UCHUG: THE ELECTRONIC NETWORK OF
THE UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA
by David M. Lochhead

Why has a Canadian church become involved with electronic networking? There are two major reasons.


1) Geography: The Canadian population is distributed in a
thin strip stretching for 4000 miles across the
northern border of the United States. Communication
across the length of the church is difficult and
expensive.


2) Text: The business of any church is related to textual
information. For centuries, the church was the major
provider of information in western society. The
transmission and creation of text have always been the
primary ways in which a church conducts its day-to-day
business.


When the United Church of Canada began to consider the potential of computer communication, we faced a classic "Catch-22" situation. Because there were few electronic services designed to be used by churches, there were few modems in church use; conversely, because there were so few modems in church use, there were few electronic services available that were of interest to churches. In late 1984, the Church's Division of Communication devised a plan to grasp the horns of the dilemma.

For a period of four months beginning in October 1984, the few of us in the denomination who owned modems were given free accounts on ENVOY 100, a Canadian electronic mail service. Out of that experiment, UCHUG, the United Church Users Group, was born. An electronic community stretching from coast to coast, UCHUG has grown from a dozen members in November 1984 to nearly 40 today.

We quickly discovered that computer communication served two different functions for church users. The national and regional offices of our denomination were interested exclusively in electronic mail: they wanted to use the system for little more than office-to-office messages. On the other hand, the members of UCHUG--most of whom were pastors in widely scattered communities--were more interested in discussion, in the sharing of ideas. While ENVOY 100 was suited to electronic mail, it did not lend itself to computer conferencing. Consequently, in May 1985 we transferred the conferencing aspects of UCHUG to UNISON.

UCHUG IN ACTION
===============

Discussions in UCHUG reflect many of the concerns of the wider electronic community: questions of computer hardware and software, the nature and ethics of electronic communities, the social impact of technology, etc. More significant to us, however, is the fact that computer conferencing allows our members to deal with specifically church-related issues in new ways.

Pastors from the Atlantic to the Pacific can discuss, on a weekly basis, the common texts that will be used as scripture readings on the following Sunday. We are also using UCHUG for a denomination-wide discussion of one of the most divisive issues currently facing the United Church: the ordination of homosexuals. The use of UNISON, a public system, has also fostered the development of interfaith discussions; for example, a conference called "DHARMA AND GOSPEL" was initiated by UCHUG as an online dialogue between Christians and Buddhists.

In a denomination such as the United Church of Canada, computer conferencing can radically change established patterns of communication. Traditionally, the flow of information has been from the local churches to the central office, and then from the central office back out to the local churches. With computer conferencing, the central office tends to be bypassed as an information clearinghouse; information flows across the organization.

Theoretically, the United Church is not a hierarchical organization; however, Canadian geography has tended to create hierarchy by forcing us to rely on a central office as an information clearinghouse. In fact, one of our concerns is the reluctance of national staff officers to involve themselves in the online community; for many of them, the growth of computer networks in the church holds the threat of the marginalization of hierarchy. By allowing the development of close personal relationships among people in widely separated locations, computer conferencing is enabling the growth of a community of people who do not rely on the traditional patterns of church communication.

ONLINE RELIGION
===============

The use of computer communication within a religious organization was probably pioneered by DHARMANET, a network that was designed to allow Vajradhattu, a Buddhist group, to communicate among its branches scattered throughout North America. More recently, the United Methodist Church has established a network residing on a computer at the University of Washington. PRESBYNET, an unofficial network of the Presbyterian Church (USA), uses UNISON as a host system.

Computer conferencing in churches is still in a very experimental stage; most denominations have not yet seriously considered its potential. The experience of UCHUG indicates that, as they discover the medium, churches should expect radical changes in the way in which they conduct their business.

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Author's note: David Lochhead is convener of the Small Computer Committee
of the United Church of Canada, the sponsor of UCHUG, the denomination's
online network. In his spare time, Dr. Lochhead is a Professor of
Systematic Theology at the Vancouver School of Theology. He lives in
Maple Ridge, B.C., with a wife, 8 children, five cats, two dogs and three
computers.