Back on Sunday, February 5, I mentioned the anti-gay hate crime in New Bedford during the worship service in the prayer. I wasn’t impressed with that prayer, so I tossed it into the file and forgot about it. Then excerpts from that prayer appeared on the Boston Globe Web site (thanks for the tip, Stoney). I’m grateful the reporter did some heavy edits to the prayer, because it reads much better now, but I have no idea where he got the text of that prayer.

All of which raises the issue about how religion is being changed by the communication revolution. What a minister says in a worship service today could wind up on a Web site tomorrow, and from there who knows where those words will spread. I have to admit, I’m slightly unsettled by this phenomenon. At the same time, it’s good to be aware of this phenomenon, and to start thinking of it as a fundamental part of the religious landscape.

Update: Turns out I did give the text to a reporter who called — I just misunderstood which newspaper he was calling from. Mystery solved: it was just my own lousy memory. Sigh.