Godcasting

Amelia Hodsdon
Wednesday August 10, 2005
The Guardian

If you're up to date, podcasting - an automated way of making audio files (such as radio shows) available to download - should be old hat. The latest spin-off from this technology, said Ellen Lee in the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, is Godcasting.

According to Lee, Godcasts - "religious and spiritually themed podcasts" - have become "the most popular use of the new online technology since it debuted less than a year ago". They "range from a daily dose of Scripture to a weekly dose of the Bible translated into Klingon", continued Lee, who explained that "the vast majority are Christian-based, but they also include New Age, Jewish and Buddhist podcasts."

Many of these are collected at Godcast.org, said the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The site was started by Craig Patchett, whose eight-year-old daughter hosts Rachel's Choice: "five to six minutes of her favourite Christian music performed by regional bands, her reasons for liking it, and a Bible verse selected and read by her".

Like the TV evangelist Billy Graham, Godcasters "are not shy about asking for donations", said Charles Arthur in the New Statesman. "The meek may inherit the earth, but the rest of us have to pay our website bills, dammit."

The Daily Telegraph overcame its initial scepticism. "It is not easy to work up enthusiasm for the embrace of pop culture and new technology by church leaders ... [Yet] the fastest-growing churches are those that spread the Gospel using satellite and digital technology," said an editorial. "Christians should therefore resist the temptation to sneer at those vicars who are ... encouraging their flocks to download their sermons ... Non-believers, meanwhile, can take comfort from the fact that, while listening to the Good News through earphones, even the most zealous happy-clappy is reduced to silence."

Some Godcasts, however, prove problematic, said Business Week's Olga Kharif, noting the LamRim show (mostly speeches by Buddhist religious leaders). "Interested listeners can also download meditations but," she said, "they are just a lot of dead air."

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