David Clark

The Internet has become an indispensable part of modern business life. Not only is it a business tool, it also reaches many homes across the world. In Europe, 390 million people have access to the Internet in their homes—roughly half of the population.¹ In the United Kingdom, that number rises to nearly 71% of households, and 74% in North America.

What’s the problem?

So what’s the problem, you may ask?

In March 2008, British psychologist Dr. Tanya Byron published the result of a government commissioned study (the Byron Report) that was tasked to “undertake a review of the evidence on risks to children’s safety and wellbeing of exposure to potentially harmful or inappropriate material on the internet…and to make recommendations for improvements or additional action.”³ The report concluded that “the Internet cannot be made completely safe.”⁴

In 2006, there were over 4 million pornography web sites, 100,000 of which offered illegal child pornography.⁵ The popular American magazine Christianity Today suggests that “seventy percent of American men ages 18–34 view Internet pornography once a month.”⁶ The same article goes on to explain that churches are not immune to the problem: “One evangelical leader was skeptical of survey findings that said 50 percent of Christian men have looked at porn recently. So he surveyed his own congregation. He found that 60 percent had done so within the past year, and 25 percent within the past 30 days.”

Time Magazine, in a recent article entitled “Adultery 2.0,” went on to explain that there are now web sites developed with slick applications (apps) for the iPhone and the Blackberry aimed at “tech savvy adulterers wary of leaving tracks on work or home computers.” “Cheating has never been easier” is the claim of AshleyMadison.com, a personals site designed to facilitate extramarital affairs.⁷

The list goes on, with repeated warnings to be wary of Internet crime, identity theft, and pedophiles, among others. No wonder most parents wonder if the social networks their children spend so much time on are safe. Should they even let their children use mobile phones, given the recent police warnings concerning the practice of “sexting” where young people send explicit and indecent photos to each other using their mobile phones?⁸

What should we do? Is there a biblical response? How do parents cope with these problems when there is such a gap between the young Internet-savvy generation and the majority of their parents?

This article will present an overview of the issues involved, with subsequent articles exploring key areas such as social networks, Internet addiction, virtual relationships, gambling, pornography, blogging, and others. These things are shaping the lives of many around us, and we need to know both what is happening and how to deal with the issues in our families, church, and culture.

Is there good also?

Yes, there is! The Internet has created untold opportunities to witness to people across the world. As was noted previously, we now can bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to a billion people, all without leaving our office or home! Many churches make full use of these new opportunities of communicating the gospel. Some even have their own iPhone app (short for application), from which you have access to the church’s full media library, sermons on various topics, and so on. Hymns, multiple versions of the Bible, and articles on just about every conceivable theological topic are all available on the Internet at the click of a button. Anyone can sit at a computer and find out about almost any church or Christian organization anywhere in the world. Missionaries and para-church organizations have been able to drastically cut their costs by using email and web sites to inform their supporters. An evangelical conservative website (sermonaudio.com) boasts thousands of sermons from MacArthur to Spurgeon, with hundreds being added every week. There are blogs, discussion forums, videos, and Christian courses online. The list goes on. You can “tweet” with other Christians, create Facebook events, or talk “face to face” using a video webcam with a friend or missionary anywhere in the world. At its heart, the Internet is a communications tool, and the good news is all about communicating to people the wonderful truths of Jesus Christ.

What is the Internet?

Before we go much further, we must demystify the Internet. At its core, it is very simple (though there are a lot of complex technologies supporting it). Think of the postal system. You write a letter. Someone puts a piece of paper in an envelope, they address it, and the postal system delivers it to your mailbox. Now, suppose you wanted to buy a new shirt from a company located somewhere else in the country. You could write them a letter giving them some information about your size and your preferences. Then, they might in return mail you a photograph of one of their shirts. When you looked at the picture, you decided that you did not like the look of that particular shirt and wrote back to them asking for another type of shirt. They then send you another picture of a different shirt, and so on. Clearly, using the postal system in this way would be extremely slow and inefficient. This is why most companies would simply send out a catalog with all their products in it. However, the example illustrates how the Internet works. Every computer has an individual address, just like the postal system. The Internet acts like an electronic version of the postal service, delivering information a page at a time. It’s just that it is much faster! The pages (or other information, such as sound or video files) are held on a web server and delivered according to what each user requests—typically, the pages are navigated using search parameters or links that can be clicked on the computer screen (called hyperlinks). It is the speed and ease of use that has created such a pervasive network of interconnected computers, companies, and people.

How did it happen?

On September 2, 2009, the Internet turned 40.⁹ However, as the graph below clearly shows, it is likely that most people started using it no more than 5 to 10 years ago.¹⁰ The transition from paper and telephone to instant online communications, emails, web searches, and social networks was imperceptible, a slow gradual transition.¹¹ Yet it could be argued that impact of the change is likely to be as significant as the network of roads built by the Romans, the printing press, the advent of radio, television, the car, or air travel. It is not just about how long we might spend on the computer as opposed to watching television. It affects how we relate to one another, the whole commercial infrastructure, availability of information, how we learn, and where we get the news (among other impacts). Most importantly, there is no going back. The “genie is out of the bottle,” so to speak, and there is no putting it back in again.

How should Christians react? Clearly, there is no mention of the Internet in the Bible. But the Bible is not out of date. The Word of God has not suddenly lost its relevance. Rather, the Bible not only gives clear commands, it also lays down principles that are inviolate, guidance for all of life and all of time. The Bible speaks of self-control (2 Pet. 1:6), of our weakness and the ease with which we fall into sin (James 1:14), of redeeming the time (Eph. 5:15–16), and of making the most of every opportunity (Gal. 6:10). In this series of articles, it is planned to seek to apply these principles to how we approach and use the Internet, and to look at the dangers as well as the opportunities that it creates. The next article will look at the way we use the Internet to communicate—from email to texting, video calls to instant messages, concluding with practical, helpful, and positive advice. Practical advice The Internet can not only be addictive, in the same way as other activities, but a particular danger is that it could lead to a splintering of the family unit, particularly where there are multiple computers in a household. Each member of the family spends time individually with their online friends, chatting, emailing, or posting on a social network. To counter this, why not try setting aside one evening a week as a “family night” where all members of the family engage in an activity together? Activities might include playing a game, taking a walk, or many of the myriad of other things that families can do together. Attendance, however, is strictly mandatory!
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1. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
2. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090831/ap_on_bi_ge/us_tec_internet_at40
3. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/ cm080327/wmstext/80327m0001.htm
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7316700.stm
5. http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornographystatistics.html#anchor5
6. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/march/20.7.html
7. Time Magazine, July 20, 2009.
8. http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6738532.ece
9. See http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/08/30/ financial/f102244D87.DTL
10. I have been working with the Internet and its associated technologies for much longer than that, having first come across the Internet some 30 years ago while studying Computer Science at university—it was then a very new field.
11. The leading web browser—Microsoft’s Internet Explorer—debuted on August 16, 1995.
12. (Source: ITU)
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David Clark lives in England where he has served on the Boards of Evangelical Press and Evangelical Times. He has worked with information technology for over thirty years. This article is reprinted from the British newspaper Evangelical Times, Nov. 2009. The author would appreciate receiving questions on this series of articles from readers via email to ParentsAndTheInternet@googlemail.com. These will assist him in writing future articles and where possible, posted contributions and emails will be answered anonymously in the final articles of this series.

Published by The Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, used with permission.