Category Archives: Tech and religion

Liberal religious tracts?

“The Internet is the tract publishing venue of the 21st century.” Thus spake Chris Walton, editor at UU World magazine and uuworld.org, as well as the author of the blog Philocrites. Chris was speaking to a meeting of ministers this morning at the Braintree, Mass., Unitarian Universalist church.

Unitarian and Universalist denominational organizations began as tract publishing organizations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The two organizations continued to focus on generating and disseminating ideas through the 19th C. and into the 20th C. “We’ve lost that momentum,” said Chris, over the past few decades. Today, we’re neither generating nor disseminating many religious ideas.

Chris also noted how the number of publishing venues for Unitarian Universalists has been dropping — UU World magazine, for example, is down to a quarterly schedule –and he urged us to find new ways to disseminate our liberal religious ideas. “Sometimes what you have to say has a much larger audience” than your local congregation, Chris asserted. The Internet could be a good vehicle for distributing this writing to a national or even international audience.

Chris summed up by saying that currently the religious right is focussing on ideas. But that’s not happening on the religious left, and it’s time we got back into the world of ideas.

A great, thought-provoking presentation. At lunch afterwards, I happened to wind up talking with two ministers about blogs, the Internet, and liberal religion. One of my lunch companions said that all this technology is fine and good, “But who’s our William F. Buckley of Unitarian Universalism?” — in other words, who’s the writer whom people will read, and who will excite people about religious liberalism today?

I said, “He’s got red hair and he’s sitting two tables over from us — it’s Chris Walton. He was in the right place at the right time with his blog, he’s a darned good writer, and he stays abreast of all the current debates about Unitarian Universalism. Because he’s at the center of things, people keep sending him their ideas, and so he becomes more at the center of things,” I continued, waxing eloquent. “I got introduced to his blog by a minister in her thirties who said, ‘Do you read Philocrites? I find it to be the one essential Unitarian Universalist publication I read.’ And I think she’s right, especially for people forty and under. It’s partly by luck and partly through skill, but whatever the reason, his is the one blog you have to read.”

It’s all true, and I’ll go further than that. If you’re looking for something to give to friends whom you think should be Unitarian Universalists, send them to Chris’s blog (www.philocrites.com). So far, it’s the best example of a 21st C. Unitarian Universalist tract.

Porting BarCamp to religion…

BoingBoing has a post on BarCamp, an overnight un-conference for techies where everybody’s a participant, where everybody has to make a presentation, and where everybody’s reponsible for getting their presentation up on the Web so that those couldn’t attend can still participate at a distance. Open registration happens on the Web, and the word goes out via the existing social networks of the seed group.

Me, I’d attend a BarCamp for religion geeks. Admittedly, they’d have to be religion geeks who are tech-savvy, because I’d want to stick with posting all presentations on the Web. But I can imagine 24 hours of presentations and networking about theology, and maybe technology used in religion — an intense dose of the kinds of discussions we already have in the Unitarian Universalist blogosphere.

No, I know it’s not realistic. My sense of religious liberals is that, generally speaking, we’re not tech-savvy enough, and that we’re generally unwilling to discuss theology. But if I were going to make techno-theological BarCamp happen here in the northeastern United States, my social network actually has quite a number of people who would fit right in: the usual bloggers; some people who have created very cool church Web sites; seminary students including one who also has an MBA from MIT; a couple of theologians; then assorted ministers and lay leaders who are into theology and not afraid of computers.

And if tehcno-theological BarCamp did happen, not only would it be very very fun but it might actually shake up the staid stodgy world of religious liberalism, injecting it with a saving dose of theological speculation and technological savvy. So I’m throwing the idea out there, expecting the idea will fall into a black hole, but you never know….

Later poston BarCamp and religion giving my personal vision for how BarCamp might combine technology and religion.

Religion online

You’ll find today’s sermon is now up on the Web site of First Unitarian in New Bedford. [Note: no longer on Web site.] I ad libbed more than usual this morning, so if you were here to hear the sermon, you’ll find the written version is significantly different.

I remain ambivalent about making sermons available in written form, because I don’t think of them as a written genre, but rather as an oral genre. I found a little booklet of a sermon series preached here at First Unitarian in 1943 by Duncan Howlett, and they are prefaced with this note:

Through the generosity of one of our members, the series was taken down stenographically. As theses sermons were delivered without notes or manuscript, it has been necessary to rework the material for printing. The spoken word rarely makes good reading.

The last sentence expresses my thoughts exactly; I’d only except a few of Jonathan Edwards’s sermons. Nor do I feel audio recordings do justice to sermons. There’s something about a sermon which requires you to be there, to be a part of the congregation. You’re not just listening to a sermon, you’re sitting there with other people, you’re singing hymns together, the sermon is just one little piece of an entire worship exeperience.

Yet at the same time, there is a long American tradition of sermons serving as a means for exchanging theological ideas. Maybe that’s why I am ambivalent about reading contemporary sermons: too many contemporary sermons do not address theological issues at all.

Religious liberals are everywhere!

Even though the religious right dominates the public discourse in the United States, we all know religious liberals are everywhere. I think we religious liberals should be willing to stand up and be public about who we are.

So as a small first step, add your name (yes, pseudonyms are OK) to the “Yet Another Unitarian Universalist Map” [LATER NOTE: map now removed] — ’cause if you read this blog, you must be a religious liberal. And if you’re not a Unitarian Universalist, you can add a comment to your name with your religious affiliation (or lack thereof). Stand up and be counted — and show the religious right that we are far cooler and more widespread than they are!

Footnote: I’ve become fascinated by the new phenomenon of Google Maps, and the so-called “mash-ups” that you can make with Google maps. Google has allowed programmers access to the code of their mapping software such that it is possible to make all kinds of custom maps. Philocrites noticed this mapmaking phenomenon recently, and used Frappr.com to create a map mash-up for his readers. Frappr.com is one of several programmers who are making Google map mash-ups easily available to those of us who are non-programmers.

I’d like to see someone with programming skills do a custom Google map-mash-up showing the locations of all Unitarian Universalist congregations in North America. I’ll bet Anna Belle, over at Talking UU Technology knows some developers who could do this — or maybe one of the readers of this blog has such skills (like maybe James?).

But the real point is that, in case you haven’t noticed, we are in the middle of a “culture war” here in the States. Rather than emigrate to Canada, or wring our hands and whine a lot, it’s time to become culturally creative — and make it obvious that it is far cooler to be a religious liberal than to be on the religious right. And yes, this is a call to action — you’re creative, get on it!

Now that’s podcasting

First page of New York Times Business page today, there’s a column by David Pogue titled “An IPod [sic] Worth Keeping an Eye On.” Pogue writes in glowing terms about the new iPod with video screen, and claims it’s much cooler than it sounds. As in, that tiny screen has great resolution and looks pretty big when you hold it a couple of feet from your eyes.

And the iTunes Music Store already has video podcasts ready to download onto your new video iPod. Now that’s cool. I have kinda cooled on the audio podcast idea, but I like the idea of video podcasts.

The only downside that I can see is that some churches will start doing video podcasts consisting of unedited, one-camera videos of a worship service. That sounds horribly boring. But imagine a really rocking sermon recorded with a video montage of vaguely related images, music-video style — that’s something I might actually watch.

Wiki and UU

You’re probably familiar with Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that draws on the collective wisdom of its readers for the entries. I have found Wikipedia to be a fairly reliable source of information on technical matters. Just for fun, I decided to see if there’s an entry on Unitarian Universalism, and if so to see how accurate that entry is.

Wikipedia does have an entry on Unitarian Universalism, but it’s not particularly accurate. It veers between apologetics and an objective account of Unitarian Universalism, and never really gets anywhere at all. Here’s the first paragraph of the entry:

“Unitarian Universalism (UU or UUism) is a theologically liberal, inclusive religion formed by the merger of Unitarian and Universalist organizations in the mid 20th century. UUs generally: cherish creativity, freedom, and compassion; embrace diversity and interconnectedness; and promote personal spiritual growth and justice-making through worship, fellowship, personal experience, social action, deeds, and education. While one UU may differ from another in personal creed, the term UU is a distinct theological signifier and Unitarianism or Universalism should not be confused or interchanged with Unitarian Universalism.”

Well, maybe so, but maybe not…

The Unitarians and Universalists did not merge, they consolidated — merger would have meant the end of the earlier organizations and the creation of an entirely new organization, whereas consolidation maintained connection with insitutional roots. And while Unitarian Universalists can be characterized as theologically liberal, only an apologist would claim that we are particularly inclusive. And the list of things that begins “UUs generally” does not distinguish us from most other religious liberals such as the United Church of Christ or the Episcopalians. And to say that individual Unitarian Universalists have a “personal creed” is inaccurate at best, considering that one distinctive of Unitarian Universalism is that we tend to have religious understandings that evolve through our life times…. and one could also argue that Unitarian Universalism now de-emphasizes correct belief (orthodoxy) in favor of correct practice or correct living (orthopraxy). And the term “UU” is not a distinct theological signifier at all, but an abbreviation of the name of a denomination or religious organization… and many have argued convincingly that Unitarian Universalism offers little or nothing that is theologically distinct from other forms of religious liberalism. And “Unitarianism” is commonly confused with and interchanged with “Unitarian Universalism,” not as a point of theology but as a shorthand way of referring to the insitution or organization… and because of consolidation, I’d argue that that is a correct but incomplete useage of the terms.

You’re supposed to be able to sign on and edit any Wikipedia article, so I suppose I should do that rather than complain. But I don’t have time to edit an article that is so riddled with problems. I’d rather just go back to what I’ve always thought — Wikipedia is fairly accurate when it comes to technical issues, but I’ll look elsewhere for information on religion. However, if I were going to rewrite that first paragraph, here’s what I might say:

“Unitarian Universalism (UUism) is a theologically liberal religious movement characterized by some scholars as a “new religious movement,” and by others as a Protestant denomination. Formed by the consolidation of the Unitarian and Universalist denominations in 1961, Unitarian Universalism probably has a closer resemblance to Mainline Protestanism, although it has been rejected for membership in the National Council of Churches, a predominantly mainline group. Unitarian Universalists (UUs) tend to be extremely well-educated, politically liberal, and relatively well-to-do. The general belief structure draws from an Emersonian emphasis on individualism and direct religious experience, with an emphasis on doing good works in the world. Local congregations are relatively autonomous. The center of most congregations is the weekly worship service, which generally takes place on Sunday mornings, and most closely resembles Protestant worship services in the Reformed and free church traditions.”

(Now I’ll just sit back and wait for other Unitarian Universalists to tell me where I’m wrong.)

Three days without access

Friday, I came in to the church office to check email and update this blog. The church computers were completely unable to access the Internet. This morning, we found out that the tech we hired to “fix” our Internet access completely messed things up. The church is now using another tech, who got us back online today.

You might recall that my laptop was out of action, and I still haven’t repaired it. I’ve managed to use it for wordprocessing, but given that it appears to have problem with conflicts in Finder preferences, that’s about all I can do. Looks like I’m going to have to take it in for repairs.

Nor would it make a difference if my laptop were working. Verizon still hasn’t managed to provide us with phone service, nearly a month after I first called them to set up phone and DSL. Our landlady was over on Saturday, and she and I looked into what could be wrong. It turns out that in spite of the fact that Verizon claims to have sent techs over on three separate occasions to connect our phones, they still haven’t connected the wires to their service box in the crawl space under our apartment. Obviously, the techs never bothered to even look in the crawl space, where they were told to look. (By the way, I’m now fairly sure that the reason my laptop is sick is because of the Verizon DSL software I installed on it — that’s two strikes against Verizon.)

So when Carol came down for the weekend, we went over to Panera Bread in the Dartmouth Mall to use their free Internet service. But guess what? AOL had some kind of problem in their servers. We could access mail (mostly), but nothing else.

Technology is failing me this week. Wish me luck as I try to get everything resolved.

Music and religion

Recently, I posted an entry about Mark Johnson, audio engineer and musician extraordinaire. Mark sent me email pointing me to some of his more recent work that he has posted publicly.

So go check out some of Mark’s work, where he has taken recordings from worship services and added some very hip music. Now, I know some of you Unitarian Universalists are not going to agree entirely with Mark’s theology, but I think you will like “God Will Make a Way” even if you have to do a little translating around the word God. (And click on his other two screen names, “Black Mark” and “X Mark” to listen to some of his non-religious work.)

Besides, the theology is what I want to focus on. I want to focus on what somebody like Mark can do with a recording of a minister. Why can’t we make our religious message danceable? And hip? And fun? As Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution” (she really meant to say “church,” not “revolution).

Why is it we Unitarian Universalists stick with four-square hymns and old hippie music and Beatles songs? Those kinds of songs are fine, but every once in a while I would like something a little more… contemporary.