The Godcasting Craze

Posted on October 6, 2005

There are thousands of godcasts, also known as religious or spiritual podcasts. A recent Businessweek article reporting on this hot podcasting trend.

Welcome to the world of "Godcasting," where religious and inspirational podcasts come from Presbyterians, Mormons, Jews, Buddhists and, yes, even pagans. Depending on your point of view, these programs may strike you as fun, convenient, or blasphemous. But they're rarely boring.
Godcasts have multiplied faster than most other types of podcast programming and have emerged as one of the genre's most popular. Vonhogen's Catholic Insider program ranks as No. 3 -- ahead of programs with streaming jazz, rock songs, or general news -- on portal PodcastAlley.com, which lists 2,884 podcasts. And Catholic Insider keeps on moving up in the charts.
So are many of the other 171 religious and inspirational podcasts out there that bear such names as Wired Jesus Podcast (a program for tech-savvy Christians) and Outchurched. The latter features Ryan King and Dan Tripp, both of whom once aspired to the ministry but became disillusioned with the church. They created a blog and podcast aimed at one of the largest Christian demographics: people who have left the church. In one podcast, King and Tripp discuss why they stopped attending services. "Both of us wouldn't care if the church died," says Tripp.
And the Pagan Power Hour podcast includes information about casting magic spells and proper foods to cook for pagan holidays.

A recent Podcastingnews.com article discusses wether godcasting may be podcasting's killer ap. And an article in the International Herald Tribune says Odeo plans to focus more on godcasts.

Odeo (odeo.com), a podcast directory, plans to encourage more churches, synagogues and mosques to use them, said Adam Rugel, the Web site's director of content. Odeo lists a broad variety of religious podcasts, including programs from Buddhists, Muslims and Jews.
Despite the variety of religious podcasts, Christian programs make up by far the largest segment of the category. Shows range from recordings made at the kitchen table to slick broadcasts with pulsing music and crisp audio, like that of "RevTim" (www.godcast.org/categories/revtimPodcast/).

A Telegraph.co.uk article called the "The iGod", a twist on the iPod, also discusses godcasting. There is already a podcasting network focusing on godcasts called the Godcast Network. And there is even a godcasting convention called GodBlogCon. It sounds like podcasting is a medium made for spirtual and religious discussion.