Apple, Google, Facebook: Technology and Religion

The great thing about religion for most is the spiritual bond and community formed through tied to a specific practice. Without the spiritual faith in the validity of a said religion I believe everyone would remain secular. There is another side to the divineness and culture of worship and that other side is community.

Let’s take a deeper look into community. As mentioned before in one of my earlier blogs Robert Bellah claims that, “community is a cultural theme, which calls us to wider and wider circles of loyalty, ultimately embracing that universal community of all beings”. [1] Meaning ultimately the internet and the advancement of new technology should be a good thing for community within religion. Anyone can access the bible at any time without having to actually carry it around with them; they can attend online mass, meditation, or worship when they are not able to physically be present due to either geographical location or inability to appear. Sounds pretty good in the terms of “wider and wider circles of loyalty … embracing that universal community …”

Robert Bellah's, Habits of the Heart

On the other hand, is technology and this accessibility in fact doing the exact opposite in terms of dissolving the sense of communal worship. Associate professor of Christian spirituality and medieval history at the Franciscan School of Theology in California, Darleen Pryds says, “I am aware of mobile devices being integrated into religious services, but have found that most people tend to disengage from the experience of communal worship, and there is a nervous, excited energy that pervades the room and takes over,” which is the exact opposite mental state many religions aim to produce. [2] “Even the people who think they [are great multitaskers] aren't paying as much attention as they think they are. And how do you develop supplication when the very way you are communicating is so fragmented?” explains Dudley Rose, associate dean for ministry studies at Harvard University’s Divinity School.[3]

Fragmented communication?

In terms of Bellah I believe the advancement of technology and new media has created a sense of universal community, impossible in the past. People are able to do real time worship through watching live feed sermons, meditations, or pray with a live podcast from Mecca. However I believe there is something to be said about the spirituality communal worship brings the individual physically surrounded by their peers. When I was younger and went to church frequently, the one thing that kept me coming each Sunday was the divine interaction with the church itself as well as the congregation. When people broke out into unanimous psalm I was overcome by the beauty of it. This communal experience alone was the only thing keeping my faith alive in the hope of some sort of spiritual experience.