- Generative artificial intelligence will become significantly disruptive of many sectors this year. Education practices will change quickly as a result of this but education will be but one of many areas of life to be affected.
- No progress for those seeking marriage equality in the Church of England. There will be a lot of talk about moving towards some form of official blessings for same-sex couples which would have the effect of thwarting those seeking actual equality, making it more difficult to achieve. Further division amongst pro-gay activists in the Church of England.
- Indyref 2 will not happen on 19 October 2023 as Nicola Sturgeon had hoped, which is a shame for those seeking to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK as the autumn will be the high water mark for the Indepedence movement. It will be downhill into the next General Election after that.
- Trump and Biden will both declare that they intend to run for the US presidency in 2024 and American politics will continue to be all about Donald Trump.
- Covid recovery remains bumpy, particularly through supply-chain problems due to mismanagement of Covid in China.
- No conclusive end to the war in Ukraine this year.
- Governments in Westminster and Holyrood will announce some kind of “new deal” for the National Heath Service.
- UK Government will not succeed in blocking Scottish Gender Recognition Reform.
- Liam McArthur’s bill in the Scottish Parliamant to allow doctors to participate in the killing of terminally ill patients will fail to receive parliamentary approval but will receive more support than similar proposals have before.
- Changes announced to the UK honours system, perhaps at the time of the Coronation, to remove references to empire. OBE becomes Order of British Excellence.
7 responses to “10 Discussion Points about the Church and Virtual Reality”
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Hear here. (Especially the evolutionary point.)
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…or even “hear hear”! Very pertinent in my neck of the woods, where the cyber-poor and the cyber-dinosaurs have their abode (and the second category is not necessarily related to the first other than in outcome).
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Excellent points.
I’ve been working in online Christian communities quite a while, and I’ve observed a couple of things that I think replicate mistakes in offline evangelism:
1) ‘Success’ is equated with numbers of followers not the quality of the interactions. So a lot of energy can be put into building up a following regardless of who the followers are. This often means attracting Christians who aren’t normally very interested in being online to your online project, rather than trying to make your online Christian project appealing to people who spend a lot of time online.
2) Events that are geared towards using the online media for evangelism and outreach almost always end up being evangelistic about online media not about Christianity
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I can’t access the blog to post comments – does this mean cyberpoverty may also stem from corporate repression? [These comments posted by Kelvin by request via email]
My ‘cyberpoverty’ is a deliberate choice – I sit in front of a computer all day so have deliberately chosen not to be online at home. Is this really a societal evil … ?
The web is already beset by megaphones and proverbial empty vessels can make the most noise – how do we distinguish between volume and quality – I can follow thousands of religious twitterings but who filters out the distortion? – c.f. The Guardian which is in the process of shedding journalists and filling its pages with ‘comment is free’ – aye, and you get what you pay for . . .
You do already provide ministries for the cyberpoor – they’re called churches – they have gravitas, space for quiet reflection, sanctuary from information overload, and a community – long may they continue.
Will there be a paywall to fund the virtual church – or will it be forced to rely on commercial sponsorship? A reading from the book of Numbers, brought to you in association with Lehman Brothers.
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[…] Kelvin is asking good questions again about the theology and praxis of The Church and Virtual Reality. He sets out questions enough for several doctoral thesis, but it was this that caught my eye. […]
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Two important aspects that I suggest need to be added to your list, Kelvin.
(a) the monetarisation of cyberspace, especially of social networking (making money out of ‘friendship’ is a big business), and
(b) the effects of social networking as a means of surveillance (that’s lateral, between friends, as well as by mega-corporations); how is our behaviour being modified by the collection of, and categorisation by, our personal data? -
Thanks, Eric, yes.
And important to recognise that the church is in the business of calling on people in relationship with it to cough up money too. It isn’t just big business.
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