Appeal and Benefits of Virtual Church Are Now International

The walls of the traditional church are disappearing or morphing into virtual constructs. Christians in other countries have made the Wimbledon Church Service their preferred one especially if it offers what a local congregation does not. Evangelism and church service have more power and reach than once imaginable via advances in technology.

Wimbledon International Church - Wimbledon, England

Christianity 3001 A.D.

What will Christianity look like in 500 or 1,000 years? While Christianity can still be integrated into past manifestations of its history, no matter how modern or contemporary it has become or is becoming, it is not necessarily a given that the distant future of this religion will be as recognizable as its past has been.

Some of the realities that may well come to pass in the future will, no doubt, also have their impact on Christianity. Some of these are briefly described below.

Christian cyborgs - A cyborg is a being that is composed of both cybernetic as well as organic components. To a limited extent cyborgs already exist today as technology works wonders with those who have had limbs amputated due to war, disease or other mishaps. When a future individual becomes more cybernetic than biological--perhaps some even out of choice--how would this reality impact its experience as a Christian? In such a case the person in question would be more a work of man than a work of God. Of course, it would still be God who gave humans the knowledge to enhance or refashion one of his creatures. Would cyborgs be the only ones who could share their faith with other cyborgs? How would they fit in when worshiping among biological Christians? Might not the ultimate symbol of their acceptance into the community of believers be a painting of Christ washing the feet of a Cyborg apostle at the last supper? Paul's familiar text about there not being neither slave nor freeman, Jew nor gentile, male nor female, may very well one day include, neither biological person nor cyborg. All are one in Christ.

Christian A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Entities - Some may scoff at the mere mention, but keep in mind that earlier generations had similar attitudes toward in-vitro humans, as well as the still-forbidden cloning of human beings. If one day A.I. persons can pass for human or accomplish most human activities except anatomical reproduction of offspring, how would Christianity deal with these seemingly improbable humans? They would be perhaps one of humanity's greatest scientific accomplishments. Already one can carry on conversations with proto-humans via computer that sometimes jars one's mind as how human they appear in their thought patterns and approaches. If free-will is built into these A.I. Christians, might they not also seemingly want to relate themselves both to the God of its human creators and to their designers themselves? Could these A.I. Christians also be considered one in Christ?

Interplanetary/interstellar Christians. These are not so unlikely as one might think. In a hundred years or less, when Christians are born on Mars or the moons of the gas giants, how would they relate to their savior who will not only come for those he originally promised to retrieve at the end of Earth's history, but to their off-world descendants who also have a hope in the return of Christ. Centuries later when humanity leaves its solar system behind, what will Christ's return to Earth mean to those who are light years from Earth?

Encounter with a Spirit-Filled Man

Rolando first caught my attention in a Sabbath afternoon hour of prayer. He came with his Adventist girlfriend and her daughter from a previous marriage. We all welcomed him with sincerity knowing that he possibly wasn't of the Advent faith.

After that initial contact I noted that no one ever befriended him and this seemed to cause his Adventist girlfriend concern. When I took it upon myself to approach the man, I could see her gratefulness by her friendly manner every time she saw me every time we met.

I learned bits and pieces of what he believed and it fascinated me while it alarmed others. In a small study group in which the pastor was present Rolando mentioned that he had studied metaphysics before he had become interested in Christianity. I was the only one in the group that responded positively to his statement.

Later that week he told me he was in the process of reading the entire Bible and that he was making great headway. I envied the man for his thoroughness and lamented by obsessive detail to footnotes and meditating on just one verse which causes by complete reading of the Bible to proceed very slowly.

Yesterday, again I noticed that no one was engaging him in conversation after church and that he was walking around looking for someone to talk to. I took it upon myself to approach him and greet him, if nothing else. The conversation we had was mostly him talking and I'd pipe in bits and pieces that I felt were of value. As he spoke I was concerned that perhaps someone more traditional in Adventist beliefs should be talking to him, but I quickly asked God to help me say the right thing. As he spoke of his attendance at other Christian churches I found myself trying to carefully present the value of the Advent message. In part I did it for his Adventist girlfriend whom I knew would appreciate someone saying positive things about her church of choice to a man that was becoming more and more important in her formerly single life.

What Rolando told me would, no doubt, alarm most Adventists in attendance that morning at my conservative/mainstream Adventist church. He told me that in a church which he couldn't quite identify he had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands by the minister of that particular church. He described that he himself had not fallen to the floor as had others when similarly touched on the forehead. But he assured me that the realization and the enhanced spiritual altered state of consciousness that he experienced then and continued experiencing for days after that were the most life-changing and gratifying experiences he had ever encountered.

Years ago I myself would have run away or excused myself as courteously as I could after having heard him talk of this Spirit gift or Spirit baptism.

He told me that he came to his senses in the midst of his heightened sense of being with the realization that even though he'd like to only focus on this awareness of the Holy Spirit he realized that he had duties to his fellow man and their problems, as well.

He told he that having been a communist he had immersed himself in Marxism as well as philosophy and metaphysics when he lived in Cuba. But, he said, nothing compared to the joy and excellence of being immersed in the Holy Spirit experience.

I shared with him what I could courteously about my visit a year ago to a charismatic church. The only complaint I cared to tell him was that the Christian rock music used almost non-stop in the service was too loud for my ears. He said that it was probably a good idea to have Christian rock to keep the young people coming to church. The church was full of young people so perhaps his statement was valid.

I wanted to tell him of my experiences with the Holy Spirit. We exchanged cell phone numbers so perhaps one day soon we'll get the chance to have another conversation like the one we had yesterday.

When his Adventist girlfriend showed up and said they had to go home to lunch, he thanked me and told her about the incredible spiritual conversation we had been having. It was more me listening to his experiences, but perhaps that was more important. I did very little witnessing or evangelizing and what little I shared about Adventist authors I had read in the past few years, was of interest to him.

Now my question is this. Is this man and his experience of Holy Spirit baptism as valid as that of the Spirit-filled Adventists in attendance on this past Sabbath morning? Or, more alarmingly, is it more valid that anything I've encountered in my many years in the Adventist movement?

I'll need to study more, pray more and encounter more people who claim they have a valid experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Primitive Futurism - Futuristic Primitivism

Alternate titles: Savage Futurism - Futuristic Savagery, Primitive Future - Future Primitive

Remember when families sat around the dinner table and talked to each other? How about families visiting each other or visiting friends or church members? Today the average child in developed societies has a television, an Internet portal, and a cell phone to keep them as far away from other family members as possible.

In the pristine perfection of the Garden of Eden, and of non-contemporary family life, people were not as dependent on or obsessed with technology, as they are today, and no doubt, as they'll continue to be tomorrow. Every use of technology has its price. Yes, it improves our lives to a certain extent, but it also ruins something simpler and more natural that used to define being human in a very different way than it is defined now.

With all the gadgets and our dependence on them, we're now closer to being cybernetic organisms than our ancestors were. A cyborg was not made in the image of God. A cyborg was made in the image of 20th century humankind.

Perhaps our goal should be to travel backward/forward to a futuristic primitivism where instead of relying on high octane vehicles or their future equivalents, they would be replaced by recyclable bicycles, or wind driven devices that harness the clean power of the wind or the sun.

In H.G. Wells' novel the Time Machine, 802,701 years after a nuclear war forced humanity to live an almost Edenic life, it only appeared that way until closer scrutiny revealed that the price of a simpler and carefree world had its ugly underside. Perhaps a conscious return to naturalism or intentional primitivism is not really an option unless humanity is forced into it by forces beyond its control.

Only the idyllic Garden of Eden and future paradise, simplicity reborn, are the only viable options towards a return to a genuine intentional primitivism, a futuristic primitivism.

I, for one, hope never to see or use any of the following devices in a perfect future world, whether in this reality or in a transcendent one: I-Phones, I-Pods, Laptop Computers, Cell Phones, DVD players, CD players, televisions, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, automobiles, planes, radios. Yes, they can be wonderful devices that transport you to places and states of mind that you normally wouldn't visit. Then again, perhaps that is not a good thing.

Will there be technology in heaven and the new earth? Would it be heaven or a new earth without those reminders of our artificial life in this world?

Halographic Prayers Underground

Alternate title: World Wide Web 2050

In a special holographic circular room your entire body is connected by wireless electrodes to the supercomputer that colors your seemingly endless room by purposely preventing you from ever hitting any of the walls.

You wear no goggles. There is nothing but yourself and the almost perfect illusion that you are in bright sunshine or in the mountains of the distant past, as you meet and experience people and locations that would have been unthinkable 43 years ago.

The clothes you try on are sent to your home. The furniture you sit on has been shipped and will arrive there by morning, or sooner, for you to enjoy. The virtual people you meet will seem to know you perfectly if ever you meet them in the flesh.

As you sit in the holographic church, or temple, and worship the real God in a real heaven, you wonder how anyone ever risked the safety and the variety that the holographic web now affords you. You find it preposterous that humanity once lived in the precarious world before the free nations of the world had to go into hiding to avoid the nonstop bombing of the cities above ground.

Joys of Devolution

Q: Are We Not Men?

A: We Are Devo!