THE ONLINE CONFESSIONAL

This blog entry by Jenna Osiecki
The story: " Forgive us, father; we'd rather go online"

The analysis:

The article "Forgive us, Father; we'd rather go online" discusses websites that are hosted by churches that are actually online confessionals. The sites are places where people can anonymously post their deepest secrets for others to see and to get the bad deeds off of their chests. Other people who go on the sites can also post comments back to the confessors in response to their confessions. While there is a range of both positive and negative responses it is important to note that there are no trained counselors to monitor the posts that are going up, however some of the churches post the names of pastors and phone numbers to reach them at.

I found it interesting how our society has become so consumed by technology, and in the case of this article, the internet; that people are actually going online to confess their sins. While concept of an online confession does seem awfully like just a normal blog, the churches involvement in the matter makes it even more interesting; that they are getting involved in the pop culture phenomena of the internet and blogging.
It is also interesting to think about the new audience that the churches are reaching because of the confession sites, and the benefits that it has for the church.

This article is related to popular culture because of the way that the now almost every part of American society is accessible via internet. I find myself torn by this, and especially when I think about it on a personal level, because while the thought of confessing my sins on the internet and not actually having to face someone in person does sound intriguing, it makes me think about the way that people in society seem to be losing touch with one another, and this is another step in that direction. Today when you walk down campus everyone is plugged into either an iPod or cell phone, it seems as though nobody ever has any face to face contact with anyone anymore. It used to be that people would go to church to socialize, and now people hardly ever have to leave their house. I see our culture becoming more and more advanced when it comes to technology but less and less involved with each other. I think that while it is important to be high tech it is also important to be social, and it seems as though the lines of which is more important are beginning to blur.