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Richard Littledale

Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: September 2004

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Click-Flirt

What are you doing here? As a visitor to our website you are, of course, extremely welcome. But what brings you to our virtual doorstep?

Perhaps yours is a flying visit from your desk at lunchtime, or maybe you have been directed to us down the labyrinthine paths of a search engine. Then again, perhaps you are a regular visitor, calling in to see how the décor has changed and what the news might be. Perhaps the time spent here is really time that someone else should have.

It has recently been announced that divorce rates have climbed by 3.9% since last year, and RELATE feel that our computer time could be at least partly to blame. They draw attention particularly to those sites which offer a means of re-uniting old friends. In a marriage where boredom has set in, it is all too easy to spend just another half an hour at the computer before leaving the office, or before going to bed. In fact, whilst you are at it... why not look up that old boyfriend or girlfriend from school and see what they are doing? The passage of the years paints a rosy glow over whatever faults you saw then, and you feel as if it might be fun to try again... Apparently this story is repeated over and over again.

Of course the Internet itself is not to blame for this. It is no more culpable than the phone line, or a pen and paper. What it offers, however, is privacy and discretion - as many addicts of pornographic sites will testify. It is quite possible to pick up where you left off 10 or 20 years ago online without anyone except the two of you knowing about it. Unobserved, things can be allowed to take their course...

So, what should the church do about this? Should we take up pixellated cudgels and become a kind of post-modern Luddites? Should we rant and rave about the pernicious behaviour facilitated by such sites? If we do, we will find ourselves damaging many perfectly legitimate attempts to find old school friends or former colleagues. No, the church's role lies much further back. The church should be not just blessing marriages but building them. What can we offer to help in those years when cracks begin to show in the seams of a marriage?

Churches are above all communities - communities united by a realism about humanity and a love for God. In such places there is surely help to be found for the tough times - in marriage and singleness alike.

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