Internet killed the sermon star

Faithbook: saving the world, one laptop at a time

Using Facebook to let the world know what you did on the weekend is nothing new. Using the social networking site to let the world know your religious beliefs...yep, that's a new one.

Faithbook, a Facebook group run by British Jews (with the support of the Muslim Institute) was launched at midnight last night. So far, it has 23 members.

The rabbi at the helm of the project, Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, explained that the group was created to combat religious extremism. He said that, often, the internet is used as a tool to incite religious hate, but that Faithbook would offer users the opportunity to discuss their faiths in a non-denominational, judgement-free zone.

Faithbook is the latest in a flurry of online religious activity. At Manhattan's Trinity Church, sermons are available as podcasts (which can be streamed live or downloaded on demand). Godtube.com - a kind of Christian Youtube - was launched in August 2007 and is the single fastest-growing site on the web. As of November, the site attracted over 3 million visitors a month.

The benefits of harnessing the internet to promote faith are obvious - you can reach a lot more people with very little effort and money, users can choose when and how frequently they'll be involved, and since the internet is such a 'young' medium, religious groups can attract more youthful audiences.

Here at Cosmo, we're a fairly liberal bunch. We want to know what you guys think of faith-based sites, so let us know what you think.