Dust Up at UR over Virtual Chruch!

Last week, Doug Estes, the writer of a new book called Sim Church posted on Out of Ur what was essentially a response to my thoughts in previous Ur articles regarding the idea of Virtual Church. He wanted to avoid responding to me by name, but there were too many pointed comments to avoid the conclusion. 

You can check in out here: "In Defense of Virtual Church."

I wrote and sent a response that was pretty quickly made superfluous by the (now) 87 (and counting!) comments on the original post. 

I reproduce some of it here. I hope you'll read it (and the original article that inspired it) and come back here to answer this question: What do you think of this debate? 

It's my contention it's an important one to have (in fact, I think I need to write a post on why!)- but I'd like to know what you all think. 

Here's my response to Mr. Estes:

October 27, 2009

Virtual Church is STILL a Bad Idea

Online churches are missing a few essential ingredients.

by Bob Hyatt

**Editor's Note: I apologize for the lack of posts in recent days. We've been experiencing some technical difficulties. -Url Scaramanga**

I was disappointed to read Douglas Estes’ piece last week on Ur, for a number of reasons, but chief among them is this: it fails to deal substantively with a single serious critique that has been raised regarding virtual church. In fact, Mr. Estes not only fails to address the critique, but he seems to fail even to understand it.

So in a spirit of Christian love and good dialogue, let me respond point by point!

First, Mr. Estes asserts that critique of virtual church can be boiled down to “Internet campuses and online churches are not true churches because they don’t look like and feel like churches are expected to look like and feel like (in the West, anyway).”

Respectfully, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, my concern about internet church is that it’s too much like what we expect (and want) church to look and feel like (at least in the West).

Video venues and internet church are the logical next step to the celebrity and consumer culture of America, and they represent a threat to both the overall maturity of the Body of Christ and our counter-cultural mandate. Celebrity elevation of pastors who have begun to franchise themselves and their “brand” around the nation should concern us for a number of reasons I’ve outlined elsewhere—they draw down people and resources from other church communities and they are unable to do mission-critical activities.

I’d say those are pretty substantial concerns.

Second, this article repeats what I see as the major scriptural argument in favor of virtual church—“Nowhere in the Bible does it preclude online church.” The argument from silence, as we all remember from high school debate class, is the weakest. And in this case, I believe the Bible isn’t silent. Let me ask very plainly...

READ THE REST AT OUT OF UR 

Comments

[Mike Swalm]

bob,

have been following the out of ur blog storm and just got my leadership journal yesterday...pretty fascinating stuff. while i have yet to read doug estes' book, i do plan to do so, if only because i've yet to see, in the vast amount of literature out there, a substantive and theologically rigorous defence of "virtual" church. much of what i read is trying to show how close "virtual" church is to "brick and mortar" church, addressing, as you say, a critique that i don't really see made often. our concern should not be how it looks but whether the movement is faithful to the spirit Christ displayed in establishing the church.

blessings on you from the frigid north!

mike (from canada)

[robbymac]

Bob,

Good response! When I first heard that people were suggesting "Virtual Church", I was sure it was a parody or a spoof or just a silly April Fool's Day joke. That people are actually taking it seriously, well, I'm at loss for words...

Good thing you're not. :)

[Neal Locke]

I think it's a little bit arrogant to critique the legitimacy of something you've never experienced firsthand. Spend a little time in a virtual church community (there are thousands of them) and then make a critique from an informed point of view. As a church planter in virtual space...I feel no real need to give your point much consideration until you do, and will just happily continue about the work God has called me to do.

[bobhyatt]

Ahh.. the trump card. God called you to do it. WHat if you are wrong, though? What if God called me to critique virtual church and sound a warning?

Virtual space is an oxymoron- and there aren't "thousands" of them- not even by the most ardent fan's estimation.

AND... please don't tell me you think I need to spend some time as either a Democrat or a Republican before I can say a word about their philosophy, right? Do I need to spend time among the Hindus before I declare their gods false? No?

While spending time in those places helps, and yes- I said the same thing to those criticizing the emerging church a few years back, that was mainly because they criticized what we did- not whether we were even a church in the first place. My contention is that true ecclesia can't exist in the oxymoron of virtual space. Bits and pieces of it, yes. But you can no more have an online church than you can have an online marriage.