Online to God

How reliable are the multitude of religious websites available on the Internet, asks Christine Houde

We've all seen TV evangelists roar hysterically at us from our screens, asking us to pledge another dollar to save our souls. Before that, preachers had their own radio shows; these days they have their own websites - as technology advances, so does the means of delivering the message. It's worth asking, however, just how credible are religious sites online?

Religion has long used the written word to spread its message. Printed on paper, the gospels are the immutable, identifiable words of God. Presented on a computer screen, however, they are unable to carry the same weight or authority. As a result, when it comes to the Internet, the Church built upon a rock sometimes seems to be resting on more muddy foundations.

"Religion is both intrigued by and horrified by contemporary technology," says Lavinia Byrne, professor of communications at the Cambridge Theological Federation and Internet columnist for the Catholic newspaper The Tablet. "It's intrigued because of the great commission at the end of Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus says, 'Go tell all nations and baptise them.' The Christian imperative is always about more, tell more people, because this is good news and this is to be shared."

In its urge for more, however, lies the Church's difficulty with the Internet. "With all this media it loses control," says Byrne, who was in Dublin last week to talk on ethics and the Internet. She knows all about the Church's penchant for control: in the 1990s, the Vatican had problems with her book on female ordination, Woman at the Altar, and tried to block its publication. It also pushed her to relinquish her vows as a nun.

The Church has no chance, however, to translate such power and influence to the Internet. With more than 20 million Christian, at least seven million Islamic, and about 2 million Jewish websites currently up and running, and more going live each day, it's increasingly difficult for the Church to consider or comment on all the information available to its flock.

"It's a whole new world. The power, the authority to identify the truth has moved from people who write the books to people who read the books . . . when the Church told you what you could and couldn't read you were never a moral agent," says Byrne.

Nowadays, many websites are so glitzy and authoritative-looking it's a challenge to discern religious "fact" from "fiction", Byrne says. "If I wrote a website called 'Not the Vatican', the search-engine would still find it along with the real Vatican site." She cautions that the Internet is simply a medium of communication and not solely liable for its sometimes inappropriate or incorrect content.

"The Internet is like a knife. It's morally neutral. But just as you can use a knife to butter your bread in the morning - or operate on somebody, or murder them - so it is with the Internet," she says.

The good-intentioned, faith-filled Internet searcher is therefore left with quite a bit of responsibility. The best thing to do, Byrne says, is to pay close attention to each website's currency and authority. "You have to look for sites that reference recent articles," Byrne cautions. Also, be sure that the information comes from a reliable source, such as an academic website, she adds.

Catholics might try www.cathport.com: a site hosted by The Tablet.

Despite the challenges the Internet presents, adapting to meet the demands of new technology is nothing new for the Catholic Church. "The Internet has a great capacity for communication, just as radio once did, just as the Book of Kells once did," Bryne says. The Book of Kells "turned the Gospels into an artefact, an art form, a thing of beauty. I just turn it into an Internet site." adds Byrne.