"Little nudges for a reflective experience" - Cellphone spirituality
Christians in the US might be unaware of the surging global growth of new technologies bringing "little nudges for a reflective experience" to followers of many faiths, including many Two-Thirds World Christians enriching their faith on the go.
A Wired magazine article this week describes how "Cell Phone Users Are Finding God." Groups sending faith messages (as SMS text messages) to cellphones are rolling out a host of services for followers of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and even more obscure religions. The same is true for Christian ministries. The Pope's Thought of the Day is so popular that it is finding ways to enhance and extend this method of keeping in touch with its adherants.
For several months I've been enjoying MFaith.com's free daily Bible verse, which sends a daily verse - using the popular NIV translation - to any North American cellphone that can accept SMS text messages.
The points may be manyfold: To connect with younger, on-the-go people, ministries are discovering how to catch them in their world, which includes nearly ubiquitious cellphone communication. We're realizing the depth of penetration of technologies such as cellphones - and learning not be afraid of harnessing them for their power to deliver the little nudges for reflective experiences. Those small reminders can make the difference between faith that is integrated through the work week and faith that gets compartmentalized into Sunday-only spirituality.
Finally, we in the West can only marvel at how easily Christians around the world are adapting and adopting new technologies - such as this cellphone spirituality - at rates surpassing ours. We really have a lot to learn about 21st Century global Christianity.
--Dave Hackett
Links:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64624,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3
http://www.mfaith.com
1 Comments:
Dave,
I make a distinction as follows:
1) Techonology to remedy deficiencies - the telephone has allowed us to at least speak verbally with someone who is distant. It is not the same as coming together in fellowship face-to-face, but is a partial solution.
2) technology as substitute for the virtues - the telephone as a replacement to coming together face-to-face.
The first case is obviously a blessing, while the second case is a curse.
Another aspect of technology that is of concern for Christians is that it is not content to be an option to be used with discernment when the occasion requires, but it imposes itself as necessity, and discriminates agains those who are unable or who choose to be more selective in its use.
Yet another aspect of technology is that it not only imposes itself on us -- even re-setting our values in other realms, such as our view of time, of fellowship, of beauty -- but it does so in an impersonal way, responding to market forces and not to social and human needs. These impersonal forces are usually affected by a few people who have the ability to affect the stock market.
Jacques Ellul wrote with great foresight about this more sinister, more subtle and more powerful effect of technology.
Alex Araujo
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