"Methodism's 18th century founder, John Wesley, said: 'The world is my parish,' and 300 years later that parish includes cyberspace as well." ~ChurchOfFools.com

ChurchOfFools.com began in 2003 as a spin off of their main site Ship of Fools. Once sponsored by the Methodist Church in the UK, Church of Fools was a unique place of worship delivered in 3D. Unfortunately, the project has ended but has an interesting history behind it I wanted to share.

First launched in 1977, Ship of Fools is a Christian based magazine aimed mainly at Liberal Christians founded by Simon Jenkins and Stephen Goddard. After folding in 1983, the site relaunched on April Fools Day, 1998. Fast forward to 2004 when the Church of Fools was launched as a 3 month experiment.

"We are not replacing church, we are adding really," says Simon Jenkins, shipoffools.com editor. ~ CNN

During the three month experiment, the site received up to 8,000 visitors a day and even 41,000 at one time. There were bugs; such as the preacher disappearing during sermons or abruptly facing the wall. Then, you had the usual people who wanted to disrupt services, yelling racial slurs or curse words to the group. These things were eventually ironed out but in September 2004, the project was closed with lack of funding required to undergo a major redevelopment of the environment software.

After much demand, Church of Fools reopened its virtual environment for personal worship only which means users logging in will now find a private experience to worship in solitude.

"As before, visitors are able to choose a cartoon double, then walk around, kneel, pray, shout hallelujah, play a hymn, and even ring the church bells. However, they are not able to see, or be seen by, other visitors to the church." ~ Church of Fools

Unfortunately, the project never received funding to reopen the multi-user aspect of its online experiment. Having virtual environment experience, my guess was the Church of Fools was simply ahead of its time.

Go to ChurchOfFools.com to visit the project, view clips and even step in world. Some links may be broken.

Comments (5)

tricolorro

Ms.Tia Wood, Are you angling to enter DomainGang territory? First there was : "Who is the “Traffic King”? I Pulled It All Out to Compare." That was yanked. Hmm. (hint: Google cache) Now we have "Church of Fools - Virtual 3D Experiment" Hey, I'm all for it. But those other guys? I wouldn't worry too much about Lucius "Guns" Fabrice. He carries a big gun to make up for a "short fall"' elsewhere. I don't think he has ever actually used it. But you do have to watch out for Giovanni ‘Crazee’ Mossolini. He isn't called ‘Crazee’ for nuthin'.

TWood June 01, 2010

Not sure what you are referring to. Church of Fools is a real website with a real project behind it. "Who is the “Traffic King”? I Pulled It All Out to Compare." was a Domain Gang reject for Giovanni. After receiving no comments, I decided maybe Lucius was right in rejecting it and it was probably too stupid in the first place. Yep, you gotta watch out for that Giovanni ‘Crazee’ Mossolini.

tricolorro

Hi, I was just playing with you. The "Traffic King" article felt like something I might read on DG. I didn't really read the Church Of Fools article today yet. I was really just going by the Title and I wanted to get the "Giovanni ‘Crazee’ Mossolini" comment in. I thought it kinda funny if "you" had to worry about "him".

TWood June 01, 2010

Nah! Me and Giovanni are close. Like twins!

James September 12, 2010

You are aware the project has evolved and continues at www.stpixels.com yes? The goal is to "re-open" the 3D doors, but in a much better way.

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