What kind of community does the Internet build?

. . . perhaps the Internet does build "community," but what kind of community does it build?

It seems to me that, even in "community," the Internet is inherently isolating, depending as it does on corrupt notions of freedom and selfhood. The Internet may be the greatest tool of the modern age, but it comes with all the problematic dualities that this age and its products have had--both for good and bad, for weal and woe, for liberation and enslavement. Yet many today are unable to understand both the boon and the bane of the Internet, that it can, even while creating community, radically undermine community, and thus foster isolation.

The Internet is isolating because it subtly convinces people that fellowship and community can be had with only as much commitment as a click of a button. If I get bored, or frustrated, or angry, or hurt online, I can just log off, or connect to a different forum. The Internet is the ultimate voluntary society. And the voluntaristic impulse embedded in online interactions is destructive of real community. It erodes trust, and renders impossible the collective building of a shared history and a shared set of ideals.

The church, as a community, must do more than simply bless such an idea of community with tacit acceptance. Rather, the church ought to challenge it by living an authentic alternative. In preaching, worship, catechesis, and mission, the church has the opportunity to subvert the voluntaristic model of community many people learn from modern life, and from its most effective pedagogue, the Internet. The church can preach the good news that God in Christ established a community transcending our voluntarism. The church can teach about the meaning of the Gospel to an information-saturated people. And in mission with and among these same people the church can live out a constancy and patience that will not "log off" when times are difficult and relationships are strained.

Daniel M. Griswold - "Beyond the Hype: The Internet and the Church" Perspectives: Journal of Reformed Christian Thought January 2003.