Someone new commented on my last post about LifeChurch.tv in Second Life. The poster made a really good point that I am responding to at length in this post, instead of cramming it all into a comment post. So, here's his post and my response. I get a little long-winded, which I apologize for. There are several things that have entered my thinking recently and caused me to keep writing. Certain aspects of my most recent class have been intriguing.

The Comment: The amazing thing is, though, LifeChurch has seen dozens of salvations of Second Life that ARE real and have been followed up in Real Life. So I agree that missionaries should not jump on some kind of bandwagon, but at the same time churches and people that have the resources should definitely meet people where they are, even if it means creating an avatar to do so.

The Response (which is more like a discussion): It's good to hear that the SL effort is being fruitful on the offline world for LC.tv. That’s reason for praise and celebration, indeed. I do still think we can raise and discuss questions about LC.tv’s approach. Here’s my very lengthy elaboration on why I think this:

My contention is that building a virtual megachurch may not be the way to go in SL--that it may undermine real relationships in the long run because of the very underlying idea that makes SL successful as a social network. That's why I think other ideas like the confessional may be valid approaches to explore (although I have no research to back that up—obviously much more research is needed). There isn’t exactly a book on evangelism or missiology for this medium.

The idea about masks is at the crux of this. This isn't really a question about whether LC.tv is doing something wrong--but rather, what is the best evangelistic approach to take given the context of masked people within what I would consider a new type of culture? Many media ministries can claim some effectiveness--and a measure of fruit. But that doesn't mean the end always justifies the means. Televangelism is a pretty good example of this, in my opinion. Looking at hard, ethical questions of missiology and cross-cultural communication in a web 2.0 world is a valid pursuit. I'm also advocating exploring approaches that seek to understand the epistemological and spiritual reality of a given medium and culture (in this case, the virtual reality world of SL), and respond accordingly.

The Wired article I cited points out an important finding--that commercial brand marketers are largely failing in SL. If we don't come to understand why this is the case, I think more marketing-oriented evangelism approaches may share the same fate. Now, I'm not fan of commercial marketing to advance evangelism--I'll be clear on this--I'm very biased. And, I want to admit to my bias that I’m not a fan of LC.tv’s offline ministry model. I’ll have to risk that this admission might cause some people to write me off. Nonetheless, on this matter, the Wired article underscores the need to count the cost of how we evangelize. Clearly, Paul's hyperbolic charge to "become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some." [1 Corinthians 9:22 TNIV] shouldn't be used as an excuse to justify anything and everything with no regard for a medium’s effects on the message. That very passage, in fact, concerns embracing differences in religious culture and power structures.

Here’s another question to consider: why “brand” the effort in SL with LC.tv? If Christianity is known for disunity and hypocrisy in the real world by it’s various “branded” identities, why not enter SL without all those labels? It would seem like an opportunity to, perhaps, lose that baggage. What about the evangelistic effort requires LC.tv as and identifier? This connects back to the Wired article. Commercial brands may not work in SL. The level of mistrust toward brand marketing may be much higher. People may assume we have something to sell them. Branding may put the Gospel in this same commercial context, and be more repellant than attractive. The Church at large needs to consider this possible outcome. We can’t just think about who is converted (praise God for these), but we have to think about those we may alienate. Because I’m not talking about spiritual resistance to the Gospel (which I believe does exist). I’m talking about resistance to unbiblical elements of church culture we may bring with us online. (When I say unbiblical, I don’t mean wrong—I only mean that these cultural elements aren’t rooted in the bible or Christ, they’re just cultural.) SL has its own unique culture(s), and have we considered the cross-cultural implications of our communication in that medium? Clearly the commercial marketers highlighted in the Wired article have not.

So, should LC.tv close up shop in SL? No way, but neither should we avoid a discussion of the missiological questions that LC.tv in SL raises. So far, I’ve not read of these issues being thoroughly discussed in the blogosphere—but I must admit, I haven’t done a thorough search for it. So, as a student of communication, these posts are my effort to get this conversation into the foreground—moving beyond the easy publicity of being the first megachurch in SL. Plus, we can credit LC.tv for getting the whole idea of how to approach this type of evangelism on the table in the church.

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