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Internet Church
The terms internet church, online church, cyberchurch, and digital church refer to a wide variety of ways that Christian religious groups can use the internet to facilitate their religious activities, particularly prayer, discussion, preaching and worship services. The internet has become a site for religious experience which has raised questions related to ecclesiology. Some Christian denominations insist that an online gathering is not a real substitute for meeting in person, for example, the Roman Catholic Pontifical Council for Social Communications declared in 2002 that "the virtual reality of cyberspace cannot substitute for real interpersonal community, the incarnational reality of the sacraments and the liturgy, or the immediate and direct proclamation of the gospel", while acknowledging that the internet can still "enrich the religious lives of users". History Internet-based Christian communities, better known as "online churches" or "internet churches", began gaining popu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks that consists of Private network, private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, Wireless network, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and Web application, applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), email, electronic mail, internet telephony, streaming media and file sharing. The origins of the Internet date back to research that enabled the time-sharing of computer resources, the development of packet switching in the 1960s and the design of computer networks for data communication. The set of rules (communication protocols) to enable i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Life
''Second Life'' is a multiplayer virtual world that allows people to create an Avatar (computing), avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user-created content within a multi-user online environment. Developed for personal computers by the San Francisco-based firm Linden Lab, it launched on June 23, 2003 and saw rapid growth for some years; in 2013 it had approximately one million regular users. Growth eventually stabilized, and by the end of 2017, the active user count had fallen to "between 800,000 and 900,000". In many ways, ''Second Life'' is similar to massively multiplayer online role-playing game, massively multiplayer online role-playing video games; nevertheless, Linden Lab is emphatic that their creation is not a game: "There is no manufactured conflict, no set objective." The virtual world can be accessed freely via Linden Lab's own Client (computing), client software or via alternative third-party viewers. ''Second Life'' users, also called 'r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heidi A Campbell
Heidi A. Campbell (born August 26, 1970) is a professor of communications at Texas A&M University. She is known for her work in digital religion, and studies related to religion and new media. Biography Campbell received her BA in Communication from Spring Arbor University in Michigan (1992), an MTh in Theology and Ethics of Communication from the University of Edinburgh (1997), and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh (2002) where she studied the intersection of Computer-Mediated Communication and Practical Theology. Her PhD thesis was entitled "Investigating Community Through an Analysis of Christian Email Online Communities", which was revised and published as her first book entitled ''Exploring Religious Community Online'' (2005). Campbell was appointed assistant professor of communications in the Department of Community at Texas A&M in 2005, and became full professor in 2018. Since 2010, she has also been affiliated with the Texas A&M's department of Religious Studies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Futurist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities about the future and how they can emerge from the present, whether that of human society in particular or of life on Earth in general. Definition Past futurists and the emergence of the term The term "futurist" most commonly refers to people who attempt to understand the future, sometimes called trend analysis. Futurists include authors, consultants, thinkers, organizational leaders and others who engage in interdisciplinary and systems thinking to advise private and public organizations on such matters as diverse global fads and trends, possible scenarios, emerging market opportunities, as well as risk management. A futurist is not an artist in the sense of the art movement futurism. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' identifies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patrick Dixon
Patrick Dixon (born 1957) is an author and business consultant, often described as a futurist, and chairman of the trends forecasting company Global Change Ltd.Ciaran Parker, ''The Thinkers 50''. Praeger Publishers, 2005. He is also founder of the AIDS charity ACET. In 2005, he was ranked as one of the 20 most influential business thinkers alive according to the ''Thinkers 50'' (a private survey printed in 'The Times'). Dixon was also included in the ''Independent on Sundays 2010 " Happy List", regarding ACET and his other work tackling the stigma of AIDS. Dixon was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2024 Birthday Honours for services to HIV and AIDS Care. Medical career Patrick Dixon studied Medical Sciences at King's College, Cambridge and continued medical training at Charing Cross Hospital, London. In 1978, while a medical student, he founded the IT startup Medicom, selling medical software solutions in the UK and the Middle East, bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religion And The Internet
Religions are represented on the Internet in many ways. There are sites which attempt to cover all religions, traditions, and faiths, such as Patheos (which also provides a forum for atheism and Humanism), Religious Tolerance, and Beliefnet. There are also sites that are specific to a religious tradition. Many sites are discussion groups, others host theological debates, and some provide advice concerning religious doctrine. Some sites aim to provide a religious experience facilitating prayer, meditation, or virtual pilgrimages. People also leverage search engines to investigate aspects of religion. Some religious websites are translated into several languages. For example, JW.ORG features content in over 1,000 languages. Christianity There have been a number of attempts to create online Christian communities, usually supplementing, but occasionally attempting to replace, more traditional, brick and mortar Christian communities. It is common for even moderate sized Christian churc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Theology
Digital theology or cybertheology is the study of the relationship between theology and digital technology. Terminology In Catholic discourse, the more dominant term has been cybertheology. There has also been the yearly Theocom symposium since 2012 at Santa Clara University, which has explored topics related to theology and digital communications. In more recent discourse related to digital humanities and digital religion, some scholars have begun to use the term "digital theology." They identify four kinds of digital theology: # Digital technology as a pedagogical tool to teach theology # Digital technology that opens new methods for theological research # Theological reflection on digitality or digital culture # The reappraisal and critique of digitality based on theological ethics They also suggest a fifth aspect of digital theology, which offers a more integrated yet critical use of digital technology in the study of theology and religious belief and practice. However, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orange County, California
Orange County (officially the County of Orange; often initialized O.C.) is a county (United States), county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third most populous county in California, the county statistics of the United States, sixth most populous in the United States, and more populous than 19 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. Although largely suburban, it is the second most densely populated county in the state behind San Francisco, San Francisco County. The county's three most populous cities are Anaheim, California, Anaheim, Santa Ana, California, Santa Ana, and Irvine, California, Irvine, each of which has a population exceeding 300,000. Santa Ana is also the county seat. Six cities in Orange County lie along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast: Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Google Video
Google Video was a free video hosting service, originally launched by Google on January 25, 2005. Initially focused on searching TV program transcripts, it soon evolved to allow hosting video clips on Google servers and embedding onto other websites, akin to YouTube. With Google's acquisition of YouTube, new video uploads ceased in 2009, and the service was ultimately shut down on August 20, 2012. As of 2025, now redirects to the Google Videos search engine. Video content Google Video was geared towards providing a large archive of freely searchable videos. Besides amateur media, Internet videos, viral ads, and movie trailers, the service also aimed to distribute commercial professional media, such as televised content and movies. A number of educational discourses by Google employees were recorded and made available for viewing via Google Video. The lectures were done mainly at the employees' former universities. The topics covered Google technologies and software e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, it is the second-most-visited website in the world, after Google Search. In January 2024, YouTube had more than 2.7billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of videos every day. , videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and , there were approximately 14.8billion videos in total. On November 13, 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ). Google expanded YouTube's business model of generating revenue from advertisements alone, to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content produced by and for YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relevant Magazine
''Relevant'' is an American bi-monthly Christian lifestyle magazine published by Relevant Media Group since 2003. It is now fully-digital, but the print magazine once claimed an average circulation of 70,000. History In June 2001, Cameron Strang, son of '' Charisma Magazine'' publisher, and Strang Communications CEO Stephen Strang, founded the media company Relevant Media Group. The company began publishing ''Relevant'' in March 2003. One critic has called the publication "the mass media equivalent of outreach in the skate park." As of 2006, it was distributed nationally at Barnes & Noble and other retailers, including the Family Christian bookstore chain. In its early years, contributors to the print magazine included John Fischer, Dan Haseltine ( Jars of Clay), Don Chaffer ( Waterdeep), and Dan Buck. ''Relevant'' ran articles about faith, life in your 20s and 30s, social justice, and interviews with musicians and authors such as Donald Miller, Bob Goff, The Avett Broth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Podcasting
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an episodic series of digital audio files that users can download to a personal device or stream to listen to at a time of their choosing. Podcasts are primarily an audio medium, but some distribute in video, either as their primary content or as a supplement to audio; popularised in recent years by video platform YouTube. In 2025, Bloomberg reported that a billion people are watching podcasts on YouTube every month. A podcast series usually features one or more recurring hosts engaged in a discussion about a particular topic or current event. Discussion and content within a podcast can range from carefully scripted to completely improvised. Podcasts combine elaborate and artistic sound production with thematic concerns ranging from scientific research to slice-of-life journalism. Many podcast series provide an associated website with links and show notes, guest bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
