The Bible in the Digital Space
July 14th, 2009
Today I presented my paper, The Bible in the Digital Space at the Christianity in the Digital Space Symposium at St. John’s, Durham University. To download a copy click here: The Bible in the Digital Space (1119)
Note: Can you let me know if you can’t download this! Thanks.
Filed under Bible Engagement, resourcing | |
5 Responses to “The Bible in the Digital Space”
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Enjoyed your talk mate. Semantic Bible stuff is brilliant, and the Facebook bible page is simple yet very effective.
Thanks Mark, that was really interesting! This is the first conference I’ve been to that I’ve actively had internet in front of me, it’s a really interesting experience - still going in, but maybe not to the same depth, but I can look up particular items for more clarity whilst you’re talking! Bex
Thanks Mark and Bex, really great to meet you! Hope to stay in touch.
God bless,
Mark
Mark, thanks for posting the paper. Just wanted to share a little example, I worked up of something similar to semantic linking: http://biblewebapp.com/. If you hover over a word in Greek or Hebrew it will match the word in English translations like NASB or KJV.
Oh cool… I’m an old Johnian (ex student of St John’s)… and like you I’m fascinated by the subject of making Christianity relevant to today’s society.
It constantly amazes me to see churches and Christian groups dragging themselves along in their well worn ruts, scraping along the sides and bottom and digging them a little deeper all the time… ruts which are so deep that the rest of society can’t see their occupants any longer - not even the tops of their heads! And, conversely, because they can’t see out of their ruts, the occupants get tunnel vision and think that they’re making a difference, when all the time they’re ‘invisibly irrelevant’.
It seems to me that these aren’t ruts, they’re trenches. And their earnest occupants often see themselves as ‘embattled soldiers’ living out a war which, in reality, is largely in their heads - at least, in most of Western society today. If only they’d take time to step away from their ‘churchianity’, live for a while in the ‘real world’, and ask the up-to-date Holy Spirit to show them how to make themselves relevant again.
I think we need to pray for the ’salvation’ of the Church before we pray for the salvation of society at large.
So, well done Mark for leaving the security of ‘trenchianity’ and venturing into cyber ‘no-man’s land’. Actually, it’s not really no man’s land, because there are many excellent Christian websites out there. But as you say, they are mostly waiting to get ‘hit on’, rather then going out and winning hits. It needs people like you (and I) to stand up and get shot at (lol… e-bullets are generally painless) so that we can direct those shooters to relevant Christian e-spaces.
I’ve been trying to use social networking to direct people ‘heavenward’ for some years now. I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of fruit but that may be because I’m not primarily an evangelist. Perhaps St John’s and other Christian colleges need to start offering courses in cyber evangelism.
With social networking we can to some extent reach into countries otherwise closed to the gospel from the outside. What an opportunity! But equally ‘closed off’ to the light of Christ are many many young people in Britain today. I’ll pray for you as you seek to pioneer a way forward for the Church to reach into cyber space… as you prepare your cyber space mission… as you set up your cyber space station (so many analogies!)… and reach across the dark void of Satan’s territory into young lives who need Jesus’ light and love.
I’m reading “The Bible in Digital Space” with interest. I’ll get back to you when I have more comments. You might, in turn, like to check out an article I wrote a while ago (but none-the-less relevant) called “A Vision of a Church for the 21st Century.” It lays out what I see to be the groundwork for a style of church which I think could turn the world upside down, again, for Jesus.
You can find it here: http://myesights.faithweb.com/writing/churchvision/
Blessings
John
P.S. Get back to me by e-mail or on Facebook if you want to