Church in RL v. Church in SL

I went to church twice today...sort of.

This morning I headed into KC to go to worship service at Shawnee Park (my home church where I grew up). I needed a little "introvered extrovert" time and church was the perfect place to recharge. I was able to be around people, instead of alone in my apartment, but I didn't have to really talk to anyone either. Lucky me, we sang some of my favorite songs and I was able to get much-needed hugs from my multiple sets of church parents.

Fast forward to this evening...

After I just couldn't take any more of "The Fox and the Jewel" for my Religion in Japan class, I hopped on Second Life. My avatar appeared in the last placed I'd visited which happened to be Koinonia Church, which is "affiliated" with the UCC. I figured there was definitely less of a chance I'd be hit on by half naked strange avatars there, so I decided to hang out for awhile.

And wow, I'm glad I did! I was able to meet the pastor of the Second Life (SL) church, Sophianne. In real life (RL) she's a Master of Divinity student at Candler divinity school which is a part of Emory University in Atlanta. She's writing her thesis on this sort of technological spiritual experience, and I'm looking forward to talking to her more about it in the future as I write my research paper at the end of the semester and develop my thesis topic.

Maybe this SL world isn't all bad. It's possible there are pockets of good intentions...I think so.

But once again it's strange for me, because as I sat there talking to the people who were hanging out at Koinonia, I was sitting in my apartment in my underwear drinking a beer and no one was the wiser!

Lindsey gets a Second Life

Okay I'll admit it (because that's all I do on this blog any more) I joined Second Life. After that discussion in class during our session on Durkheim (see post), I was curious.

So I made an avatar (named Lindsey Dayafter) and set off to explore this new online world. People have apparently been making a lot of money selling items and real estate in this second world. You can hold concerts and movie screenings, get married and even go to church...which is where I come in.

My intention behind joining Second Life is to explore the spiritual life that avatars (and the people behind them) have. Today I spent some time exploring different "houses of worship", from LifeChurch.tv's building, to the Church of Satan, to a Zen meditation center and finally a Catholic monastery. The picture above is of my avatar kneeling in prayer at a chapel in the monastery. It's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to going back to the various different places of worship to check out their services and discussion groups.

But here's the question- is this real spirituality, real religious devotion? I mean, you can see quite clearly that my avatar, Lindsey Dayafter, is kneeling and praying in the Second Life world, but in all honestly I was eating lunch and watching *cringe* Maury while my she was being pious. Hopefully I'll be able to talk to people and find out what this means to them, if they do this with devotion or just for fun.

The internet is such a strange new world that absolutely fascinates me...especially when religion is involved. Hmm...do I smell a thesis topic?

----EDIT---

Apparently Lindsey Dayafter is quite the pluralist-


Meditating at a Buddhism and Yoga center (it's also a nightclub and has a stage for concerts)


Meditating at a Shinto shrine which also had a giant gold Buddha next to it


Worshiping at that Shinto shrine

(Lindsey's been busy)