About

Len Hjalmarson and I started the Wikiklesia Project on May 5, 2007 with these objectives:

  • CREATE a self-sustaining, para-ecclesial organization without solidified leadership - a franchise that changes hands as each new project begins.
  • GATHER a diverse cross-section of the virtually connected ecclesia into a common forum to discuss the most important issues facing contemporary religion.
  • GIVE voice to emerging writers along side accomplished authors.
  • RAISE money for benevolent organizations.

It's our hope that Wikiklesia generates a continuous stream of high quality collaborative literature - embracing topics of significance. We have no idea if this will work, but we're giving it a good go.

After the first book is published and in the marketplace, Len and I will “pass the mantle” to new editor-facilitators to oversee future Wikiklesia projects. Those editor-facilitators will pass their commission to a new crew of editor-facilitators - and on it goes.

Wikiklesia is a grand experiment in personal participatory media. Even this web site follows the "wiki" format. All Wikiklesia authors and facilitators have virtually unlimited access to the site - to create pages, re-write pages, and mash-up ideas at will. Join us in making a little bit of ecclesiastical history.

If ideas are the currency of our times then this is, undoubtedly, the age of conversation, for without the art of dialogue, the cut and thrust of debate and discussion, then the economy of ideas would implode under its own heavy weight. Instead, the reverse is true. Far from seeing an implosion, we are living in a time of proliferation — ideas build upon ideas, discussion grows from seeds of thought and single headlines give rise to a thousand medusa-like simulations echoing words whispered somewhere on the other side of the planet. All this — in an instant.

Technology in the guise of social media is giving rise not to virtual connections, but real conversation. The human desire to reach out, meet, share and converse is tapping into digital networks in an effort to transcend and obliterate the tyrannies of time, geography and, in some instances, culture. And the resulting explosion in content, commentary, activism and community is causing academics, marketers, advertisers, politicians and social commentators (amongst others) to call into question many of the demographic standards that have been relied upon for years. - Gavin Heaton, Australia, co-founder of AOC - one of the inspirations behind the Wikiklesia Project.

- John La Grou, May 16, 2007

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