The Economist has a good article on some recent (and not so recent) moves linking religious communities with addressing ecological issues (not just climate change, I’d say). They report that a recent meeting of religious leaders, Prince Philip and Ban Ki-moon resulted in various action plans according to one’s tradition.

The Daoists for example have comitted to burning less incense – this is the one that caught my attention most. It is a rather curious idea – when you sit and think about it you can certainly see how that could affect one’s carbon foot print (the harvesting, and burning of plant materials for incense releasing trapped carbon, and/or inhibiting the absorbtion of additional/existing carbon). Here we’ve talked a little bit about incense – and sourcing it locally/indiginously – could that also have a positive effect? Think of the air-miles involved in transporting myrrh, and frankincense for example, whereas something locally grown, or produced in your region would, simply due to the reduction in transport carbon emissions – be greener.

How does your community source the bread used for your local eucharist? How green are Ghostie-toasties? How green is home-baked bread (leavened or unleavened)? I don’t know. I suspect however, that the lamentable bone white wafer is far from being green. But where did the wheat come from for baking your local bread? Here in the UK most of our bread baking wheat, I think, still comes mostly from Canada – eeek!

Would a service lit solely with beeswax candles be greener than say one illuminated with eco-bulbs?

Are we indie folk asking these questions in our communities? If so – what is your community doing?

But while I’m fast approaching my word-limit/post I’d like to re-visit a related topic which is, I suspect, an even more effective means of Indie-Eco-Activism: Food! Food production, and food security is a very serious issue one that has a huge, HUGE impact on ecology and not in your back yard necessarily, but in the back, front, and side gardens of those least able to afford the consequences.

Over the past 100 years throughout the Christian world our theology of food, has quietly smouldered in the background, some of the best elements – like traditional fasting periods – having been eroded, until they are little more than vestigial digits on our calenders.

Perhaps, in our tiny communities of 5, 10, and 20 people we OC/IC folk could inspire a bit of a mini-revolution in theology and praxis that brings the issue of food, and the ecological and social consequences of its production, sale, and consumption to the fore.

We have been exploring the use of the net, and technology generally in an OC/IC context here for over a year now. But one thing that has not yet been mentioned (I think) is the idea of “media literacy” in OC/IC projects. This article by the Utne Reader – brings that idea crashing home.

The article highlights the issue of critical analysis of what we see on the web. How information is presented, and how we sift through it, assessing the veracity of that information, its accuracy, and its agenda. I suspect that when most of us were younger we were taught how to do this with “traditional” media sources – books, newspapers, magazines, journals, and film and television. But the nature of media has changed rapidly, and dramatically over the past decade – does this not also mean that the way in which we assess these sources must also change?

To my mind this is a topical issue on two fronts. Firstly – how we OC/IC folk using the net, assess those sources related to theology, history, spirituality, and religious news. How is that process affecting how we use the information both online and in our communities? Secondly – and I think I find this more important based on things we’ve been exploring here – how are we presenting our information online? Are we facilitating a sense of good critical analysis of who and what we are? Are we pointing to balanced source material? Are we presenting our message in such a way that the information-saavy will not simply click through, snorting “Quacks” as they do?

How can we help one another to make the web more of a tool and less of a novelty, or “basic” necessity in our various projects? One way might be to be helpful to one another. A bit of “peer review” amongst friends can make those seemingly minor changes that have a big impact in how our sites and vids are recieved, found, and commented upon.

Via Huw I saw this post this morning on Kirkepiscatoid (don’t even ask me to pronounce it!) about a . . . well. . . ecclesiastical “spat” over a Gospel book. While I actively avoid posting on anything but OC/IC issues this caught my eye because it does touch on a theme we’ve had going here for over a year now – the role of technology in our community.

The synopsis of the story is this: an Episcopal community has a deacon who is legally blind. She can see if the text is large enough – and a laptop with the font set at 500% works just fine allowing the good rev. deacon to confidently fulfil her role in the Liturgy. Most of the regulars here at Boze! are probably sitting there thinking: great, so what’s the problem?

It seems that the problem is, well, that the “Gospel book” is not a “book” and that according to the canons of the Episcopal church – it must be a book. Or is that really the problem? I suspect that part of the problem is the natural conservatism of religion – the encroachment of technology, the “new” and possibly fad-ish into the “ancient” rites of the cult. This is a point worthy of discussion. Let me throw a few curious tid-bits into the frey and see what the cat thinks of it.

1)    The use of a “book” is uniquely Christian. That is to say that the book, or codex, was a “new” technology in religious settings, in the first centuries of the church, one that Christianity favoured over the scroll. Who’s to say then that faced with a new technology we ought not consider it as being preferable to the old (which we were responsible for introducing in the first place)?
2)    In our Eastern setting the Gospel book is an icon – and as such it is one of the most accessible relics. How does the possible introduction of a “new” technological replacement affect our sense of the symbolism, sanctity, and the inherently tactile nature of the “codex”? That is to say – would you kiss the corner of a laptop during the little entrance?

I have used my Palm on occasion to celebrate Liturgy – when for example I am travelling light, or when there have not been enough service books to go around. Aside from the occasional awkwardness of using an unfamiliar piece of kit it works fine, and has no observable negative affect on the liturgy. Huw has been building a prayer book that he uses via his iPhone. Churches of various traditions are making more and more liturgical resources available for use with various media including laptops, mobiles, and PDAs. Are prayers offered on commuter trains, plains, and in homes from these sources somehow less valid, or worse – heretical, and if so, why or how?