GodTube takes religion to internet masses
Pastor Dale Morgan
GodTube takes religion to internet masses*
By Tom Leonard in New York
Last Updated: 2:27am GMT 08/11/2007
A Christian website which allows visitors to chat and exchange
religious-themed videos is proving to be one of the most surprising
successes on the internet.
GodTube, which was recently named America's fastest-growing website,
drew more than four million users last month.
Based heavily on secular sites, the Texas-based organisation combines
the video clip-sharing principle of YouTube, the social networking
feature of Facebook and live webcasting.
Current hits include videos of a Christan rap song called That Book You
Got Makes Me So Holy, a squirrel singing I Will Always Love You and a
clip of a little girl lisping Psalm 23 from memory that has been viewed
nearly 4.5 million times.
Other popular attractions include music, comedy and heated theological
debates, and the site contains more than 25,000 videos, with 300 to 500
fresh ones arriving each day. Their content is monitored by a 10-strong
team of seminary students.
Members of other religions are invited to participate on the GodTube.com
website, but they cannot proselytise.
Similar sites target Muslim and Jewish audiences but none with so much
success as GodTube.
The venture, which is backed by many big churches and Christian product
retailers, was officially launched in August.
Chris Wyatt, GodTube's founder, said he set it up because churches were
having difficulty reaching young people "in a language they can
understand". Asked what Jesus would think of the site, he said it was
more appropriate to ask "what Jesus would be downloading".
He points out that GodTube users on Sunday mornings outnumber the
congregation of the megachurch pastor Joel Osteen in Houston.
Mr Wyatt, 38, said the site — which is not a church but a media company
— earns money from advertising, selling subscriptions to ministries
which want to broadcast more frequently and by selling demographic data
about its users.
GodTube is expanding so rapidly that it recently launched its own news
service. Another spin-off, Godcaster, will soon allow any church in the
world to stream its services for free.
Mr Wyatt, a theological college student, describes the site as a neutral
"Switzerland" open to various theological viewpoints.
However, that has not stopped different denominations using GodTube to
take potshots at each other.
Videos being viewed recently include "Why Pentecostalism is not of God",
"Mormonism exposed", and "The papacy is NOT biblical".
Mr Wyatt, who has had to put off training for the ministry, said: "Its
success was a major surprise, but doing this site has been a great joy."
Yahoo rebuked
US congressmen yesterday told Yahoo to “beg for forgiveness” for passing
information to the Chinese police which led to a journalist’s
imprisonment. A congressional hearing rebuked the internet firm for its
role in the imprisonment of Shi Tao. He was jailed in 2005 for 10 years
after publishing online a Chinese order forbidding the marking of the
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising. The US company said it had
to comply with China’s laws to operate there and could not ask its local
employees to resist demands which might lead to their own arrests.