And not just cellphones in long-term committed relationships. From here:
Halifax-area Anglican Rev. Lisa Vaughn, eager to keep her parish relevant in the face of declining church attendance nationwide, is asking users of mobile phones and other technological gadgets to bring them in this weekend for a special blessing.
“It’s not just about please don’t let my cellphone drop calls today,” says the pastor of the Anglican parish of St. Timothy, on the road to Peggy’s Cove. “It’s about, you know, help me to be the best Christian, the best person I can be in my conversations, in my communication.”
Ms. Vaughn doesn’t claim she’ll be able to exorcise the demons from your computer. She’d be just fine if a bunch of atheists with technical problems turned up this weekend.
“Bring ’em on, baby,” she laughs.
Attracting the attention of non-believers is a crucial mission in a church that is bleeding members. A report prepared for the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia that was published in February said the church was declining faster than any other denomination. The report also repeated a five-year-old analysis that indicated that the present rate of decline – 13,000 members per year – would leave a single Anglican in Canada by 2061.
If this report is true I believe it would be appropriate for persons to bring along comic books – Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse and perhaps Daffy Duck. If the Gospel is not primary you can claim to bless just about anything!! This simply proves how rapid the descent into apostasy is proceeding.
Instead of bringing their physical Bibles, there are several guys at my church who bring iPads. Hopefully they are just using them for looking up verses and taking notes (I think they are). In another 10 years, it will probably only be oddballs (like me likely) who will still be carrying physical Bibles. This doesn’t bother me, though – so long as people aren’t expecting their devices to be blessed.
They could even bless them by text mail.
I’m waiting till the prices go down to get an Ipad. It shouldn’t take that long. (I like using oldish technology. My laptop bricked itself a few weeks ago, and I was able to buy an identical laptop for $200!)
cell phones and laptops
tractor and combine
horse and hoe
different ages, differnt tools
The trouble with loading Bibles and liturgy on to Ipods etc is that they can be changed by any hacker. This can be a problem much like the proliferation of services printed on leaflets which can be and certainly have been skewed by whomever is in charge of making them up. No I will hang onto my printed Book of Common Prayer and King James thank you.
I don’t think that the odds of that happening are very high.
Obituary (#6), no problem with hanging on to your printed Bible and BCP, but I think your concern is groundless. I suspect that most pastors now are doing sermon preparation using software-based resources; including Bible translations. It also wouldn’t surprise me if a software product like Logos Bible Software is mandatory in many seminaries.
Everything now printed is originally in electronic form anyway and, in the future, and steadily increasing number of books will only be in electronic form. I don’t prefer to read lengthy documents or books on a screen, but there are undeniable advantages to devices like iPads and Kindles. I think even older technophobes will be won over as they realize that they can easily convert any book into a large-print format.
I love my ebook reader. I’m tempted by a Kindle because there is a greater variety of books available for it than there is for my Sony.
I recently switched from a Sony to a Kindle. The free cell access on the Kindle can be handy – it has a primitive browser which I used to check email on my trip to Europe. Also, the new Kindles have an improved E-ink screen.
Well you may be right. Since a lot of the original texts have been scoured from the pews by the new thinkers in their campaign to modernize it might be useful to have your own Ipod etc telling you that the Psalm being read from the leaflet is skewed and the verses to your favourite hymn have been sanitized according to the latest version of inclusiveness or whatever.
Not everything new is bad, obituary.