Not content with revealing his previously secret love for Tupac and Biggie Smalls, the Pope has provided an official satement on social media and he initially has favourable things to say.

this dynamic has contributed to a new appreciation of communication itself, which is seen first of all as dialogue, exchange, solidarity and the creation of positive relations.

The problem, however, is that

this is contrasted with the limits typical of digital communication: the one-sidedness of the interaction, the tendency to communicate only some parts of one’s interior world, the risk of constructing a false image of oneself, which can become a form of self-indulgence.

Rob Beschizza Pope blesses social networks: “Who is my neighbour in this new world?”, Boing Boing (24/01/11)

The Canadian Press either missed the story or decided to take the Catholics to task for this reticence: “the church just might shake its centuries-old reputation for not always being on the cutting edge of communications.”

Canadian Press ‘Tweets from the Catholic church: religion’s top official in Canada takes to Twitter – Big Hollywood‘, Canadian Press (23/02/11)

These guys could all take some advice on social networks, and I’m not talking about Paul this time. Archaeologists have discovered a  1st century, vellum-based social network called ThyFace, and Jesus’ archived profile has been published for the first time.

This is actually the tail-end of a story that played out in the press over November, involving one Cedric Miller of the Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune who ordered 50 male church officials to delete their Facebook accounts or resign from their roles, and encouraged the congregation to do the same. This was all in order to remove temptation, as Miller considers Facebook to be little more than a vehicle for adultery.

This story was picked up here and there until the Asbury Park Press reported that the good Reverend had given court testimony back in ’03 that he had participated in foursomes with his wife and a church assistant and his wife, sometimes “during Thursday Bible study meetings and Sundays after church.” Weirdly, these meetings are characterised as threesomes, but Miller made it sound more like he and/or the assistant’s wife were present while his own wife and the assistant took part. It takes all sorts, I suppose, but I’m not sure it could be considered extra-marital if both he and his wife were involved. Unless you mean “extra-” as in “extra” extra…

At the time of testimony Miller acknowledged that his actions were against the church’s statutes but that, in so senior a position as his in an independent church, there was no real recourse for his dismissal. After APP’s revelation, however, Miller took a 90-day “sabbatical”, presumably to ride out the media’s interest.

AP ‘NJ Anti-Facebook Pastor to Resume Job in 90 Days‘, beliefnet (29/12/10)

Alan Berning

*deep breath* Okay, here’s the rest:

‘Muslims Target TV/Internet Evangelist for Death‘, ChristianNewsWire (14/10/10)

Reuters ‘Dead Sea scrolls going digital on Internet‘, FaithWorld (19/10/10)

Reuters ‘Bible.com investor sues company for lack of profit‘, FaithWorld (20/10/10)

Bob Allen ‘Sheriff’s office settles lawsuit with former church member outed for blog‘, Associated Baptist Press (21/10/10)

Heidi Campbell ‘New Publications in Religion and the Internet‘, When Religion Meets New Media (30/10/10)

Associated Press ‘Palestinian held for Facebook criticism of Islam‘ (11/11/10)

John Blake ‘Pastor: Facebook is encouraging adultery‘, CNN.com (18/11/10)
and
Mark Driscoll ‘Facebook doesn’t cause adultery; people do‘, Washington Post (19/10/10)

Reuters ‘Condoms, Pius XII, sex abuse and other main points in pope book‘, FaithWorld (20/10/10)
Pope admits the Vatican could have discovered that Bishop Williamson was a Holocaust denier by doing a simple search on the internet.

Lahav Harkov ‘IDF uses Facebook to catch 1,000 draft-dodging women‘, Jerusalem Post (23/11/10)
Israeli women who avoid military service due to being “religiously observant” are caught on Facebook eating in non-Kosher restaurants, dressing in “immodest” clothing and responding to invites from IDF agents to parties on the Sabbath. I call “Entrapment!” on that last one.

Helen Carter ‘Girl arrested for allegedly burning Qur’an‘, Guardian (25/11/10)
15 year-old English girl arrested “on suspicion of inciting religious hatred” after posting to Facebook a video of her burning an English translation of the Qur’an.

Thank God that’s over. This is as good an opportunity as any to announce the arrival of a new contributor to the site, Mediaevalia. Something from her soon!

Alan Berning

Trying to clear a bottleneck of stories I haven’t posted on. Mea maxima culpa.

Heidi Campbell ‘Can an online community be a church ? IRS says “No”!‘, When Religion Meets New Media (24/8/10)

Joshua M. Z. Stanton ‘Cyber Dialogue: The Future of Inter-Religious Engagement‘, Patheos (6/9/10)

Eli Yishai ‘Shas minister shuts down online payments on Shabbat, holidays‘, Haaretz.com (14/9/10)

Matthew Razak ‘Fallout Online viral advertising moves to religion‘, Destructoid (18/9/2010)

Reuters ‘Vatican Bank head in money laundering probe–sources‘, FaithWorld (21/9/10)
Vatican probably the only place in the world that allows people to use ATM’ s in Latin.

Mollie ‘Code name Esther‘, GetReligion (1/10/10)
The Biblical connection of the computer worm that got through Iran’s Digital Veil (that’s what we’re calling it, by the way).

Reuters ‘France charges man for burning, urinating on Koran‘, FaithWorld (5/10/10)

Randall Munroe ‘Online Communities 2‘, xkcd (5/10/10)
You can see “Religious Blogs” in the lower right-hand corner, east of the “Sea of Zero (0) Comments” and southwest of the “Blogosphere (Core Region)”.

tmatt ‘Bible-toting bullies with webcams?’, GetReligion (5/10/10)
and in the same vein
Jeff Kunerth ‘Religion plays different roles in cyberbullying debate‘, Orlando Sentinel (5/10/10)
as well as
Erica Brown ‘Outrage at humanity’s use of technology‘, Washington Post (7/10/10)

Elizabeth Drescher ‘Gen X, Gadgets, and God‘, Religion Dispatches (8/10/10)

Reuters ‘Brazil “values voters” go YouTube against prez hopeful Rousseff‘, FaithWorld (8/10/10)

Phew! That’s broken the back of it. Some more tomorrow, then we return to our regular programming schedule.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the Allahabad High Court struck a compromise between Hindu and Muslim interests last Thursday, ruling that the site be divided between all three parties: beside Muslims and “Hindus” are the Nirmohi Akhara sect, devotees of the Hindu god Hanuman. Text of the judges’ rulings can be read here (thanks to DavidP for this), which basically state that the court recognises the Hindu belief that the area under the mosque’s dome was the birthplace of Rama and where an idol and makeshift Hindu temple were erected should be given to the Hindus. They further recognise, however, that 16th century construction of the mosque was undertaken on a site which was, at that time, unoccupied and that in the 19th century Muslims and Hindus worshipped together in the same compound. As such, Muslims will retain an equal third share of the site. Whether this will allow them to reconstruct a (smaller) mosque on the site, or some sort of shrine is unclear.

I was a little surprised that they postponed the verdict from the original date of Friday the 24th to Thursday the 30th of September, so much closer to the opening ceremony of the New Delhi Commonwealth Games on Sunday the 2nd of October, given that they were clearly worried about civil unrest. Apparently 200,000 police were deployed around the nation to avoid a repeat of the 1992 riots. I suppose it’s possible that either they’d gotten wind of violent demonstrations in the intervening time or even that the court simply wished that time to deliberate their verdict, and Commonwealth Games be damned.

Supporting the view of an increasingly secular India put forward in such recent volumes as William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives, the Twittersphere lit up after the verdict urging peace and secularism. Posts included such comments as “We have built enough mosques and temples. Lets build the nation now”, and “Yes religion is important but NOT place of worship. And violence is not encouraged in any religion”.

Indo-Asian News Service ‘Let’s build nation now, says twitterati after Ayodhya judgment‘, Hindustan Times (30/9/10)

Offlining Inc.

Jewish ad execs Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum have created a campaign for people to disconnect from social media for Yom Kippur. The pair have a co-opted an old series of posters for Levy’s Jewish Rye Bread to create a number of cautionary tales involving celebrities.

Even Irish coppers like it

via ‘Try the OffLining Pledge for Yom Kippur?‘, Read the Spirit (17/9/10)

Now that I have your attention: it’s been almost a year but I can now finally call myself a contributor.

I’ll eventually have something current to say but I thought I’d first clear some backlog – it’s just too hard to pass up an opportunity to write those two words  in the same sentence.

Monks in Roman Catholic monasteries are expected to support themselves, balancing a life of prayer and work according to the sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict. The monks at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank make their money from the sale of ink and toner cartridges.

So unfortunately they are not responsible for this:

A Laser Strike at the Galactic Center Credit: Yuri Beletsky

In 2002 the Rev. Bernard McCoy, the monastery’s superior, had the idea for LaserMonks.com. They now also (of course) have a Facebook page.

Proceeds from the sale of products assist the monks good works and sustain their life of prayer – as they prepare to wage war against the Enemy in a post-apocalyptic future!

Oh well – we can dream, can’t we …?

via 2 Entrepreneurs Help a Monastery Thrive, The New York Times (01/06/2009) & Lasermonks: The Business Story Nine Hundred Years in the Making, McGraw-Hill, 2007 [Amazon & Google Books]

Now, I know I’m behind in my posting, but this is getting ridiculous. A lot of the feeds in my RSS reader have been spewing up old news and this is one of them (although I can’t work out which it was, as I’ve had the tab open for ages). Still, it’s interesting anyway.

Apparently this video made the top 3 topics on the front page of Digg, bringing it to the attention of its host YouTube for the first time. YouTube deemed this “inappropriate content” and it was removed. Predictably enough, this was deemed ‘censorship’ by many in the YouTube community, and it was rehosted multiple times.

I’m not sure exactly what YouTube deems “inappropriate” in this case. One or two of the images used in the slideshow are vaguely offensive, but it’s mostly pretty puerile stuff.

blargfrit ‘YouTube Pulls Atheist Video After Making Front Page of Digg.com‘, disinformation (6/1/09)

Rabbi Ben Greenberg has collected a number of readings from the Torah – re-tweeted by a selection of Jewish users – into a book available from internet self-publisher Lulu.

Not everyone is pleased with the marriage of religion and social media, however, and Corey Hodges warned against obscuring Christianity beneath layers of entertainment, in his blog for the Salt Lake Tribune. Describing an unnamed church in Houston that encourages parishioners to tweet comments and questions during the sermon that appear on screens behind the pastor who later addresses them. Surely a greater danger is someone deciding to write “this sermon is lame” for all to see.

Social media and religion are not irreconcilable, however, as devotees of this fine blog are no doubt aware. Writing for Arizona State University’s State Press Joseph Hermiz draws the same analogy as A. Prof. Mark Goodacre of Duke, that in the 1st century Paul himself utilised the most advanced social medium of the time, the epistle, to evangelise the Mediterranean.

More traditional folk are still serviced by the digital revolution, however. The 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanakh has been made into an audio recording, replacing the previous standard audio of the JPS’ 1917 translation. The audio stretches over 60 hours and is published online in weekly podcasts.

Joseph Hermiz ‘“Tweeting” the Torah, bringing religion online‘, State Press (19/10/09)
Corey J. Hodges ‘Tweeting in the pews? Pray it ain’t so‘, Salt Lake Tribune (15/10/09)

Freddie Mercury was a prominent Parsi.

One of the things that really interests me is how archaic and minority religions survive their various diasporas. AFP published a piece on how Parsis are using digital and social media technology to contact one another and bolster their religious identity. This can be anything from Zpeakerbox, an online zine for Zoroastrian youth to Facebook groups dedicated to Parsi cuisine. Prominent blogs like Parsi Khabar have a presence on Twitter. There’s even a Facebook-like social networking site for Zoroastrians called UshtaTeBook, named for the Zoroastrian benediction “Ushta Te”, although I wasn’t able to view it as entry is by invitation only (as was Facebook, originally).

One thing that struck me was the fact that, although Parsi sites often tried to include Irani Zoroastrians, just as often they were only interested in Parsis. There did not seem to be much of a presence, however, of similar Irani-centric sites. I wonder how much of this has to do with the relative population sizes of the different groups, or with Bombay being more of a technology hub than Iran. Anyone got any data?

Phil Hazlewood for AFP ‘Parsis use new technology to keep religion alive‘ (29/9/09)