Hugh's thoughts on the term's work

Online Theology description

During the year as a class we have experienced many different forms of cyber theology. Some were humorous others were more serious. These sites include the http://ship-of-fools.com/ (this site is humorous and if a fun platform to access religion in a very unconventional context there are forums games and online shops to enhance the very unique experience.) And http://www.oxford.anglican.org/ (this site is about the oxford diocese which is quiet serious and allows a more conventional approach to religion.) As a class we all watched Dr herring participate in a second life service in which a the person conducting the service was from the noth of engerland and we were able to engage with there avatar dispight the distance we were from each other.

Online Theology reflection

Prior to our experiences with online theology I had little idea of the vast  amount of forms in which theology could be conduced and now after participating and experiencing a few of them I now feel I have a border knolige of the world in which we live. We have seen humor being used in the proses of worship and this seems to be a good way to allow more people to engage in the world of worship. During are studies we came across a web site called second life which allowed people to construct a online church and hold regular services as if it were a real church.

What Alice thinks

This term we have seen a lot of different ways of looking at theology through the internet. Some of these ways are the Diocese website (http://www.oxford.anglican.org/) where you can explore missions, help schools, explore living faith, go on links to other theological website. Other websites we went on are the Ship of Fools (http://ship-of-fools.com/) which brings a humurous aspect to theology. There were a lot of things on this website that you can look at including communtiy where you can discuss things with oither people, Mystery worshipper which is a mystery preacher, Gadgets for God which has a wide range of religous gadgets and more! The other website we went on was 2nd life which is a virtual world for adults where there are chapels and churches were real priests do services in the morning and evening.

Ben reviews the term

This term in theology we have been learning about how theologians can use the internet to study God. Firstly we blogged about everyday life and how religion effected it, then we went on to twitter we discussed can someone ever say anything of real value in 140 characters. We tried to describe a School Eucharist in the space that twitter allows someone to write. The third week we looked at the Oxford diocese, the diocese is a website that tells you all about Christianity in the county of oxford, it is really informative and can help you if you are trying to arrange your marriage and other things like that. On the forth week we looked at a website called a ship of fools, it sort makes fun out of religion, we discussed whether humour can be used in religion to help younger people to understand it and be interested in it. The following week we had a debate about it which was very interesting to hear what other people thought about it. 

Then we had a lesson with our other theology teacher she showed us a website called Second Life. It is a RPG,  its like its name describes, a second life. you can do all of the things you can do in life you can walk around, talk to people and most importantly you can go to a church service on it. We experience this first hand later on in the week; when we went to a church service on it. The last week we discussed how you can make Eucharist's more modern through the use of technology, we discussed how the first theologians to use the internet did it and how priest were using technology at the moment in their services. Then we had a go at presenting our own eucharists to the rest of our class using technology and the inter net to help us. 

Louisa's reflections

This term the whole of 3rd form, have been basing theology on the internet. We started with blogging onto 'our' weebly 3rd form page website, writing and explaining how we are researching theology on the internet. Every single person in the 3rd form joined in with this process, also typing 140 charters into a twitter feed, fed through the 3rd from twitter page. We wrote about our life's and how theology can be linked into one of our normal days, it showed us that it can be quite easy or difficult to find a way of theology being in our lives. All theology sets joined together and have been studying a social website called 'Second Life'. We were shown by a teacher who's Second life character had joined the church service. It was projected onto the screen in chapel, with everyone sitting and watching. One of the members of Second Life was communicating with the teacher through text and microphone. We listened to a different type of service based on real life through a computer for about 30 minutes.            

I enjoyed blogging and producing twitter feeds because it was a way of communicating about theology in a much different way that we normally do. I enjoyed it because it was different and we don't do very often so I think it made it more interesting. I didn't enjoy the Second Life Service because it didn't keep my attention and I found it hard to concentrate because the leaders voice wasn't very enthusiastic and sound quite dull to listen to. I was much different though for having a service on the internet and it was much different to a normal Friday evening service.

Lily writes:

This term we have studied Theology on the internet. We have visited websites with a theological base, for example the Diocese in Oxford (http://www.oxford.anglican.org/). On this website you can explore the different aspects of the Diocese online, and discover missions, their ideas on social justice, schools, extra information, news, living faith, links and how you can be more religious. We did a prep on this website to have further knowledge on the diocese and what it does. We visited a website called Ship of Fools (http://ship-of-fools.com/) which has a humorous aspect on Christianity. We did a prep on this and whether comedy in religion is right or wrong. We wrote some twitter feeds and had a look at Dr Herring using Second Life in a service online and studied how it works and how it can be used religiously. We wrote about what Second Life is and how it is theological.

I found studying theology on the internet an interesting way of looking at how it can be used in the 21st century. It showed the class that on the internet you can find a lot of information and varying websites to use for studying theology. Studying theology in this way shows there's a wide range of theology-based online "worlds" that can be acsessed by anyone. I enjoyed this more than simple writing in books because of the different things we did and it was a good way of studying in an interesting way.

Kate's thoughts

This term, we have been looking at theology sites, such as second life- second life is a virtual world, it was not made purely for religious reasons, but as it is so similar to real life it includes religion, but as it's on the computer it can be depicted in new diffrent ways. we also looked at the ship of fools, this website looks at diffrent religious veiws using humour, this then led to a class debate on weather humour is appropriate in theology, where both groups had strong oppinions, and valid points. We also looked at the website of the diocese of oxford. We also used blogs and twitter to our religious views. These websites have all found ways of using the internet for theology. We also came up with our service using the computer and the internet. We saw and used diffrent ways of presenting theoloogy and religion, through humour, as well as traditional and informative.

We looked at virtual theology, the aim was to analyse what we thought about all the things we saw. We sarted by writting blogs and twitted feeds, to voice our own views on the world around us throught the internet, I think this is an obvious , easy, practicle and already well used, and there is a space for theology to be voiced over blogs and twitter. We then caried on to see what other people had written about theology on the internet, on the ship of fools website, we saw how people wrote about their veiws on theology through humour, it wasnt only atheist views, but religious people, taking the mick out of their own religions. I liked looking at second life, it showed us that we can look at things diffrently, ande it works being on the internet being avalliable to everyone. We then also looked at second life, it is a virtual life, and like real life it depictes religion in new and diffrent ways, although I thought this could be a new and inventive way of looking at religion, I thought the service seemed quite restrained, and not using all the resourses avaliable on the internet.

Tobi's assessment of the term

So far this year we have looked at a variety of different internet theology! We have seen many humorous ones where we went onto a website called ship of fools which brings out the humor in religion. Many others were more serious like the service which we experienced an online serviced through second life! We also looked at the diocese of Oxford, http://www.oxford.anglican.org/.   The ship of fools, http://ship-of-fools.com/ , is a site which uses religion to enthrall into an amusing and joyful experience. It has many sections which include ‘Gadgets for God’ and ‘Mystery worshiper’. The online service was a virtual service done by the avatar of Dr Herring. She controlled the avatar on second life which she could type to the Chaplain. The Chaplain could speak to us. The Diocese of Oxford website was a formal informative site.

I enjoyed looking at the ship of fools as it was very funny and interesting. It is an acceptable way of approaching religion as it invites many more people who would not otherwise become a Christian. The online service was a new and interesting experience for me; I felt that technology would need to improve further before a service on the internet can feel like a proper service. The technology needs to be good enough so the service can run completely smoothly. The diocese of Oxford is excellent as it is very informative although it could be slightly more accessible to more people.