian content providers while maintaining our

own profile on our own Web sites. www.funcity.de is an example how this approach

might work. Fun City is a virtual city with all the institutions a real city normally offers

to its residents, ranging from banks, to schools, shopping centers, parks and a

church. The virtual shopping malls offer goods through ecommerce, inside the church


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are confessionals in which real life Catholic parish priests offer online-counseling.

The Christian message is clearly heard and the Christian presence is highly visible in

Fun City. The cooperation in Fun City is a win-win situation for the church and for the

enterprise that founded Fun City. Fun City started as a virtual community of a radio

station so a lot of promotion could be done on air. The church did not have to pay for

promotion of the project. On the other hand, the owner of Fun City also profit from the

churchs contribution as the church adds extra value to their Web site. Nevertheless,

every cooperation also has disadvantages, e.g. does the money determine the future

of the project or does the church has a say without pouring money into the fun city

but only investing human resources? As far as I understand the Protestant church in

Germany, the idea of a business partnership with a private investor is still foreign to

our thinking. If we continue in these lines, a great deal of questions come up, for

example: Do we need our own Christian search engines or wouldnt it be more

profitable for both sides to team up with already existing search engines and sponsor

a module that keeps track of Christian Web sites. In the case of a cooperation,

Christian content would be also accessible to the non-Christian secular community.

5 . 3 . C h r i s t a n d C u l t u r e i n P a r a d o x : D u a l i s t A p p r o a c h

The dualist position, like accommodationist and synthesist positions, attempts to give

a "both-and" answer to the Christ-culture problem. Yet dualists do so in an extremely

sharp tension. Unlike the accommodationists and the synthesists, the dualists, along

with the radicals, are sensitive enough to recognize the serious depravity of both

human beings and culture. They are certain about two things: (1) sectarian

withdrawal from society could not help them; (2) nevertheless God sustains them in

culture and they are responsible for the world. Thus they hold the conflicting

elements together: loyalty to Christ and responsibility to culture. Their most explicit

paradoxes appear in "law and grace" and "divine wrath and mercy." The dualists

choose to live in this dynamic tension.

Applying this modell to the churchs Internet activities, we accept the world into our

own sphere. By doing so, we avoid a secterian withdrawl from the society and allow

non-Christians to understand our language and provide our Web-based services to


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them. www.blankenese.de started out as a church Web site5, graudually this Web

site evolved into a regional portal, offering services from helplines to news, it has

become an open community for the local parisherners and residents.

5 . 4 . C h r i s t t h e T r a n s f o r m e r o f C u l t u r e : C o n v e r s i o n i s t

A p p r o a c h

The conversionists recognize a sharp distinction between Christ and human

achievement; they are aware of the radical sin in the human and culture. Yet they

have a distinctively positive attitude toward culture. They believe that God reigns over

culture and therefore Christians are responsible for cultural duties.

Niebuhr gives three characteristics of the transformation approach related to their

involvement in culture. First, they value the creation as much as redemption. They

see the work of God in Christ not only in the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Second

Coming, but also in the Incarnation. Christ who creates the world participates in

culture. Second, the conversionists sharply distinguish the evil human fall from the

good creation by God. This corruption is a departure from the created goodness and

is exclusively a human act. Although it is evil, it is perverted good. Third, their

understanding of history is existential. They believe that God interacts with humans inthe here and now. They are more concerned with the present divine restoration than

events in the past and future. They believe that God reigns over culture and therefore

Christians are responsible for cultural duties. An approach of this sort appears in the

Fourth Gospel and in the theology of Augustine of Hippo.

Following this approach, the church has a responibilty for the Web as a whole.

Because Christ participated in culture, the church has an obligation to enter the

secular community. There are various ways this can be realized. Many cities offer

their municapal server to be used by local institutions. Placing the content of the

church on a municipal server signals that the local church wants to be part of the

local Web community. If we take this modell one step further we could create a

church-run Web content agency that offers our content to other portals.

5This site was one of the winners of the first EKD-Webfish award in 1996 (see www.webfish.de).


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6 . C o n c l u s i o n s

It is to early to reach conclusions, and I hope the whole ECIC 7 conference will give

us the opportunity to explore various solutions to the problems. Two options are not

feasible; Niebuhr calls them Christ against Culture and Christ of Culture because

they will lead to resignation or indifference.

The time has come for a new cooperation with partners outside the Christian

community. This was one of the reasons why we chose the media city of Cologne as

location for this conference. I do not know which of Niebuhrs models will serve our

purposes best, actually I believe they are not mutually exclusive but options that can

be both pursued at the same time.

Thank you.

Ralf Peter ReimannWeb Coordinator of the Evangelical Church in the RhinelandPhone: +49.211.4562.233Fax: +49.211.4562.490

Email: [email protected]

quo vadis, cuber church

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