A fascinating video from Religion & Ethics Newsweekly about how social media is changing the way we interact with our religious communities. What grabbed my attention was the comparison (towards the end) between the introduction of the printing press (a new technology), the reformation, and what might be happening in the life of Christian communities now via various forms of social media.

What do you think? Are we at the start of a new reformation? How will this change our theology? Do you see it eventually (or even now) changing the way we think about, and practice our Christian faith?

Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

Creationism is a hot button topic in the US. It is a battleground issue in school boards, churches, and politics. A recent Gallup Poll shows that 40% of Americans believe in creationism. That’s an astonishing number when you consider that the facts on the ground overwhelmingly demonstrate the truth of evolution. Yes – this OC/IC believer, theologian, and bishop rejects creationism in its entirety. There – I said it (grin).

What was not entirely surprising is the breakdown – people with higher education were more than likely to reject creationism, or believe in some form of theistic-evolotion (i.e. that evolution is fact, but that God had a hand in it). What was really curious to me – looking at the table is that the higher the degree level the more eductated people accepted theistic-evolution. Whereas folks who had a BA – when compared to the other categories (i.e. creationism, evolution, or theistic-evolution) were hovering around 30% across the board. So what’s the difference between having a BA and having an MA or PhD that causes that rather hefty shift? Is is simply life experience, and age, or is it something about learning to think in nuances and grey rather than something else, something more . . . . direct?

Then you get to the breakdown based on church attendance – and here’s where it gets really interesting. People who seldom attend church break down relatively evently (again hovering around 30%) across the board for the three categories. Whereas those who attend fairly regularly its pretty close to an even split with only 9% believing evolution happened with no involvement from the Divine. For those who attend church weekly however, the number of respondants who accept unvarnished creationishm is 60%.

Why? And does this figure represnt the bulk of the “uneducated” respondants? If so is the local church their only source for intellectual stimulation? And if that’s true how else are their clergy failing them? Jesus’ teaching does not encourage us to become mindless automotons – indeed his life example is the exact opposite – THINK and think hard, question the convention, expect a bit more depth.

In my mind – a more interesting point is – does it matter, does it really have an impact on one’s faith if one were to say that evolution happened? I believe I have heard one argument that suggests that for a fundamentalist to say that evolution and not creationism is the accepted “teaching” that it means the Bible is a lie, and therefore God is a lie. Oh my! What a narrow view of God you have!

There is a suggestion in this that creationism vs. evolution is the foundation point of faith – that one “believes in” creationism, or one “believes in” evolution . . . the problem is you cannot “believe in” science. Science is nothing more than a collection of facts. It is interesting, and it provides an understanding for the world around us – but it does not inspire some of the more etherial thinking that we humans do. One can certainly accept the facts of science, but one has faith in God – these are two very different activities, which sometimes inform one another, but in the end have totally different functions in our lives.

Last year (at least I think it was last year) this was my favoured, fun, Christmas vid. This year – Thanks to Maggie Dawn, we’ve got this clever, and quite amusing rendition of the Nativity story told in a very modern context.

So (putting this in the context of theology) what effect do you find the “digital age” has had, or is having, on theology, and the interaction between theology and praxis?

My two previous posts (here, and here) asking about the theological and ethical implications of the new full body screening used in American airports has lacked a key element – the voice of the TSA staff who have to perform the “enhanced pat down” on an increasingly angry travelling public. It was not that I was not thinking about it – I was, and feeling a great deal of sympathy for the individual TSA staff who, I imagined, no doubt felt very awkward, demonised, and de-humanised because of having to carry out this new policy. However, all of the reports I’ve read thus far have largely been in the voice of the traveller, the protester, and the security specialist. I have, until now, found only a few oblique references to the viewpoints of individual TSA staff.

This morning this popped up on my radar during the morning trawl – and I’m very glad it did. This small sample of 17 anonymous TSA staff says a great deal about what they must be going through. What is clearly visible is that they too are feeling violated, humiliated, and dehumanised. What is more – and possibly worse – is that because this is a double sided sense of inappropriateness the encounter between staff and traveller is highly charged.

The traveller, who feels helpless and violated lashes out at the “nameless uniform” – forgetting that the person in front of them is an icon of Christ, while forgetting that they too are the embodiment of that same image. The TSA staff person is faced with knowing that he or she is loathed, nameless, and because the uniform essentially strips them of their unique identity, their humanity, they no longer represent an image of the incarnate Logos to the traveller – but the un-bridled power of “The Sate”. Therefore they too feel just as helpless as the angry traveller. The only difference between the two in this very negatively charged situation is that the TSA staff cannot (if they want to keep their job & feed their families) lash out at the traveller. Whereas the traveller – who has forgotten that they are facing an icon of Christ – feels free to demonise the staff.

Its a recipie for disaster. Because both sides are suffering, and forgetful, and because the situation is by all accounts out of the control of both, it seems that defusing the tension, bringing some humanity back into the mix, is all the more difficult.

What would you do?

The other day I made a brief post wondering out loud about the new body scanners, and the associated “enhanced pat down” in American airports; asking if the process had crossed a line dehumanising travellers. Well, It seems that this is now definitely the case as this article shows.

Again I’m wondering why I’m not seeing more (sensible) Christian voices questioning this procedure on the grounds of theology & ethics?

Our tradition upholds the idea that the person before you is a living icon of Christ – could you see yourself fondling Jesus? Would you stand by and watch someone humiliate Jesus because of a medical condition?

Christian praxis is about breaking the cycle of suffering both for ourselves and for others – to create distress, or suffering is sinful, and yet state officials in a self professed “Christian country” are daily humiliating and causing distress for travellers.

I’m not trying to make a mountain out of the proverbial mole-hill here. All I’m pointing out is my own bemusement at what appears to be total silence on the part of theological voices in respect to these new procedures devised in the name of security. Proedures, the effectivness of which, are viewed with no small degree of scepticism by the experts.

I’m also wondering if enough authoritative Christian thinkers were to voice their concerns over the new procedures, it would add to the weight and substance of growing protests over them?

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?