RevolutionNYC/Sundance/YouTube, One Punk Under God Commercial

Some stories that I missed, which cropped up on WWRN's pages:

• Faith group urges eBay boycott over relic sales
• Beliefnet gives spiritual melting pot new shape
• Boston cardinal starts new Vatican blog
• eBible is latest sign of Web faith
• Intimate Confessions Pour Out on Church’s Web Site
• Divine Inspiration From the Masses
• Cyber-savvy pastors turn to the blog to reach new, younger audience
• Divine inventions: Gadgets hot source of spirituality
• Religion Today
• 'Godcasting:' Love that new-time religion
• Religious blogs test beliefs, power structure
• Downloading God: Churches use podcasts to spread the gospel; faithful turn up volume
• Website attacks Da Vinci Code
• Atheist gives eBay bidders a chance to save his soul
• Life’s age-old mystery: What’s it worth to you?
• A More Intimate Sabbath
• St. Blog's cyberpews packed
• A Pulpit Online for Critics of 'The Da Vinci Code' Film
• D.C. church's 'Daniel' blog seizes preachable moment

Nuns on the web: The Sunday Times, Confessional blogs of the internet nuns, November 26, 2006 "Sister Julie Vieira, from Monroe, Michigan, wrote in her blog, A Nun’s Life: "More and more religious communities are getting ‘wired’ . . .. to spread the Good News and to tell people about who they are and what they stand for." Here's a link to A Nun's Life. There was also an earlier, related article in Time Magazine, Today's Nun Has A Veil--And A Blog, 13 Nov 06 which notes, in relation to the website of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, that "There's also a downloadable song of the month donated by a Christian artist, in response to the focus groups' revelation that "music was one of the highest ways to communicate with" young people, says vocation director Sister Julie Ann Sheahan. Thus the order's radio and TV ads feature a theme song based on a Franciscan hymn. The tune is also available on the website as a ringtone. Its title: Called to Be."

Blogger speaks (albeit briefly): BBC World Service, Heart and Soul, Sunday 22nd October Listen Again by following the above link until next weekend. Contains contribution from myself and alt.muslim re. religious podcasting in Islamic contexts.

smh.com, Jesus in cyberspace - you'd better believe it, 17 Oct 06 "Sydney Anglicans have appointed their first web evangelist to oversee a new, internet-based ministry."

Cardinal blogs one post, and hits Reuters headlines: Reuters, Boston cardinal adopts new habit with Vatican blog, 21 September 06 Also see Cardinal Seán’s Fall Trip To Rome

Reuters/Yahoo!, Desperate Catholics find "rent-a-priests" online, 30 Aug 06. "Roman Catholics shunned by the official church are "renting" married priests in times of crisis and celebration.

"They turn to http://www.rentapriest.com, a Web site with 2,500 Catholic priests in a national database known as "God's Yellow Pages.""

AFP, China shuts blog by Tibetan author that wished Dalai Lama happy birthday, 31 July 2006

BBC, Is the new Superman meant to be Jesus?, 28 July 2006 "Is the Superman Returns movie meant to remind us of the Bible? And if so, is it blasphemy?

"Well here's the story."

Reuters/yahoo!, Ancient Asian beliefs spin new Web for India online, 26 June 2006, "Firms in India are now turning to the ancient philosophies of vaastu shastra and Chinese feng shui, used for centuries to bring balance and harmony between man and the environment, in a bid to boost their businesses through "balanced" Web pages."

BBC News, Spiritual challenge for gamers, 4 June 2006 refers to the Christian Game Developers Foundation. I guess some games are difficult to 'sanitize' whilst retaining their excitement, unless you play sports or driving games (like myself - although I'm hardly proficient.

AFP, Devil theories spread across Internet on '666', 6 June 2006, "Websites devoted to 666 were the reference point for rumours of meteors smashing into earth or of pregnant women trying to avoid giving birth to prevent their babies being born with the mark of the devil."

Reuters/Yahoo, UCLA Egyptologists launching online encyclopedia, 28 April 2006, "Frustrated with the poor quality of many Web sites dealing with ancient Egypt, a professor at the University of California has decided to create a massive online encyclopedia devoted solely to Egyptology."

MSNBC/WWRN, At the comics shop, religion goes graphic, 25 April 2006, refers to ComicBookReligion.com and also includes quotes from Greg Garrett, the author of Holy Superheroes! Exploring Faith & Spirituality in Comic Books - which sounds like an interesting volume.

USATODAY.com - Let my people download! Passover texts available online, 6 April 2006 "Online texts particularly attract young Jewish adults who no longer live near family or in a neighborhood where bound Haggada texts are free or easily purchased, says Roger Bennett of Reboot (www.rebooters.net), a creative network of Jews in publishing, music and film."

USATODAY.com - Long-lost gospel of Judas recasts 'traitor', 6 April 2006 this includes a link to the document at National Geographic, The Lost Gospel of Judas

ContractorUK, Man tries to sell his soul online, 8 April 2006, "According to Reuters, Taobao had no set terms and conditions for soul-selling but cancelled the auction, citing not enough proof the goods could be delivered.

"Porter Erisman, spokesman for Taobao's parent, Yahoo-backed Alibaba.com, told the news agency that they were not against the auctioneering of souls, in principle."

AP, 'Kosher' Phone Merges Technology, Faith, 31 Mar 06, "It sounds like the setup for a punch line: What do you get when you cross an ultra-Orthodox rabbi with a mobile phone? But the "kosher phone" is real and its developers are serious about looking beyond the religious enclaves of Israel. Some Arab companies even have inquired about the phone's main feature: keeping out sex lines and other worldly temptations."

USA Today/yahoo, Christian group backs off case against blog parody, 24 Mar 06 "A Christian group that promotes heterosexuality Thursday quietly dropped its beef against a blogger who poked fun at it."

South Park has been generating internet traffic recently with the controversy surrounding a 'Scientology Episode' [easy to locate via Google]. Details on the story here from the Guardian, Isaac Hayes quits South Park after it satirises Scientology, 15 Mar 06. Official Church of Scientology site here. Huffington Post 'discussion' here . Isaac Hayes' site here.

USATODAY.com - 'Godcasts' spread word on the Web, 16 Mar 06: "Increasingly, houses of worship and individuals are using the Internet to reach adherents and those outside their communities, in a trend sometimes called 'Godcasting.'"

A couple of items which caught my attention today: Mission Network News, Christians website are attracting many from the Muslim world, February 16, 2006 "While hard-line Muslim nations make accessing Christians websites difficult, it's not impossible and these websites are making an incredible impact for the kingdom.

"Strategic Resource Group (SRG) helps organizations reach out to the lost inside the 10/40 Window. SRG reports Christian websites are receiving nearly 9 million hits per month from the Middle East. One Christian organization hosting chat rooms for Arabic-speaking web users estimates that more than 42,000 people visit those sites daily."

Also this excellent article in today's Guardian, which has a small reference to the web: The Guardian, Everybody's kung fu fighting, February 16, 2006 "Like most of his generation, Shi has meditated a great deal on politics, business and technology. He is a part-time deputy in the National People's Assembly, where he says he was chosen as the first representative of the nation's Buddhists. He set up Shaolin's website, which was one of the first institutional homepages in the country when it went online in 1996. More recently, he has pushed the commercial, legal and public relations interests of the monastery."

Wall Street Journal/WWRN, Zoroastrians use Internet dating to rescue religion, 6 Feb 06, "To replenish their ranks, followers of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, who is thought to have lived about 3,500 years ago, are extolling not just the modern benefits of fertility clinics but also those of Internet dating.

"The high-technology push to connect and reproduce Parsis comes as education and work opportunities pull a younger generation into the global work force, delaying love, marriage and children. Like other ethnic groups, Parsis in India are trying to adapt to a changing world without changing too much themselves."

CNN, Review: 'The Bible Game' is a testament to your knowledge, January 13, 2006

Mzansi Afrika, Jewish community in Uganda which in turn linked to BBC, Photo journal: Uganda's Jewish community

NYT/International Herald Tribune, Never on the Sabbath: For some online retailers, it works, 10 Jan 06 " Jewish eBay sellers who observe the Sabbath and have eBay stores, Steinberg said, often use "vacation settings" that delist products on the Sabbath." I haven't really explored the commercial sector in my research to date, but it certainly has potential, as this provoking article proves.

'Shake it out for Jesus': Churches co-opt hip-hop | csmonitor.com

A TV pilot with Jesus as co-pilot | csmonitor.com