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Ecunet 95:

The Ecunet '95 Conference represented a kind of collage of the deepest influences on my life. .

In May of 1995, the Ecunet network organized a meeting in Baltimore around the theme of "Ministry in Cyberspace". The major theme was the Internet, and the questions being asked involved what relationship Ecunet would have with the Internet. Several members had already ventured well out into the world of the Internet and the World Wide Web.

My Ecunet communications had begun in 1992 by my accessing the main Ecunet computer in Louisville via modem, and uploading and downloading my notes to and from meetings that I had "joined" based on my interests, and meetings I had initiated myself.

Just a few months after my joining Ecunet, I began to investigate the Internet, and how these "world wide network channels" were beckoning the rest of the online world to extend its reach and encompass the wired world. One of the first books I bought was "The Whole Internet Catalog", which explained what the Internet was, and described the tools such as telnet, FTP, and Gopher. The World Wide Web was still in its infancy, and Web browsers were not yet a common item until the following year, and not really widespread until this past year.

When Ecunet developed it's Internet gateway, the way was open to develop my "outward Journey"

The Ecunet 95 pre-conference arrangements themselves were a tale of Cyberspace relationships; where a meeting of a person online thru mutual interests resulted in an invitation to share his home. Online we explored some possibilities for community online, and how a magazine that wants to be "more than just a magazine" could fulfill some of this possibility online.

In the case of Ecunet and in many others, online relationships have led to motivation to meet face to face. The Ecunet 95 event provided a way to add the face to face interaction to some previously established relationships online.

I think that personal, face-to-face networking was much of the motivation for people to be there: . (Now why did I just associate "personal" with face to face, as if to suggest that online relating is not as personal? It seems to be an expression which implicitly assumes this----which is why I try to use "face-to-face" more intentionally ------or "ftf" as we say online)

When ideas such as those put forth in Silicon Snake Oil sells books, I wonder where these people are living their lives. It is fine, and certainly enviable if his life really is like that, where neighbors sit and chat and people write letters everyday, but this is not the society I see. A Review of Stoll's book had the same kind of doubts I had about where this guy lives.

Even though many experience an ease of relating and exchange online that may have been more difficult face to face, once this barrier to exposing common interests and sharing ideas has passed and a camaraderie is established, interest in face to face interaction rises. When you have such a community as Ecunet, this experience is multiplied.

Upon arriving at the Holiday Inn in Baltimore, I began meeting face to face people with whom I had exchanged notes online on a variety of topics, and some who had seen my Web pages and seemed to derive the same wonder from seeing the persons who had been until that moment represented by only a name and some ideas.

I was affirmed to see people's eyebrows raise as they said "Oh! Dale Lature! I've seen your stuff online". On more than a couple of occasions, some of them would reveal interest in talking further about what they were doing in relation to what I was doing.

Before heading up the highway to Baltimore from DC that Sunday, I visited the headquarters of the Church of the Saviour in DC, from which have been told many stories of mission and reflection on the character of the church which have challenged and moved me for 20 years.

As a result, I began to think more deeply about the medium of the World Wide Web as a storytelling medium which can help tell a multidimensional story such as that of the people on a mission and taking the journey. I have already been including a kind of three dimensional testimony on my Web pages, initially as a reaction to some of the "tract mentality" that I see exhibited on the Web as many are finding an outlet for publishing their views and expressing their concepts of evangelism.

I have often wondered about the effectiveness of the tract. There seems to be a lack of contextual information in the point by point structure. With the Web structure, there is opportunity to build in some reference to context, not simply by citation as in footnoting, but a way to deliver the reader directly to relevant information, which often will include other points of context.

Recently I have been receiving a lot of "protest" from the fundamentalist crowd about how I am presenting my "definition" of a Christian.. It seems that the theology war will carry its battle into cyberspace (as if this surprises me!) My aim in attempting to do an online theological center is to help with the cooperation that can be accomplished online within the theological community.

It is too opportune a time to be trying to stake out territory and engage in theological battles, but as sure as this took place in the world of print, it is inevitable that this medium will host similar battles.

Can Truth be captured in print?

What will happen to "orthodoxy" in an age of diversity encouraged by the Net?

Using the Web to tell a story

Once the widespread reach the Internet provides to its information is grasped, groups and individuals scramble to get their message out. Commercial companies want a presence to promote their companies products and/or services, and ideological and religious groups seek to get their message out.

In the early days of print, widely dispersed church members could receive printed documents with teachings that would help maintain doctrinal uniformity.

On the Web are countless examples of all forms of "proselytization" efforts. Many see the Internet as another opportunity for evangelism. I think it has many more possibilities than we had in TV. The form of elaboration that can be taken on the web with its hypertextual and branching nature makes it possible to tell a more complex story.

But there are still a majority of sites devoted to "Christian content" that contain simply pointers to other sites, or material which is not much more than a presentation of traditional textual, "linear" arguments.

Heretics in Print

Pitfalls in Giving Power to Words

Diversity and Schism

Theological Guardians on the Net