Is There Any Future to a Virtual Church?

I've been a bit remiss about posting here regularly, mostly because my life has suddenly gotten a lot busier now that I'm getting ready to be the Candidate in Portland, and it will probably stay busy for awhile longer still. But in her blog "Faith and Web", Anne Belle asks "How long will Analog Churches Survive the Digital Age?" Here's the comment I posted there, now slightly revised and cross-posted here.

Historically, Churches have been rivaled only by pornographers among the "early adapters" of new communications technologies, going right back to the days of the printing press and movable type. But the Essential Experience of Religion (like that of its rival) remains essentially unchanged. In my own era I've seen the mimeograph replaced by the high speed photocopier, and electric typewriters (and white out) erased by the personal computer, which likewise transformed "Rolodex" from a brand into a metaphor, and replaced all those morning finger-walks through the Yellow Pages with "Googling." Activities like podcasting, and sites like You Tube, My Space, and Second Life may well represent the new frontier in this colonization of cyberspace, but Church itself is still ultimately all about worship, fellowship, education, social action and pastoral care. It's a face-to-face, real-time experience of community, a "congregation" of souls, gathered together at a specific place and time, to seek wisdom and inspiration, to ask the assistance of powers larger than ourseleves, and express our gratitude for the many blessings we have received. And it has been from time immemorial. THAT part never changes. Nor should it....