Articles on the Internet/Web and Religion

These articles below hosted on our site deal primarily with how churches are using the Internet technologies, how religious groups and individuals are being religious on the Web and how these technologies are reshaping human spiritual lives and organizations. See the Link page to visit other great resources on the topic.

Virtually Religious:Technology and Internet Use in American Congregations (2012)
The latest look at how churches and other congregations are using Internet technologies, websites, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. This report draws on the Faith Communities Today 2010 study findings. Download the report in PDF format.

A lecture on Religion and the Internet (2002)
Given at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this lecture invited Scott Thumma along with Rev. Charles Henderson and Elena Larsen to discuss how people are using the Internet for religious purposes.  You may also wish to visit the MIT website for a summary, transcript of the discussion, and an audio link to the lecture.

Walking the Cyberspace Labyrinth (2001) A talk given by at Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford, CT on the spiritual dimensions of the World Wide Web.

Report on Webmaster Survey  (2000)
Students from Hartford’s Seminary Fall 2000 course on Religion and the Internet surveyed webmasters from 63 U.S. congregational web sites.  These sites represented Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, and both conservative and liberal Protestantism congregations. Although the sample was small, there are many interesting findings from this glimpse into the process of creating and maintaining a congregational web site.

What's worse than a church without a web site? (A quick question written by Scott Thumma

How can I get "that online Religion?" A research summary based on Brenda Brasher's 2001 book Give Me That Online Religion

Connected Congregations by John Dart
Reprinted with permission from The Christian Century (2001)

If you would like to know more about congregational web design, visit our somewhat out-of-date Internet Guides which contains our thoughts and also links to excellent sites on church web design. Previously we did reviews of church web sites (2000-2004). Here is the criteria standard by which we evaluated these sites which is still a valid listing of what should be on a church website.