Rituals and Pixels - A Review
Review of “Rituals and Pixels: Experiments in Online Church” By Simon Jenkins
The invention of the world wide web has offered society a highly accessible, highly efficient, and very fast way of accessing literally thousands of pages varying from encyclopaedias to virtual worlds. In these worlds we are able to connect to thousands of people from all over the world who have interests in pretending to be a colourful penguin (see club penguin), to attending a church service online. In the article “Rituals and Pixels: Experiments in Online Church”, Simon Jenkins sets out to explore the possibility of genuine online church services, and the pros and cons associated with a virtual church – dubbed “the church of fools”.
The “
Despite this, Simon Jenkins also noted that there were many issues with the online church. Firstly, the anonymity of the users was abused, with some using derogatory terms or directing worship towards inappropriate areas of the church (e.g. other users, vending machines). Secondly, there were many attempts made to hack the “
In conclusion, it has been found that a virtual church can provide the same spiritually moving experience and community bond as a “real church”. However, due to the limits of technology and the anonymity of the internet communities such as the “
Jenkins, Simon. "Rituals and Pixels: Experiments in Online Church." Online -