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WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: March 14, 2003 Good News Web Designers Association -- "Do not do any webwork that contradicts the Bible, the Church, or the unconditional love of the true Christian lifestyle, nor attacks Catholicism or any other expression of Christianity." (Comments: Religion + Web Design = oil and water, or a perfect match?)
Reader Comments...
"Religion + Web Design = oil and water, or a perfect match?" Can you talk more about why this would even be a question? Admittedly I'm close to the issue, being neck-deep in a church site redesign. But other than a few issues related to the more-volunteer nature of the church, I find the work no different than the business sites I'm involved in. There's a message to be communicated, a target audience, and a medium with which to communicate. But thanks for the link, I hadn't run across this group. Posted by: Boyink on March 14, 2003 08:06 AM
Should have mentioned Dean Peter's "church site usability" blog at http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/ Dean co-authored "Son of Web Pages That Suck" with Vincent Flanders:
I don't need Dean Peter. I don't need Vincent Flanders. I don't need Jakob Nielsen. The Holy Spirit is my co-designer. Water is super for baptisms. Oil is smack dab wonderful for frying eggs. Users who can't figure out a church web site are sinners and deserve the frustration the lord of darkness brings upon them. Woe to the wicked. Posted by: Ximinez on March 14, 2003 10:12 AM
Check this news item found on the site: Christian Website Owners: Do not let your domain name(s) expire or it is likely to be taken over by a porn dealer! Does this really happen? Posted by: Blogmin on March 14, 2003 11:20 AM
The porn sites will suck up any URL that gets traffic. I don't think they are targeting Christian sites though. I know of a couple homeschool and christian related sites that got taken this way - and they weren't high traffic sites either. I can't imagine either was getting more than a 100 or maybe 200 unique visitors a day. Posted by: Chris on March 14, 2003 11:50 AM
Oil + water. Multiple religions - as tech often becomes - generally don't mix well. Posted by: on March 14, 2003 12:17 PM
Can we keep this from becoming a religious debate, and stick the question posed? Why did John(?) question whether religion and web design could mix? What did you mean by "mix"? Posted by: Boyink on March 14, 2003 03:49 PM
Let me ask the question a different way: If you wanted a web site created, would you care about the religion of the designer? Why or why not? Posted by: John S. Rhodes on March 14, 2003 04:35 PM
What's the problem? Who would object if someone tried to set up a community of developers devoted to liberal democracy a la JS Mill? But that's as much a religion - libertarianism asserts that personal liberty is the ultimate good and therefore cannot tolerate fatwas, edicts, excommunications etc. Don't take my word for it, The Economist ran an article with this theme in early 2002 (I think). Osama Bin Shaken, thanks for the link - my wife was raised as a Catholic and loved the page!
I think John merely responded to what is an interesting and challenging issue. I'm not sure how I feel about it myself. But religion and web design aren't really "oil and water". "Swings and roundabouts" would be a better analogy. When choosing to work with a designer one of the choices you have to make, apart from their cost and ability, is about "core beliefs", for want of a better word(s). If I was to choose a christian web designer, then I would expect an ethical relationship (they wouldn't rip me off), I'd expect they fully and deeply understood the christian aims of my website and I'd also expect the visual design and usability to be pretty appalling. Well most of them are aren't they? For me, what this is about is respecting client needs. Sure we might have all the answers to their questions, but the client may require that all aspects of the design resonate with a particular ethos. I'd find it difficult to meet that brief.... so I'd hope that they'd fine themselves a christian web designer rather than me, and each page would "turn the other cheek", "love it's neighbour" and "not covet oxes".... I wouldn't know where to start with that spec. Sorry to sound a bit crass, I hope you get my drift. tom
Perfectly stated, Tom. But even atheists like me have to admit that Christianity gave Western culture some of its greatest art, literature and music. Posted by: Philip Chalmers on March 14, 2003 06:16 PM
"Let me ask the question a different way: If you wanted a web site created, would you care about the religion of the designer? Why or why not?" I'm failing to see the relationship, and I fail to see why it's "challenging". I work with a fair number of folks doing web design and development. Some are "religious", some aren't, it has no bearing on their abilities any more than their gender, height, or heritage does. If you did care, just how would you go about even finding out, in this "PC" world we live in? Tom - if by "the visual design and usability to be pretty appalling. Well most of them are aren't they?" you mean church web sites, I agree. But just because there are Christian designers and just because there are appalling church web sites doesn't mean Christian designers are responsible for those web sites. From my perspective church sites suffer for a number of reasons - from Churches being slow to take up technology, having lower budgets than most businesses, the necessary volunteer nature of the site, lack of good internal processes for updating, and a lack of any good research that would tell us what a church site should *be* (more on these thoughts http://www.boyink.com/stories/2003/02/27/churchWebSitesWhatWeDontKnow.html). You'll find the same general appalling web site state amoung any group of not-for-profit organizations. Go look. But we're improving. Slowly. And groups like the one John linked to and Dean's site are helping. I'm about 2 months away from relaunching my church site. I'm building it on a blog tool, and I'll guarantee that it's design won't appall....;)
Heavily religious protestants will care about the religion of the web designer. In my experience there are strong biases against non-Christians (Catholics and Mormons are often considered non-Christian). They only deal with people in their Jesus Club. They look down on you. Posted by: on March 14, 2003 08:18 PM
Hey Tom, what you say about Christian designers and what you would expect from them, you might be interested to find that a lot of the "big" web design dudes are Christians and are shaping the way that design is done online (one example being Mike Cina (www.mikecina.com) and his work with the grid based design). I think though you have hit a point at where the lower to mid end "design" that happens. I think this is why there are sites like Dean's and mine. Sites that are trying to lift the quality. Boyink's got a point also with why church sites suck so often, and there are discussions on how to improve that. You would most likely find that the majority of the Net is ugly anyway. Posted by: Ants on March 14, 2003 08:30 PM
In theory, I don't care what the personal beliefs of the person designing my website are. I draw the line if they suffocate teammates with their beliefs, though, but that applies to pretty much any subject. In practice, I have flat-out been asked whether I was Christian or not, because the (potential) client was a company that liked to hire Christians. OK. Fortunately, this question was posed by e-mail because I had to really think about my reply. Would I work for a company, even temporarily, that would not give me a job simply because I was a buddhist, for example, or a Jew? Or, who would hire me over someone more qualified simply because my religious beliefs matched their world view better than the other person's did? I should stress that being Christian had no relevance to the job whatsoever (it was a financial site). I finally had to (reluctantly, because I needed the money) reply with something like "I prefer not to bring my personal life into the workplace. My beliefs are my own. If this answer is unsatisfactory, thank you for considering me for the work." I didn't get the job. Posted by: Lydia on March 14, 2003 09:27 PM
I'm an atheist, but I don't care a rat's arse about the designer's religion (or lack of it), provided: 1) The work they're doing has no religious connection to it and their religious affiliation doesn't affect the output. 2) They don't advocate their religion to others in the team and try to "convert" them to anything. Posted by: MadMan on March 15, 2003 12:49 AM
If a potential client asked about my religious beliefs then, unless the project was a religious site, I'd find that very creepy and alarms bells would go off. I'd steer well clear of the project. Perhaps things are different in the US (they certainly look that way when it seems virtually every sportsperson thanks god for victory)(tend not to see the loser blaming god for their defeat though, unfortunately; that would be far more interesting to watch), but over here in the UK most people manage to keep religion out of everyday life and regard it as a personal matter.
I want to move to UK. :) Oh, the damn taxes are too high. Bugger. I'd hate to see a situation where the misguided idea that dealing with Christians leads to more ethical, honest dealings promoted to the extent that people feel compelled to lie about their religious beliefs for the sake of their career. To illustrate this, George W Bush is a devout Christian (a Creationist even) and there he is, wanting to bomb the living fsck out of another country. ;) Posted by: MadMan on March 15, 2003 05:39 AM
I find it interesting that certain churches are consider non-Christian. I always had the belief (no pun intended) that anyone who followed Christ was a Christian. Those who didn't were not, even if they were in a Christian church. People claiming otherwise were trying to put people in a different group, probably so that they could prosecute them and say mean things about them. Lydia, I was under the impression that it was against the law (at least in the US) to discriminate on the basis of religion. That question was not only impolite, it was illegal. On a side note, I've heard that religion has killed more people than anything else. The Catholic church killed millions in South America alone. ("Join us or die!") Then there's the Inquistion and the Crusades. And here I thought one of the Ten Commmandments says: "Thou shalt not kill." I am a Mormon (I won't bother with the long version), but some of my best friends are not. One's a Buddist, another is an ex-Mormon, another is inactive, yet another I don't have any idea what his religion is. You know what? I don't care! I have never based my friendships on religion, but on the person themself. And I think business relationships should also be that way. Anyone know anything about Clarence Darrow? I'm reading his biography by Irving Stone.
The confusion arises because different religions vastly and fundamentally define Christ differently. Take a peek under the covers, and you'll quickly see that it would be impossible to define "anyone who follows Christ as a Christian" when, at times, the only thing in common is His name. Posted by: on March 15, 2003 10:02 AM
Most Christian religions have very few theological differences. Today they are separated by ignorance, long-standing hate, and sometimes political issues, such as acceptable use of prophylactics, married priests and ordained women -- all things that existed in the early Church. I laugh at Christians who don't consider Catholics Christian. A little poking under the surface reveals they know nothing about Catholics or Christian history. 98% of their modern beliefs and rituals are based on Catholic history. Drop in on a funeral sometime. When the Lord's Prayer is recited, watch the confusion near the end of the recitation as some people stop, while others recite additional verses. These people have never experienced any other type of religious service than the one their parents raised them in.
Morris, keeping religion out of things is a good idea. Till a Mormon missionary knocks on your door and tries to spread the word anyway. Then I get fucking enraged. Posted by: Don't ring my bell on March 15, 2003 02:53 PM
Following the spirit of Christ's teachings should be sufficient to be called a Christian. One of my comments on the subject was that *everyone* would be real surprised at the Second Coming, given that such an occurence did happen. I have always had more respect for people who, like Clarence Darrow, did their best to help people even though they claimed to have no religion, rather than those who commit all kinds of crimes under the banner of religion. Don't ring my bell, I didn't go on a mission for my church. I don't try to impose my beliefs on others (as far as I know). I notice that you specified a Mormon missionary and didn't mention any others, like Jehovah Witnesses or Seventh Day Adventists.. Is it okay for them to knock on your door? And I don't think it's a good idea to combine sex and anger. *grin* Wednesday night, I chatted with a missionary from a local church for half an hour. We had a lot of beliefs in common. He didn't know much about my church; I had never heard of his. We parted on good terms. One needs to have an intelligent conversation without putting the other person down.
Morris, it is illegal to ask, but who is going to report an employer that does so? How could you possibly prove it? I was turned down because they found someone more qualified, not because I refused to answer his question. Had they said "we can't hire you unless you are Christian" I might have had a leg to stand on. My experience with Mormon missionaries has been only positive. Two nice boys helped me move my couch once, and didn't even linger to talk. I offered them water and everything. When I was a teenager babysitting for my sister (who lived in the city), two guys helped escort a homeless person off the front porch, then offered to hang around in case I was scared he'd come back (hey, I came from a small town, I've gotten tougher since then). I also witnessed what I would term a miraculous event: hastily arranged study group at the house of a mormom family; walked in to find mom humming and making dinner, even though many children were running around the kitchen, yelling, begging for a peanut butter sandwich, and so on. She was surprised to see us, then invited us all to dinner. I just wanted out of there! Posted by: Lydia on March 17, 2003 03:10 PM
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