Although I had owned a personal computer for several years prior, I vividly remember less than 40 years ago connecting for the first time to my university’s UNIVAX system through a telephone dial-up connection. Those were the days of the CRT (cathode ray tube) screen with a black background and amber letters. Users had to boot up their computer, enter a telephone number, and listen to a screeching noise that sounded a lot like some kind of sadistic cat torture as a desktop computer with two 3½ inch disk drives was connected by telephone line to a mainframe computer housed in a specially air-conditioned room somewhere in the belly of the campus. If someone else had already connected through that telephone number, you got a busy signal and had to try another number. If that number was also busy, you had to wait until the line was free again.

I was just beginning doctoral work in 1989. Although connection to the Internet was less than instantaneous, the ability to send and receive email, participate in list serves, and communicate through synchronous chat were thrilling developments. I remember my amazement the first time I had an onscreen live-chat with another graduate student. I was in Tennessee, she was in Israel. I would type a line or two, wait 10-20 seconds, and see her lines appear on my screen 10-20 seconds after she typed them. As primitive and app-less as it all seems now, science fiction became science fact right before my very eyes.

But I noticed that something else happened along the way. I remember reading, reflecting, and writing for many uninterrupted hours at a time during graduate school days. Because everyone else was working hard too, there were few distractions in the graduate student apartment complex. When I did take the time to endure the relatively elaborate and time-consuming procedure to check email or visit the list serve, there would only be a few new entries in any 24-hour period. I would check email once or twice a day, not only because it took so long to get connected, but because the rewards would be slim. Connectivity was less than instantaneous, and information was less than abundant.

Since confession is good for the soul, I will tell you, frankly, that my attention span is not what it was before digital technology. The siren call of email, Facebook, Twitter, Printerest, and a hundred other apps now beckons us every hour of the day and night. I receive more email in an hour than I did for entire days during graduate school. My email program notifies me of the delivery of each new communication with an audible alert. Many people who don’t want to wait on a returned email now text me expecting a more immediate response.

There is exponentially more content on the internet today than in 1991, when the first webpage appeared. In terms of volume, the internet quadrupled in size between 2014 and the end of 2016. More than 1.3 zettabytes of data are transported between computer networks worldwide—that’s 1.3 followed with 20 zeros. By 2020 this number is estimated to grow to 40 zettabytes. That number is so large it’s difficult to comprehend.

Among other things, all of this means that it is increasingly challenging in our digital age to concentrate for multiple minutes, much less hours at a time without interruption, admittedly, often self-imposed interruption. Although I will grant that my experience cannot be taken to be universal, I suspect that there are plenty of others who can empathize. What does all of this mean for the future of digital communication? What does all of this mean for Christians and for the church?

The Opportunities of Digital Technologies

We should note, firstly, that the internet has done much to connect people, give them a voice, and facilitate the creation of virtual communities that have the opportunity to shape real communities. Many will remember the role digital media played in the ouster of Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in the so-called Arab Spring of 2011. Social media had an important part in building activist networks and rallying protesters, especially in Egypt. If literacy is power, connectivity is shared power.

Similarly, digital media have united religious believers and religious communities around the world. In her work on media and religion, Texas A&M professor of communication, Heidi Campbell, chronicles the evolution of what she and her colleagues have coined “digital religion.”⁷ Although Christian and Muslim adherents are thought to occupy the greatest bandwidth in social media, Hindu, Buddhist, and new Japanese religions have a growing footprint in the digital landscape. Through phenomena like the birth of religious user groups, broadcast-style web forums, and the founding of cyberchurches and virtual interactive worship environments, the internet has provided a new media context for religious expression, proselytism, and engagement. And, as Campbell and others have pointed out, it is a two-way street. That is, not only are new media being shaped by religious communities, but religious communities are being shaped by new media. Notions of authority, authenticity, community, identity, ritual, and religion are all being shaped and re-shaped, formed and informed by digital religion.

In his introduction to Ministry in the Digital Age, Biola University’s David Bourgeois maintains that “[t]he Internet is the greatest communication tool ever invented by humans,”⁸ and that “The single most important thing you can do for your ministry’s use of the Internet and social media is to design, document and implement a digital strategy.”⁹ For him, one of the most strategic activities in which a church can engage is the creation of a “digital ministry framework . . . that will allow you to be confident that your use of digital technologies is on the right track.”¹⁰

According to a 2010 random survey of Protestant churches by Axeltree Media in conjunction with the research arm of Lifeway, 78% of churches maintain a website. Of those websites, 91% provided information to potential visitors to the church, 79% provided information for the congregation, 57% encouraged increased participation by members of the church, and 52% solicited interest in ministries or volunteer opportunities.¹¹ A 2015 Barna Group study, Cyber Church: Pastors and the Internet, found that 96% of pastors use a computer at church, 46% use it for email, and 39% use it to access the internet.¹² Among those pastors who use the internet at church, 97% use it to find information, 88% to buy products, 80% to keep up with existing relationships, 71% to check out new music or videos, 39% to have a spiritual or religious experience, and 11% to play video games.

In 2015 the Church of England announced that they would equip all of its sixteen thousand churches with wi-fi internet access. The idea was first suggested by Lord Lloyd-Webber, who said that “connecting churches to the internet would make them the centres of their communities once again to draw more visitors to these sites and encourage churches to enhance and develop outreach programs to serve the practical and spiritual needs of a digital generation.”¹³ The point is that, for good or ill, digital media are increasingly integrated into the life of the churches and their ministers.

In her newest volume, Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in Digital Culture, Campbell and her co-author, New Zealand theologian Stephen Garner, argue it is crucial we ask, “What is it . . . that the Christian tradition can offer here in light of the good news of Jesus Christ? And how can it offer it in a way that is intelligible and credible to those in that context and also valuable and relevant to their everyday lives? All of these factors are critical for our theologizing about technology and media if it is to have a very real presence.”¹⁴