Richard Littledale's
Views on the News: July 2007

Five Clicks

Way back in 1978, Cliff Richard was singing that 'you need never be alone when God's a prayer away'. That was in the far off days of vinyl albums and betamax videos. Now God is a mere click... or five, away. There is a new online fad known as 'five clicks to Jesus'. If you want to try it out, this is what you do:

• Go to Wikipedia;
• Click on 'Random article' on the left hand side of the page;
• Chart your way from the original article to a mention of Jesus Christ through the hyper-links provided;

Leaving aside the moral issues of the time spent idling at your computer and burning up electricity in this way, let's think for a moment about the theological implications here. On a positive note, it encourages players to look for links to Jesus in everyday things - be they scientific, sporty or artistic. Who would have thought that you could get, say, from an item on metallurgy to a reference to the saviour in just a few clicks? It makes people think about the influence of Jesus and his teaching on every sphere of human life. Jesus is closer than you thought.

On the negative side, it reduces the quest for Jesus to an electronic parlour game, not dissimilar to the '6 degrees of separation'. Jesus simply becomes another piece of data, and one could as easily play the game by looking for links to Karl Marx or Elvis Presley. It is in the nature of the game that the player stops short of actually reading anything about Jesus since the mention of his name is sufficient to win the game. 'Five clicks' may get people talking about Jesus but it won't win any converts.

In the end this game will go the way of other internet-based fads before it - be it herding virtual sheep, watching dancing hamsters or swapping zany video clips. But Views is inclined to feel that anything which gets people thinking about Jesus, even fleetingly, and even in order to win a game, cannot go amiss. The fact that there are mentions of him everywhere in cyberspace reflects the fact that his handiwork is everywhere in the real space we inhabit. Anything which reinforces this point is to the good.

Centuries ago, the Psalmist wrote about God's 'unseen footprints' on the sea (Psalm 77 v.19). Have you come across his 'unseen handprints' on the web recently?