Ship of Fools (website)
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Ship of Fools is the name of a UK-based Christian website, which was first launched as a magazine in 1977. The magazine folded in 1983, and was resurrected as a website on April Fool's Day, 1998. Subtited "the magazine of Christian unrest", Ship of Fools pokes fun and asks critical questions about the Christian faith, "which we love but also question". The site is partly a magazine and partly a web community.
Ship of Fools was founded and is edited by Simon Jenkins (editor) and Stephen Goddard (co-editor). Jenkins is an author, designer and cartoonist from London, while Goddard is a public relations consultant; both have formal theological education. They also perform a show, Ship of Fools Live, in churches, universities and elsewhere, with excerpts from the site's featured content (see below). The show toured in the USA in February 2004.
Some notable features of Ship of Fools are:
- The Mystery Worshipper - Reports on churches made by users of the site. The intention is that churches can find out how they appear to outsiders.
- Discussion Boards - Where registered members can debate issues. The boards are divided by topic, also leaving several for more general discussion. Unusually, the code of conduct can vary by board, so, for example, users are held to a much higher standard on the Heaven board than the Hell one. The boards have been praised for the amount and variety of discussion they generate.
- Gadgets for God, Fruitcake Zone, Signs and Blunders - Humour sections, showing examples in the Christian world of, respectively, kitsch products, strange websites and weird church signboards and unfortunate slips of the tongue.
- Columnists - Various people writing about various topics, with an emphasis on the bizarre, though usually with a genuine point and not just for comedy value.
Activities sometimes leave the site to take place in the real world. There are frequent Crew Meets, where shipmates get together at different locations around the world, and Ship of Fools also ran a Ned Flanders Night at the Christian festival Greenbelt
The site is completely free (there used to be a charge for registration, but no longer) and is funded by advertising and donations.
Ship of Fools' most recent project was Church of Fools, a unique 3D online interactive church.
External links
- Ship of Fools (http://shipoffools.com)
- Ship of Fools Discussion Boards (http://forum.ship-of-fools.com)
- The Mystery Worshipper (http://www.shipoffools.com/Mystery/)
- Church of Fools (http://churchoffools.com)