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TIME MAGAZINE, JUNE 4, 2001, VOL.157 NO.22
I Once Was Lost, but Now I'm Wired
Searching for God? The Internet may not substitute as a place of worship but it's aiding many on their journey
By PHIL ZABRISKIE Hong Kong
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Paula Bronstein/Liaison.
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Text messaging played a key role in the ousting of corrupt Philippine
President Joseph Estrada. Supporters of his replacement, Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo, gather at the famous EDSA shrine, above.
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It's a glorious house of worship. The walls are gray, austere, adorned with pictures of important and beloved figures. Icons and talismans from faraway lands lie about, recalling passages of days gone by. A Chinese lantern adds a taste of pageantry, while a gentle murmur emanates from an acolyte.
O.K., so it's my office. A cubicle, actually. The pictures are mine, as are the figurines, but the walls were like this when I got here. The lantern, that's from a restaurant that was going out of business. And the acolyte is really my computer, which, thanks to a variety of new websites, discussion groups and cyberapostles, is all I need to transform office space into spiritual space. I can explore or practice religion and religions with a few keystrokes. I can "attend" sermons and listen to calls to prayer, seek advice and philosophy. And I don't have to go anywhere. Or, with a laptop and connection, I can go anywhere. In the past decade, the promise of interactivity that came with the Internet has flourished in the field of faith. Steven Waldman, founder of Beliefnet, one of the more successful religion sites, says: "People can customize their experiences so they can effectively have a 'devout' experience one day and a 'seeker' experience the next."
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How? Well, let's start at the beginning, as most religions do. Let's say I'm unaffiliated and seeking a more structured spiritual component in my life. I can head to selectsmart.com and answer 20 multiple-choice questions basically covering the points on which doctrines diverge: things like the number and nature of deity, why is there terrible wrongdoing in the world, should men and women have prescribed roles? When I finish, I get a list telling me that my answers suggest I'm best suited to be a Universal Unitarian, a Neo-Paganist (an animist, essentially) or a Liberal Quaker. (It also seems I'm more in tune with Sikhs than Seventh Day Adventists.)
I'm curious, but I need to know more. Follow-up links are readily available, some official, some more casual. And there are plenty of information clearinghouses, sites where one can find verses from the King James version of Leviticus or a paper on the meaning of a Navajo Blessing Way Ceremony. There are catalogs of databases and libraries, along with listings of virtual religions that exist online only—apparently because all the roadside stands were taken.
One of the more earnest is Waldman's beliefnet.com, which opened in January 2000 and hosts more than 1.7 million visitors monthly. There, I can flip through religions as though leafing through a newspaper. I can pray for sick children or spouses of other visitors or (knock on wood) request they pray for me. Questions? I can "Ask the Rabbi," "Ask the Imam" or "Ask Father Ted." Formerly an editor at US News and World Report, Waldman noticed that religion covers always sold well, yet there were no mass-market religion magazines. Half of an interfaith marriage, he was also inspired by personal experience: "I was having trouble getting the kind of information I wanted for myself about religion."
He wasn't alone. A 1998 Barna Research Associates survey found that 12% of adults had used the Net for religious purposes and that 1 in 6 teens plan to make it their sole religious outlet within five years.
This is Waldman's audience. No single demographic describes those engaged in the search for religion, for meaning or comfort. If I were a hard-core Catholic, I could spend days knocking around the Vatican's site. If I were a Muslim woman in need of advice on Koranic law or codes of dress, I could try the Niqaabi Club on which Muslim women worldwide can counsel or debate each other. If I were a Hindu—male or female—I could dive into the "Fatwa Bank," catch up on the latest news or find out which movies are "suitable." A Lubavitcher? I could get audio feeds of Torah classes.
It takes time to sift through the possibilities (and plenty of spiritual and technological dead ends). Some sites are affiliated with particular sects, some are the ungrounded fantasies of individuals. Others couch extremist rhetoric in reverent tones or disguise hatred as doctrine (the white supremacist Church of the Creator in the U.S., for example).
But as I wind my way through theories about the manifold forms of heaven and earth, angels and demons, right and wrong, I'm melding the sacred and the secular. A mechanical medium seems inherently irreligious. But through it, I can latch onto—or into—some version of what the Hopi call "the holy something." Religion is interactive by nature. A message is conveyed to a believer, revealed, perhaps, by a Supreme Being, or manifest in one's surroundings, where spirits inhabit the trees, the rocks, the winds. The believer's life, fundamentally, becomes the response. This jibes rather nicely with the form and function of the Internet. I can, in essence, create my own sacred space. I have access to the precepts, texts, rituals and rules of a religion—for observance or investigation—without depending on an authority in a specific place to site, judge or restrict.
In some cases, it's the only spiritual sanctuary available. Waldman says Beliefnet receives more visitors from China than any other country save the U.S. "We're not exactly sure why that is," he says, "but we think it's because of our coverage of Buddhism, the Dalai Lama and Falun Gong."
Waldman acknowledges there are inherent limitations. There is no congregation. There is nothing tactile, nothing to taste or smell. Some rituals must occur in a certain place to have meaning—a cubicle doesn't make it. "Those who try to take 'real religion' and graft it online will indeed create a limp version of the real thing," he says. His opinion is echoed halfway across the world by Muthullah Tayeb, Web coordinator for islamonline.net. "We have to use this service for Muslims to know their religion and for non-Muslims to learn about Islam," he says. "But you cannot just go to the Internet to learn Islam. You have to pray in the mosque five times a day. This is an information source, not an alternative."
Yet those who use online resources to supplement whatever observances they perform can emerge more learned, with a greater perspective—the fruits of interaction. "I have heard pastors say the Internet and chat rooms provide at least an initial semblance of 'community' for young people," says George Gallup Jr., author of The Next American Spirituality, "and that this involvement could lead to deepened and more informed faith—and eventually to 'live community.'" For the curious, there is room to explore and no pressure for commitment. And for the truly committed: anyone who e-mails a statement of faith to Brother Dave at the First International Church of the Web, can get ordained online and spread the Word on his or her own.
If you're in The Philippines—especially outside of Manila—and want to go online, find one of the internet cafés with the big CBCPNET posters in the window. But if you're in the mood to surf the net for porn or play a few hands of web poker, forget about it.
CBCPNET, the largest internet service provider in the nation, is run by the Catholic bishops conference of The Philippines: "your alternative ISP with a mission," as its slogan goes. A nonprofit organization, it lures users from the wages of sin by offering them prepaid internet cards so they can go online—to send and receive e-mails and access any number of "good" sites—for about $2 for seven hours, one-third of what commercial providers charge.
The church, which plans to expand its earthly digital domain, first wed the celestial and the virtual about a year ago, catering primarily to the 80% of Filipinos who are Catholic. the CBCP's website offers church teachings and directives. E-mail is also "filtered." And just to make sure no one gives in to temptation, If you tap into one of the forbidden destinations, up pops a message to steel your resolve: "thank god you're not able to access that bad site."
P.Z., with reporting by Nelly Sindayen/Manila
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Related Sites
Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines
SelectSmart
First International Church of the Web
Islam Online
Hindu Virtual Temple
The Vatican
BuddhaNet
Cathedral of Hope
The First Church of Jesus Christ, Elvis
Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua
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External sites are not endorsed by Time Inc.
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I Once Was Lost, but Now I'm Wired
Searching for God? The Internet may not substitute as a place of worship but it's aiding many on their journey 
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