A mediated religion: Historical perspectives on Christianity and the Internet

Walter Wilson, in his book The Internet Church (2000), advocates that the Internet offers Christians 'the opportunity to reach every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth in the next decade'. The reasons behind such a statement are understandable. At the time of writing, there are more than 1.1 billion Internet users in the world, or almost 17% of the world's population. Usage in North America is highest at almost 70% of the population. As was made clear in the editorial at the start of this journal, while coming off a low base, penetration in the developing regions is growing rapidly. As was made clear through similar statistics at the start of this journal, in the editorial, there is global growth of Internet usage. The figures are worth reminding ourselves of: in Africa Internet usage has extended six-fold in the last seven years to more than 33 million people, in the Middle East almost five-fold, and in Asia now almost 400 million people use the Internet.