Mr. Gruenewald's early efforts for LifeChurch.tv included a virtual church for the online Second Life community and a Google ad campaign to lure pornography consumers to the church instead.
Another element would be the ethical demand a holy place makes on people: to put it crudely, erasing a virtual church building might be part and parcel of existence in Second Life, whereas if Canterbury cathedral was demolished uproar would ensue.
Henderson believes this kind of virtual church service will be the next wave in how believers commune with God, not least because web 2.0 is about dissolving the border between real and virtual.
Sometimes (and this was particularly true of large ecclesiastical estates in northern Italy) lands were let out on perpetual hereditary lease for low rents a procedure that, in effect, often led to the virtual dispossession of church proprietors in favour of secular tenants.
The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Atlanta offers a virtual tour of the church and welcomes visitors with organ music.
The theologian Jonathan Edwards was suspicious of Christians who believed that a person could initiate his own salvation; Fox writes that Edwards saw such people as "virtual Trojans inside the church gates".
Well, certain members of Anonymous felt like that too, so they proceeded to launch a virtual offensive against the church, which led to the public service announcement embedded below and the release of personal information on Westboro Church leaders.
In North America, the centrality of the morning of the 25th of December as the time for the family to open presents has led, with the exception of Catholic and some Lutheran and Episcopal churches, to the virtual end of holding church services on that day, a striking illustration of the way societal customs influence liturgical practices.
In North America the centrality of the morning of the 25th of December as the time for the family to open presents has led, with the exception of Catholic and some Lutheran and Episcopal churches, to the virtual end of holding church services on that day, a striking illustration of the way societal customs influence liturgical practices.
To a large extent this identification and the virtual religious monopoly that the church has enjoyed since the 16th century have been artificially imposed.
