History of internet evangelism

Hong Kong Christians at Gateway Camp.

In 2005, there were four times as many non-Western World Christians as there were Western World Christians.

See also: Global Christianity

According to the Lausanne World Pulse Archives, which was a joint effort between the Billy Graham Center and the Lausanne Movement from 2005-2011, the four phases of Christian internet evangelism are:

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1. Eccentric – (early 1990s) Newsgroups, bulletin boards and online “flame wars” between Christians and atheists were common. 2. Enthusiastic – (mid 1990s) Online tracts with a gospel outline and a response form were available, but these were overwhelmingly in English. 3. Evangelistic – (late 1990s to present) Online tracts with snippets of audio and video and testimonies and links to items of interest to Western non-Christians are available. These same post-modern, Western-oriented websites are translated into various major languages in an effort to “reach the world for Jesus.” 4. Ethnically Aware – (2005 into the future) Indigenous missionaries and experienced Western missionaries combine to do highly contextualized and appropriate websites in their own languages and cultures without any corresponding English language website being established. These websites then link with on-the-ground efforts by those same agencies. The Western missionary may act as a technical and strategic adviser, but the design is done by national Christians who know that culture and its nuances. The first three phases were good in their time and place but they occurred with little or no reference to modern missiological insights. Internet evangelists and cybermissionaries are beginning to understand the importance of learning language, culture and contextualization. Thus it is this last Ethnically Aware phase that is the true future of cybermissions.

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In 2006, the Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture indicated:

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The Internet is also changing the ways people of faith spread their beliefs and make converts. Many examples of online recruitment by religious groups exist. Various books and online resources have been created to provide guidance in what has been referred to as “e-vangelism”—for example, Careaga (1999) offers guidelines for doing “surf evangelism in online conferences” or through visiting web sites. Online recruitment can take different forms through groups creating web sites to inform people about their religion and community, or through individuals visiting chat rooms or joining an e-mail list with the aim of presenting a purposeful religious presence in that group of online users. While in some cases religious organizations promote and encourage these activities in a topdown manner, providing resources, in many instances individual Internet-savvy religious practitioners undertake these tasks on their own. Many Christian organizations have described the Internet as a potential “mission field.” Ministries such as the Billy Graham Center (www.gospelcom.net/bgc/) and the International Bible Society (www.gospelcom.net/ibs/) have produced online resources and even offer conferences to train would-be online missionaries. Otherweb sites are designed as interactive tracts, such as Who is Jesus? (www.whoisjesus-really.com/main.htm) presenting an apologetics argument about the person of Jesus Christ. Yet e-vangelism is not just an evangelical or Protestant phenomenon. E-vangelism has been given official sanctioning and support by the Catholic Church in official Vatican online documents (Pontifical Council for Social Communication, 2002a, 2002b) and in a book by Catholic educators presenting a theology of ministry for the Internet (Zukowski & Babin, 2002). Using the Internet as a tool for proselytizing is also found amongst other religious communities. One interesting example is how some sectors of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism have developed web sites as tools to reach out to secular Jews, examples being Chabad.org (www.chabad.org/) and Shofar News (www.shofar.net/site/index.asp). Many creative uses of the Internet for missionary activities continue to surface online.

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