HISTORY OF THE ENTRY OF CHRISTIANITY INTO CYBERSPACE

Abstract

This article emphasizes the influx of Christianity into cyberspace, the history of the first virtual forums, groups, networks, and websites relevant to this religion. It discusses the results of the studies on the widespread of faith, particularly Christianity, on the Internet. Examples, obtained as a result of American, Canadian, and British scientists’ observation of these processes, are provided. As it is known, scientists divide the studies on the correlation between religion and the Internet into three periods. Based on this fact, we paid attention to the studies of the leading representatives of each period and their results. In the second half of the twentieth century, the process, which began with a simple message on a bulletin board system (BBS), began to develop rapidly. Special forums on the expression of religious views (e.g. “Origins”, 1983) and virtual groups dedicated to Christianity (“net.religion.Christian”, 1984) come to light. The author analyzes and justifies these groups were paid much attention and participated actively by the general population and the church. The article identifies the most discussed topics in the virtual communities, which were established in the first network for religious dialogue Ecunet in their public and private (paid) conversations. It provides information about an online religious ceremony on the memory of the missing astronauts of the Challenger spacecraft. It shows how the emergence of the free World Wide web and the possibility of working with hypertext and creating websites influenced the dynamics of Christianity in cyberspace. It also provides information on the leading websites of cyber-communication technologies and which sects and churches they belong to.