Online Love Triangle & the Church

I ran across a story in the Wall Street Journal that I really wanted to share. I've been trying to figure out how to spin it.

Second Life, if you're not familiar, is a virtual fantasy world. It's an Interactive role-playing game of sorts. It's a real life simulation. The game isn't filled with warriors with swords or monsters or aliens. The characters look and act like normal people, and in fact are all controlled by real people. Millions of people have a "second life" in Second Life. They work jobs. Have relationships. Go to church. Go to concerts. Spend money. All in a video game. It's technological escapism. You don't like your life. Create a new one online, and pretend.

But at what point does a game stop being a game? The WSJ shares the story of Ric Hoogestraat. Ric plays Second Life six hours a night and up to fourteen hours on weekends. He uses the game to escape his regular life. See, Ric is married to Sue Hoogestraat in real life, but to Janet Spielman in Second Life. Ric's character, Dutch Hoorenbeck proposed, married and lives with Janet's character - Tenaj Jackalope. Their Second Life marriage is so legit that Sue has caught her husband having "cartoon sex" with his Second Life wife via the computer game...

Read the WSJ article to get the insight on the online love triangle. It shows everything that is wrong with technology.

I've been researching Internet Churches lately... reading blogs, articles, books, talking to people... and what I'm hearing more often than not is that people cannot connect to God via the Internet? Their Reasons? The Internet isn't intimate enough. People put up a facade. You don't really get to know people unless you see them face to face. Physical (face to face) contact is necessary. How can you fellowship through a computer?

Tell Sue Hoogestraat that the Internet isn't intimate. Which is Ric's facaade? The one Sue sees or the one that Janet sees. If physical (face to face) contact is necessary, then Ric and Janet's relationship is completely legit and the two of them are just playing a computer game... right? They're just cartoon characters on a computer screen.

Unfortunately, I think most of us don't think that's the case. And that's the problem with technology and the church. We are so quick to condemn it because of it's weaknesses, but we to afraid to work with it, to tame it so that we can take advantage of its strengths.

Thanks to the Wikinomics Blog for the WSJ article.

Comments

[ttm]

Interesting post. I was just talking to a woman this week who said her ex-husband's addiction to an online game caused their divorce. He's now married to a woman he met online.

There is most definitely a current blurring between virtual and real life.

I, too, have heard the criticisms of (even the concept of) online churches. I think much of the negativity toward virtual church stems from fear that what we now call "church" might be changed or destroyed. There isn't much, if any, intimacy in face to face churches either. Even in small groups, do people really open up and become transparent? I've spoken with at least ten people this week who said that their churches (local, face to face) are not places of true connection for them.

I must admit, my deepest spiritual insights and personal growth have come from written/typed words with no body language or face to face context whatsoever. Stories, phone conversations, poetry, texts of letters, Scripture, email exchanges, CDs, blogs are all examples of non face to face exchanges but they can be vessels of truth nevertheless.

I can't wait to see where the Internet Church path might lead. When we travel with God (whether running or walking--even crawling), every path leads somewhere better than we could have imagined.

[RC of strangeculture]

Wow! The graphic accompanying the description is very helpful to understanding the scenario in the WSJ article.

That story's really sad.