The first “communion service” planned for Twitter has been postponed:

THE first communion service on the social-networking website Twitter did not take place last Saturday, after the Methodist minister organising it was asked to postpone it, while the Methodist Church examined the idea.

The Revd Tim Ross announced plans to hold the online service last month (News, 23 July), but decided to cancel it after senior Methodist offi­cials asked for more time to consider whether a communion in cyberspace was appropriate.

Mr Ross wrote in a statement on his website: “Whilst I have not been absolutely forbidden to perform com­munion on Twitter, British Meth­odist Church authorities have strongly urged me to cancel it.”

The online service was replaced by a series of short prayers for Christian unity, which, Mr Ross said, “was the motivation for the project”.

I’m sure many Catholics are scratching their heads about this story: how exactly do you have a “communion service” via Twitter? It’s not like you can send particles of bread or wine (or grape juice, the liquid of choice in many Methodist congregations) via that Interweb thingy. It looks like it was just intended to be a bunch of people receiving communion at the same time and tweeting about it:

The assistant secretary of the Methodist Conference, the Revd Ken Howcroft, said that the Church under­stood Mr Ross’s passion for the importance of communion and of using new media in mission; but the Church needed to “reflect and pray deeply in order to discern what developments are appropriate”.

In an article for the Methodist Recorder, Mr Ross said objections to the Twitter communion had been raised by the Methodist Church Faith and Order Committee, which said it was “not a valid communion”. The idea of “remote communion”, where participants receive the bread and wine at the same time, but in different places, “conflicts with the ethos of the Conference report ‘His Presence Makes the Feast’ (2003) which talks about ‘embodied wor­ship’”.

Mr Ross said the report’s reference to “disembodied spirits” did not say that participants must be in the same physical place, but rather referred to the attitude of those present. “The issue boils down to two questions: Is remote communion a valid com­munion? Is the Christian community on the internet a valid, gathered Christian community? If the answer to both these questions is ‘Yes’, then a communion service performed by such a community of believers must be valid and may be performed.”

Continue reading…

At least someone in the Methodist hierarchy sees the problem with this type of service. As useful as technology can be, it is no replacement for physical interaction between people. Just like one cannot receive confession via the phone and you can’t baptize someone without physically pouring water over them, so too is the Eucharist intended to be celebrated in the context of people physically gathered together. Our Lord was incarnate in the flesh and we need to realize that even with the rise of the Internet, we still are flesh-and-blood persons whose bodies are not mere appendages to who we are, but are integral to us as persons.

Ultimately, we will be saved through our physical bodies, not in spite of them.

Seth Godin had a great post the other day about “Breaking News:” the habit of news agencies to make every run-of-the-mill story “breaking” in order to goose their ratings. He writes:

Longtime readers of this blog know about my quixotic campaign against Twitter (see examples here and here). Although I am a technology professional, and I have a blog and Facebook account, I have never liked the whole Twitter vibe. But I believe my campaign has come to a crashing end:

Vatican Launches Twitter Feed

Roma locuta est, causa finita est

Group urges unplugging to take back Sabbath

As the story goes, God spent six days creating the world and then rested on the seventh day. He told the Jewish people to always rest on the seventh day of each week, which was to become known as the Sabbath for them for eternity.

This was before Facebook, Twitter, BlackBerries and iPhones, of course. Adam and Eve didn’t have friends who would get upset if texts weren’t returned promptly, parents who wanted to know where their children were all the time or bosses who had complete access to their employees via work-issued devices. There is no excuse good enough to ignore the boss, even on a weekend.

But one group is trying to take back the Sabbath: Reboot — a nonprofit organization aimed at reinventing the traditions and rituals of Judaism for today’s secular Jews.

Composed of Internet entrepreneurs, creators of award-winning television shows, community organizers and nonprofit leaders, these “Rebooters” are people who typically have their cell phones glued to their palms. Several of them go so far as to say they have an addiction to their devices.

But this weekend they will be observing 24 hours of freedom from their devices: a National Day of Unplugging lasting from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.

I think this is a great idea, and it is one that I try to follow every Sunday. One of the great ironies of the more “connected” world we live in is how disconnected technology can actually make us. The constant stream of information we get via email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, TV, etc. makes it more and more difficult to connect person-to-person with those around us – our families, our friends, our co-workers, our neighbors. But direct, face-to-face contact is still the highest, most “real” form of human contact possible (why do you think you can’t go to confession via the phone or email?).

Modern technology is not evil, but as fallen human beings we can easily distort technology and become controlled by it. Taking one day off from technology – like the members of the “Reboot” organization – is a wonderful way to ensure that we control technology, not the other way around.

Recently, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference issued some protocols (PDF) for bishops, members of religious communities and all Church officials for the proper use of social networking sites. They contain good advice, which basically boils down to one maxim:

Don’t do anything online you wouldn’t do in person.

Really, it is that simple, although putting it into practice seems to be difficult for many people.

They also remind Catholics that real, live communication has priority over Internet communication, and if we overemphasis the latter at the expense of the former, we will be forgetting some very important people:

Great care must be taken by all Church entities, particularly those engaged in Youth Ministry, not to rely exclusively on social networking as a means of communication. To do this could be to exclude the poor – those who cannot afford a computer, who live in remote localities with poor internet connectivity, who struggle with illiteracy or who face other challenges which place them outside of the online world. Going to Church and hearing others talk about their social networking experiences can be profoundly isolating for those unable to take part. Social networking should only ever be one of a range of communication methods that we use to invite people into closer relationship with Jesus Christ.

This is a good reminder to those of us for whom modern technology has become second-nature. Not everyone can access the Internet with the ease in which most of us can, and we cannot forget that the Good News must be preached to them just as much as everyone with a Twitter account.

For my own Rules for using the Internet, click here.

Some regular readers of my blog might wonder why I often write negatively about technology. After all, this is a blog, right? Isn’t that the epitome of modern technology? And don’t we regularly hear about the Pope encouraging both the clergy and the laity to embrace technology to further the Gospel?

Yes, all this is true. And I’m not anti-technology. I use the Internet for an average of 8 hours each weekday (for both work and leisure), I have worked in the technology field for over 15 years, I have six computers in my house, I own an iPhone, I am on Facebook, and I maintain a blog (I draw the line at Twitter). Clearly I’m not a Luddite. Yet I am also not a technology evangelist. Why? I have seen first-hand the dangers too much dependence on technology can have on the spiritual life.

One thing I often notice is whenever the Pope or other church official makes a “pro-technology” comment, it makes headlines on Catholic blogs and tweets, yet the warnings that usually follow the comment are left out. A case in point is the pope’s recent comments encouraging involvement on the Internet. Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, followed those comments with some words of caution:

“The believer who ventures with enthusiasm and with courage into the world of social communications — boiling over every day with extraordinary technological novelties, from the iPod to the iPhone to the iPad — must know well the goal that guides him so that he is not taken captive by fascination for the means and thus loses his way.”

“And the goal,” the spokesman recalled, “is encountering God, who is the ultimate meaning of the relationships of dialogue, friendship and sharing that the Web makes possible today.”

“The traps that fill the pathways of cyberspace are countless,” Father Lombardi acknowledged, “from superficiality to falsehood to perversion. But there are also many users who seek friendship, truth and goodness.”

“Taken captive”: strong words which, I believe, accurately describe the pull of modern technology on many people. Technology has changed from a means to an end, and we can see an example of this in the fascination with Apple’s new iPad. For months people waited with bated breath for its release and rumors flew as to what capabilities it would have. Most of the discussion did not center as much around how it would help one to do certain tasks better, but instead on how cool it would be to have a device that can do [fill in the blank]. And in the end, the primary focus of the iPad was not productivity, but passive leisure. Now you can surf the web from your couch!

Note that I am not saying that the iPad, or owing an iPad, is immoral. But the inordinate fascination with it and all new technology is spiritually unhealthy. One of the things an over-emphasis on technology does is that it dehumanizes us. When our primary contact with the outside world is through a screen, we begin to lose a certain sense of the sacredness of each human person. Consuming a steady diet of violence, sex, and disasters via TV, video games or the Internet desensitizes us to the human reality behind it. We can see the extreme form of this desensitization in this news story:

Inventor unveils $7,000 talking sex robot

This technological marvel is considered a breakthrough because it can “interact”, through artificial intelligence, with its owner. We see this and are rightly disgusted, but how far away is it from someone who spends every waking hour interacting with Facebook “friends”? Is it not in both cases someone who is filling the need for human interaction with technology instead of real, physical human interaction?

Simply calling modern technology a “tool” whose morality is wholly dependent on its use (or abuse) is not the answer, either. We need to recognize that many modern technologies are more ripe for abuse than older ones. Yes, a knife can be used to cut carrots or cut a child’s neck, but nothing in the knife itself gears you to one action over the other. Many of the technologies today, however, actually lead one to spiritually unhealthy lifestyles by their very nature. Thus, we must be on guard at all times that, as Fr. Lombardi stated, “the goal is encountering God, who is the ultimate meaning of the relationships of dialogue, friendship and sharing that the Web makes possible today.”

St. Isadore, pray for us!

Over the past dozen years I have logged countless hours on the Internet. I have written Internet software, been involved in numerous online forums and blogs and now get almost all my news from the web. During that time I have developed a love/hate relationship with the Technology That Al Gore Invented (I am such a geek I already knew how it was really invented when he made that claim). In many ways, I consider myself a “technological Luddite”. Anyway, here are five things I love about the Internet, followed by five things I hate about it.

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT THE INTERNET

1) Its egalitarian nature.
I love the fact that a guy with a lame website like drudgereport.com can become one of the most influential media outlets in the world. The barrier to entry is now so low that literally anyone can start a website, and if they have something valuable to say, it will eventually get heard. This has many implications for evangelization.

2) The accountability it fosters in public life.
I love that public figures are held so accountable. When Dan Rather tried to make up stories about President Bush, he was called on it and the scandal reached the public almost immediately. (Obviously, this can get out of hand – do I really need to know how exactly many women Tiger Woods had an affair with?)

3) Its communications power.
The Internet was originally created to allow for communications between government organizations in the event of a war, and communications is still what the Internet does best. We no longer have to depend on Tom, Dan or Peter to tell us what the Pope said – we can just find out ourselves at the Vatican website.

4) Its power to unify.
This year we saw the power of the Internet in the Iranian elections. People who were oppressed by the government were able to let their voices be heard, and the whole world listened. I can’t imagine something like that happening before the advent of the Internet.

5) Its research capabilities.
I honestly don’t know how people used to research before the Internet was created. I don’t know how I did any research during my high school and college days in the late 80′s/early 90′s without Google. Every topic imaginable is available on the Internet, and the vast majority of it is free. Yes, you have to be careful about your sources, but in general, it is not too hard to find solid reliable information regarding just about anything in just a few minutes.

THINGS I HATE ABOUT THE INTERNET

1) Porn.
It is unbelievably ubiquitous. I did a Google image search recently for an ancient icon and one of the first images shown was a picture of a topless actress (I won’t explain the dubious connection between them). I have safe search on, but it must have gotten through the filter. The damage this easy access to porn does on our society in incalculable, and because of the Internet I started praying for the purity of my son on the day he was born.

2) Its addictive nature.
The interactivity of the Internet makes it much more addictive than TV. I have to work just to not be addictive to checking my email and other sites I frequently visit. Would Blackberries be called “Crackberries” if they didn’t have access to the Internet? This is why I take one day off a week from accessing the Internet.

3) Its deceptively impersonal nature.
There is no question that the Internet allows more ‘human’ contact than previous technologies such as the radio and TV. However, it is still impersonal. Right now I am sitting alone in my office staring at a computer screen. No matter how many people read this post, this is still an impersonal act. It can foster a false sense of community. I think the Internet is a powerful tool for evangelization (which is one of the most important personal acts we engage in), but it is foolish to think it is superior to old-fashioned offline friendships and communications. The Internet should be a tool which leads to real relationships, not a replacement of those relationships.

4) Its power to divide.
Yes, I realize this is the opposite of #4 under “Things I Love”, but that is the paradox of the Internet, isn’t it? Because of the Internet, one can live completely isolated from contrary views. And when this happens, we have a tendency to demonize those who disagree with us, instead of attempting to understand their presuppositions and worldview.

5) The death of the long form.
I realize that the Internet isn’t the origin of this (I would blame the television for that), but it surely accelerated its death. The very technology of the Internet works against the idea of long, in-depth writing. And it seems to get worse with each passing year: from web sites to blogs to twitter, it seems that no one can read anything of any length anymore. When I first started this blog, I read that you should keep your posts under 400 words or no one would read them. 400 words! Ents can’t even introduce themselves in under 400 words! (Imagine that for a minute: an Ent with a blog or, even better, a Twitter account). In fact, there is probably no one reading this sentence because it is well past the 400-word mark in this post. There is a time and place for short articles, but it seems like the Internet has eliminated lengthy works from our literary diet.

I’m sure I could think of more, but I’ll leave it to five each. Feel free to add your own likes/dislikes about the Internet in the comments.

Regular followers of this blog know that I have no love for Twitter; you can simply search on “Twitter” in this blog to see why I am not a fan of the micro-blogging service. I admit it is a quixotic campaign and a lonely one as well. But three guesses on what I thought when I saw this headline:

‘Twitter Bible’ Converts Scripture into Mini Messages

That’s right: a “Twitter Bible”. Here are some sample tweets:

• “40 days without food. Satan doing a full court temptation press. Does he really think he can win?”
• “Just healed ten lepers, only one came back to thank me. Nothing worse than ungrateful ex-lepers”
• “5 loaves + 2 fishes x the power of God = Fish and Chips for 5,000! Thanks for your lunch kid!”
• “Watching my disciples as I ascend to heaven. They look helpless. Will send Holy Spirit soon.”

Our culture continues its march to a 100% ADD society, and this “Twitter Bible” seems to be in keeping with that trend. Next thing you know someone will put the Summa in Twitter form…

The Wall Street Journal recently had a wonderful article about the dangers of modern technology, in which the author reflects on how technology causes us to speed up our lives unnecessarily. Too many of us are now living life at a breakneck speed, and there is no question that this could have dramatic consequences for us as individuals and as a culture. This is a good example of how technology often changes our lives in ways that were unintended and perhaps unwelcome.

Now I’m sure that there are some readers of this blog who find it a bit ironic when I write about the dangers of technology on our spiritual, mental and physical lives. After all, this is a blog. And I’m on facebook, for goodness sake. How can I write against technology if I obviously embrace it?

I don’t consider myself against technology. Instead, I like to think of myself as deliberate about technology. What I mean by that is that I do not think we should embrace every technology as it is released unthinkingly. Instead, we need to deliberately evaluate each technology on its own merits (and demerits) and determine if it truly helps our lives in a meaningful way. This deliberation should go beyond the surface impact of a technology to the more subtle and possibly harmful ways a technology changes how we live.

For example, in the 1950′s the television was seen as a marvelous invention that would unite families and educate our youth. Does anyone still seriously believe that this is the case? No technology has probably done more to divide families and dumb-down children than the boob tube. My own family decided a few years ago to get rid of our television. We found that, on the whole, it was more detrimental to our family life than it was beneficial, as we definitely watched more television than we really wanted to due to the easy nature of being able to just flip on the boob tube and be lobotomized by its programming. Not having a TV in the house was a great decision, as it has freed up a great deal of time for more enriching (and family-uniting and educational) pursuits, and frankly, no one misses it.

Note that I am NOT saying that TV is immoral. There is no technology that is inherently immoral – it is how one uses a technology that determines the morality of the action. However, that does not mean that every technology must be embraced by those striving for holiness. As Catholics, we should evaluate each new technology and see how it impacts our own personal path to holiness. Is it causing us to waste our time? Is it leading us to view immoral actions? Is it subtly harming our ability to think deeply? Just because a technology is not inherently immoral doesn’t mean that it is healthy for us as Catholics looking to be saints.

Each technology decision we make should be just that: a decision. No one has to be involved with blogs, facebook, television, twitter or any other technology. One can live a fruitful, holy and even evangelical life without any of them (let me tell you from experience: one-on-one personal contact, not modern technology, is still the best form of evangelization). There are many marvelous things available via these new technologies, but none are required for a holy life. Of course, these are individual, prudential decisions. What might be spiritual dangerous for one person might be fine – and even uplifting – for another. But I do think too many people unthinkingly embrace new technologies without determining if it will help them in their walk with Christ.

We as Catholics should be striving relentlessly for holiness, so whereas reading a simple tweet or blog post or facebook update might be harmless, it might lead us to a situation where following such updates begin to consume a spiritually (and mentally and physically) unhealthy amount of our time. Let us be deliberate about the technology we consume and make sure we spend more time directly interacting with our family, friends, neighbors and even strangers than we do on our computers, phones, and ipods.

My first thought when I read this headline:

40 percent of Twitter messages ‘pointless babble’: study

was that it must have been a flawed study, as 40% seems extremely low. Turns out I was right, as the rest of the article indicates the following:

Conversational messages — defined by Pear as tweets that go back and forth between users or try to engage followers in conversation — accounted for 751 messages or 37.55 percent.

In other words, pointless babble that goes back and forth between users.

Pear said tweets with “pass-along value” — messages that are being “re-tweeted” or passed on by users to their followers — accounted for 174 messages or 8.70 percent.

AKA: pointless babble that is passed along to other users.

Self-promotion by companies was next with 117 tweets or 5.85 percent

Corporate pointless babble.

followed by spam with 75 tweets or 3.75 percent.

Nigerian and “enhancement” pointless babble.

It said tweets with news from mainstream media publications accounted for 72 tweets or 3.60 percent.

Considering that most of what the mainstream media has produced over the past 40 years has been pointless babble, I’d say this category falls under that heading as well.

So my rewritten headline:

100 percent of Twitter messages ‘pointless babble’

Yesterday Twitter went down in a denial-of-service attack.

Across the country millions were in a state of shock as they had no way of informing the world that they were drinking their coffee, sitting on the couch, or going to the bathroom. President Obama declared a state of emergency and ordered that millions of hand-held whiteboards be distributed so that people could describe every event of their lives to those around them. However, this caused some unintended problems as many of the “tweeters” did not know what the two-legged creatures surrounding them were – they had forgotten what real-life “people” looked like.

*Apologies to Don McLean for the title to this post.

For some time now I’ve been interested in how technology impacts the way we spend our time, communicate, think, and even relate to others and to God. If you are old enough, try to imagine it is 1989 and someone sends you 20 years in the future. What would you think about the fact that everyone you see in public seems to have a phone stuck in their ear? What would you think about being able to do most of your shopping online? What would you think about Facebook or Twitter? It would be quite a shock, even though it would only be 20 years in the future.

My main concerns about these technologies revolve around how they subtly change our behavior. For example, people live in a bubble while in public now because they are consumed by their phone or ipod or handheld gaming device. How often do we ignore the person at the checkout counter because we are too busy with whatever device we have handy?

But there are other dangers as well – specifically the control these new technologies can give institutions such as governments and corporations over our lives. For example, recently Amazon got in hot water because they reached into users’ Kindles without authorization and deleted content that a publisher had decided should not be on the ebook device (Amazon did refund the purchase price). They claim they will not do it again, but the idea that one’s whole library in the future could be monitored and controlled by a corporation or a government is cause for serious concern.

Oh, the book that Amazon deleted? George Orwell’s 1984. Somewhere an irony-meter exploded.

I’ve always had a positive impression of Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life and the heir apparent to Billy Graham as “America’s Pastor.” Obviously, I disagree with much of his theology and I found PDL to be pretty much an Americanized (i.e. watered-down) version of classical Christianity. Yet I’ve always sensed that his heart was in the right place and that he is sincere in his desire to follow Christ.

But now he has gone too far and I might have to reassess my opinion of him:

Rick Warren Joins Twitter

I’m sure that this has been predicted somewhere in the Book of Revelation…

Those who follow this blog know that I am interested in the impact new technologies such as Twitter and Facebook are having on our culture and our ability to relate to each other. What is not known (and would be shocking to most who do know me) is that I am a big fan of “West Side Story.” I first saw the movie back in the 80′s and for some reason unknown to me I loved it.

So it should go without saying that I really, really enjoyed this video called “Web Site Story”: