ABSTRACT
When a church starts broadcasting services on television, it enters even an environment outside its control. Originally, broadcasting meant sharing a local church service with a wider audience of believers unable to go to a local church service themselves – an extra service. As televangelism has shown, this broadcasting can evolve into a phenomenon of its own with a church service designed for television, presented in the format of a show, and received by an audience that forms a virtual community. In the Netherlands, the Roman Catholic Church has broadcasted specially designed church services, recorded in a chapel with the facilities of a TV-studio, with the purpose of creating an electronic parish, for thirty years. Just before this experiment was terminated, the two ‘media pastors’ (one priest, one female pastoral worker) asked a research team to design a survey among the regular viewers. The outcomes showed that most of them considered watching an activity sui generis. They prepared themselves, for example, by lighting a candle, prayed, and sang along; in other words, they domesticated the broadcast. For some, this was their individual moment with God; for others, this was their participation in a community with fellow viewers, the churchgoers on screen, and the pastors with whom some even corresponded. These virtual parishioners were also frequent and active churchgoers themselves. The results showed that the services on the screen were an alternative to physical Mass attendance only for a minority. Apparently, the “liquid church” does not necessarily provide an alternative to the “solid church”. Both types can co-exist.
