Recently I was introduced to "cyberspace," the electronic world of paperless communication. LEADERSHIP and our sister magazines from Christianity Today, Inc. went "online"--anyone with a computer, modem, and phone line can access our magazines electronically and send us instant messages.

It's a strange new world--more immediate, but a bit more abrupt than the world of postcards and first-class mail.

A couple of weeks ago, I was "trolling" online--checking message boards and reading e-mail to the editors--when I came across this one-liner sent by someone with the screen name Pedro (and a bunch of numbers).

The message: "Christianity is a crutch for the weak."

That was all. I wondered why Pedro bothered to send this e-note (it's hard to call seven words "mail"). It was a harmless drive-by egging of a Christian magazine's e-mail box--sent anonymously from a computer somewhere (next door? someplace in Indonesia?). But it's what you get when you put your magazine on a public newsstand and invite ...