(A)theologies

Confession Fail: iPhone App Controversy Muddies the Sacramental Waters

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The Confession app relies on a certain level of theological understanding, liturgical compliance, and spiritual will that we might be hard-pressed to find in even a relatively sophisticated believer. This is not entirely a failure of catechism or human will, I suspect. Rather, it is a continuation of what I have seen as a failure of mainline Catholic and Protestant pilgrims into new digital territories to grasp the social nature of new media.

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(A)theologies, Culture

Pope Invites his Flock to Join Facebook: Is the Digital Reformation Here?

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The gracious, affirmative, and arguably universalist tone of Pope Benedict’s encyclical (in marked contrast to his 2010 letter, with its emphasis on the authority of the priest as this fed upward through the hierarchy of the Roman Church) is more than a nod to the new digital social reality. Sure, it’s perhaps a little silly for the Pope to be “inviting” Christians into locales through which most have been travelling regularly for several years by now. But it is nonetheless important that he has offered his spiritual and ethical leadership into the increasingly digitally integrated world.

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(A)theologies

Chilean Mine Rescue: Largest Global Spiritual Event Ever?

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One wonders how religious leaders might have exercised a more meaningful presence in the event as it unfolded and was engaged across a global digital landscape. As I scanned the emerging Facebook communities throughout the day and monitored Twitter feeds and news site comments, it was clear that few religious leaders were participating in what has to have been the most significant global spiritual conversation that has ever taken place on Earth.

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(A)theologies

Gen X, Gadgets, and God

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Blessing the tools of the Digital Reformation, or playing with its toys, without acknowledging the spiritual authority of believers as they use them in the world misunderstands the radically participatory, dialogical, and collaborative nature of the culture and inadvertently reinforces a line between “faith” and “life” that believers no longer accept.

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Politics/Law

Forget Right or Wrong

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If the traditional practice of prayer in the context of traditional institutional religions is increasingly meaningless for a significant and growing proportion of American believers and seekers, one wonders what the spiritual or civic value is of attempting to encourage the practice through governmental fiat.

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