The answer — according to an Institute for Human Ecology panel convened Sept. 17 at The Catholic University of America in Washington — is basically this: It depends.

There are "two big questions that hang over human life in digital reality right now," announced Ross Douthat, a media fellow with the institute and New York Times opinion columnist.

He was the evening's moderator and is the author of the forthcoming book "Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious" (Zondervan).

Social media and artificial intelligence

"Is social media dehumanizing us? Making us miserable; destroying our relationships; warping our intellectual lives; robbing us of creativity? And," Douthat asked, "is Artificial Intelligence replacing us?"

It's a paradox of both connection and disconnection.

With increased smartphone use — an estimated 69 percent of the global population, who also consume social media on their devices — come questions of authentic versus artificial community.

"It's actually become the vehicle through which we seek community," said Luke Burgis of Catholic University's Busch School of Business, where he is director of Programs & Projects at the Ciocca Center for Principled Entrepreneurship, and an assistant clinical professor of business.

"It extends us throughout the world; it puts us in dialogue with other people, through which we're constantly having our self — or our sense of self — mediated back to us. Every technology enhances some sense," he said, "to the diminishment of another."

While smartphones and social media are, Burgis said, enhancing our social sense and awareness, the communicative pace can be dizzying and dislocating.

"It's accelerated this kind of social sensory awareness that we have — but probably so fast that we have no idea what's happening."

Adjusting to the digital landscape

Jonathan Askonas, an assistant professor of politics at Catholic University, suggested that perhaps people simply need more time to adjust.

Qualifying that he opposes cellphone use by children and teens, he predicted that "once we've sort of overcome this initial narcissistic shock with the smartphone — once we've built the institutions and culture and norms around how we engage with this technology — its pro-social dimension will come to be seen more and more."

Ari Schulman, editor of The New Atlantis, a quarterly journal focused on the social, ethical, and political dimensions of modern science and technology, also cited the disrupting potential of the social media ecosystem.

"That dimension that was initially greeted as a new space of freedom, it's more like it was the dimension under us — what if the floor opened up, and just dropped out from under us?" he asked.

"That would be a new dimension as well — but it would totally unmoor us; it would rob us of all the context from which we can make sense of these kinds of contexts of social meaning," Schulman said. "I think that's the fundamental problem that we're facing here."

The decline of human connection

The smartphone era, Douthat said, isn't a transformation that's replacing workers, as happened in the Industrial Revolution. It's instead having a different effect.

"It's not creating this sort of massive economic dislocation; it's creating this massive social dislocation in which entire nations are ceasing to be capable of replacing themselves, seemingly."

Global fertility rates have been declining in all countries since 1950.

While admitting that opinion is "the doomer side of things," Douthat added that, optimistically, "the groups and peoples and cultures and families that make it through will have figured out these questions.

"You just won't make it through the next 75 years as a family or a society if you can't figure out how to get your kids to relate to one another in reality," he said, "because if you can't figure that out, they won't get married and have kids — and poof, you're gone."

Challenge to human creativity

The ascendancy of AI, Burgis said, issues a challenge to human creativity.

"I do think there's something to be said about doubling down on our human creative and artistic spirit — which I believe the AI can never replicate," declared Burgis.

"So sort of getting back to the kind of spiritual theology of creation, I think, is something that we'll probably hear a lot more about in the next few years."

Schulman noted that public reaction to AI-generated art is indeed frequently negative.

"There's already this kind of instinctive sense of dehumanization and flattening," he observed. "Everybody kind of knows this is going to hasten the decline of Hollywood."

Nonetheless, AI endlessly fascinates — but for a very basic reason, said Askonas.

"It's the thing that's most fascinating about any new technology — which is, what does it mean to be human? How does this reshape what it means to be human?" Read more

• Kimberley Heatherington writes for OSV News from Virginia.

Many viewed the pandemic as just another interruption to their most essential means of discipleship —in-person worship — and planned for communications to return to prepandemic methods after sheltering-in-place mandates ended.

However, as the pandemic receded, churches discovered unexpected benefits to their newly adopted tech.

Some even saw the forced change as an opportunity to reimagine church. They brainstormed how to ​​enhance livestream service quality and deepen connections with congregants through online platforms.

But others have cautioned against too much tech adoption.

It could encourage congregants to depend on leaders to handle communication and outreach tasks.

Or encourage leaders to view their churches as consumer "products," focusing on analytics, charts, and figures rather than the fundamental functions of pastoral ministry.

Virtual church?

A study on the State of Church Tech 2024 conducted by Pushpay — a fast-growing software as a service company in the faith sector — reveals a somewhat predicted, albeit still surprising, change in American church attendance.

Our desire to return to a pre-COVID style church has diminished.

The study claims the desire to return to in-person-only ministry is now waning, driving enthusiasm for church tech solutions.

In 2024, just 10 percent of churches said they were sticking to in-person-only services, while a whopping 90 percent are either keeping or enacting a hybrid model (in-person and online).

In last year's report, nearly three out of 10 leaders said they might move back to in-person-only services, signaling a possible shift away from a hybrid. But in 2024, that figure (those returning to in-person-only ministry) fell by 21 percent.

According to the report, less than one percent of churches are currently fully digital, but some pastors are concerned this number will rapidly grow in the next few years.

Back in 2021, after churches were returning to a "new" normal, assistant professor and pastor Jared Wilson tweeted, "Virtual church isn't church."

"When I was pastoring, there was a reason I regularly visited shut-ins and nursing homes rather than just emailing them or sending them a newsletter. Embodiment matters," Wilson added.

"Biblically speaking, it is even necessary."

Wilson told MinistryWatch that virtual church also obstructs genuine community, membership and pastoral care.

It transforms into an "individualized consumer product" immersed in a "pragmatism antithetical to the spiritual concerns of the New Testament vision."

But PushPay Chief Technology Officer Aaron Senneff told MinistryWatch that he rarely encounters someone advocating leaving in-person ministry to go entirely virtual.

Senneff recognizes that in-person ministry is effective but often leaves out alums, shut-ins, and online churchgoers "who won't be reached without a digital presence," like livestreaming services on the church's app or website.

Tackling the problem of anonymity

Senneff said one of his priorities is to solve the fundamental challenges of anonymity, which have been a growing issue since the pandemic.

It's too easy to walk in and out of church without ever connecting with someone.

But this happens online, too, he said. "Many churches have thousands of people watching but have no idea who they are. We want to help large churches operate in a small way."

It is possible to use technology to foster meaningful connections, he said.

Digital footprints, such as attendance and volunteering, indicate engagement.

Senneff advocates for a symbiotic relationship between technology and staff, where digital systems complement rather than replace human interaction.

These systems can help identify individuals in need and assemble church data into information leadership can use.

For example, if data indicated that a person stopped tithing after a period of consistent giving, leaders might deduce he or she could be experiencing family or financial distress and reach out.

Another example may be looking for indicators of volunteer burnout. Staff could note how often someone signs up to serve and consider giving them a break before risking burnout.

In response, Wilson agreed that digital methods can tell us some important things, but not "the most" important things.

These methods threaten to replace substantive relationships among members, said Wilson, and the pastor-member connection bound up in the New Testament vision for the local church.

"The Bible's primary concern about church behaviors and patterns are not quantifiable metrics but rather the fruit of the Spirit, maturation in Christ through discipleship and so on," he said.

"Those are the most important ‘metrics,' and they are not things easily discernible by digital footprints.

"They require actual relationships, actually engaged pastors and other leaders (not merely digital observers or programmers), and actual intentionality to disciple, not merely to ‘resource.'"

He said the solution to anonymity lies in pastors shepherding the flock, ensuring every member receives relational care, even in larger churches.

"If the COVID experience taught us anything, it's that virtual connection can be a helpful tool, but it absolutely is no replacement for the meaningful connection of in-person relationships," said Wilson.

"Life-on-life community is the only solution to the problem of anonymity."

Responsibility key

Editorial director for 9Marks Jonathan Leeman believes tech tools can be used well or poorly, like any technology.

"Responsible pastors will use those tools to prevent people from falling through the cracks," he told MinistryWatch.

"It's easy to miss or forget people, especially as a church grows."

He said pastors can regularly remind a congregation of the responsibility to help one another follow Jesus and build one another up in the faith.

"Helping other Christians follow Jesus is what it means to follow Jesus. This is not just the job for pastors but for every Christian. It's Christianity 101."

Leeman suggested pastors prioritise discipleship and clear expectations for membership, practice church discipline, and increase the number of elders for better care.

Consolidating services promotes accountability and community, avoiding anonymity issues.

As for PushPay CTO Senneff, he said in a time when IT and ministry are starting to intermix, he would like to see churches shift their views of tech's role in the church.

"I would love to see churches consolidate tech tools and better use them to further the kingdom," Senneff said.

"For them to think about improving as a whole to strongly connect with others."

• Article published in Religion Unplugged
• Jessica Eturralde is a military wife of 18 years and mother of three who serves as a freelance writer, TV host, and filmmaker.

There are reasons to think it heralds a new and even uglier era in American Catholicism.

As Catholics were still reeling from Pope Francis' abrogation Friday (July 16) of his predecessor's guidance on the traditional Latin Mass, "Summorum Pontificum".

Indeed, while this author was struggling to finish an article about that event, The Pillar, a Catholic publication, released what it called "an investigation" in which data identifying Burrill's phone seemed to indicate he had frequently used Grindr, a popular dating app in the gay community, and that he had left geolocation tracks to and from gay clubs.

That is all we really learned from The Pillar's "investigation."

And, here is an important place to pause.

I am a sinner. So are you. So is Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill.

Not one of us has a personal life that would withstand the sort of scrutiny The Pillar has applied to Burrill.

Every single one of us has had a shameful moment we regret, and I suspect most of us must be caught up in cycles of sinfulness that we repeat less because we want to than because we are sinners and cannot help being sinners.

Like anyone else, Burrill's sins are between him and God.

Like any other priest, we can say his bishop belongs in that conversation too.

But unless there is some reason to think he has harmed someone else, I feel sure his sins are none of my business, as much as my sins are none of yours.

As a Catholic, I am bound to believe all of that.

I am not sure what the investigators at The Pillar believe.

I feel comfortably sure that before they embarked on their "investigation," they must not have thought about the Code of Canon Law, which states, "No one is permitted to harm illegitimately the good reputation which a person possesses nor to injure the right of any person to protect his or her own privacy." (Canon 220)

They must also not have thought about the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says, "everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbour's thoughts, words, and deeds in a favourable way" (Catechism 2478) because "detraction and calumny offend against the virtues of justice and charity." (Catechism 2479).

I can see plainly they did not heed St. Paul, who pointed the finger at himself as a sinner (1 Timothy 1:15) before pointing to others.

Whatever we may say of their practice of Catholicism, The Pillar's investigators paid little heed also to the canons of ethics for journalists.

How did they get their story?

The Society for Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics encourages journalists to "avoid using undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information" and admonishes that "Pursuit of the news is not a license for … undue intrusiveness."

What story did they get here?

That Burrill might have broken his vow of chastity and (consensually) used other people for impersonal sex?

The Code of Ethics also tells journalists to "avoid pandering to lurid curiosity, even if others do." And perhaps more importantly, it says, "avoid stereotyping."

There we also need to pay some attention.

The Pillar has less gotten hold of a story than it has published an innuendo.

And, the innuendo should worry us.

The Pillar writes that the data it has from Burrill's phone "suggests that he was … engaged in serial and illicit sexual activity," at the same time he was coordinating responses to the sex abuse crisis for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Although Pillar acknowledges "there is no evidence to suggest that Burrill was in contact with minors through his use of Grindr," the article goes on in the same paragraph to say his use of the app presents a conflict of interest in his role responding to sex abuse because such apps are sometimes used to solicit or traffic minors.

A few paragraphs earlier the article quotes another priest seeming to make a similar leap regarding Burrill's behaviour: that "regularly and glaringly failing to live continence" can become "only a step away from sexual predation."

That equivalence is the ugliest part — conflating consensual sexual behaviour (if Burrill even was part of any, which we do not know) with sexual abuse.

This is the hook on which the "story" hangs, a long-discredited link between sexual abuse and homosexuality. It is hard to call that something other than a slur and a sin against the LGBTQ+ community.

Not to mention, the article's allegations, if true, "out" Burrill's sexuality without his consent — a widely condemned practice.

And, all of that is a bit much to take.

But I fear in fact there is something worse.

I agree with what Monsignor Kevin Irwin wrote today in the National Catholic Reporter, that Pope Francis last week unmasked "the silent schism that has taken place and continues in the American Catholic Church."

We Catholics have been at each other's throats for decades, mostly quietly and with some veneer of restraint.

The façade has been falling, and those days might be over.

Now, The Pillar has opened the way further with this no-holds-barred exposé.

I do not say this idly.

After mere hours, the comments on The Pillar's tweet of the story already see people enthused about going after "bishops … engaged in questionable activity," and asking "what the laity should be doing (to) shine a light into all these dark corners."

We saw centuries ago what Christians — unburdened by their Christianity — in their conflicts with other Christians can look like. I fear we are seeing it again.

That is what schism brings.

That is where the spirit of division leads.

Pope Francis was not wrong to unmask what already is underway, but The Pillar is wrong to push this spirit of division even further along with what I only can call the worst sort of tittle-tattle tabloid journalism.

And, I fear we have not yet seen the worst.

A long ugly season awaits American Catholics.

No one is safe and — it seems — all is permitted.

• Steven P. Millies is associate professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center, at Catholic Theological Union.
• First published by RNS.
• The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.

It was an unremarkable breakfast—a fried egg—but it is now digitally fossilized in a floral dish we moved with us when we left New York and headed west.

I don't know why I took the photo, except, well, I do: I had fallen into the reflexive habit of taking photos of everything.

Not long ago, the egg popped up as a "memory" in a photo app!

The timestamp jolted my actual memory.

It was May 2019 when we split up, back when people cancelled weddings and called off relationships because of good old-fashioned dysfunction, not a global pandemic. Back when you wondered if seating two people next to each other at a wedding might result in awkward conversation, not hospitalization.

Did I want to see the photo again?

Not really.

Nor do I want to see the wedding ads on Instagram, or a near-daily collage of wedding paraphernalia on Pinterest, or the "Happy Anniversary!" emails from WeddingWire, which for a long time arrived every month on the day we were to be married.

Never mind that anniversaries are supposed to be annual.

Yet nearly two years later, these things still clutter my feeds. The photo widget on my iPad cycles through pictures of wedding dresses.

Of the thousands of memories I have stored on my devices—and in the cloud now—most are cloudless reminders of happier times. But some are painful, and when algorithms surface these images, my sense of time and place becomes warped.

It's been especially pronounced this year, for obvious and overlapping reasons.

In order to move forward in a pandemic, most of us were supposed to go almost nowhere.

Time became shapeless. And that turned us into sitting ducks for technology.

Our smartphones pulse with memories now.

In normal times, we may strain to remember things for practical reasons—where we parked the car—or we may stumble into surprise associations between the present and the past, like when a whiff of something reminds me of Sunday family dinners. Now that our memories are digital, though, they are incessant, haphazard, intrusive.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly when apps started co-opting memories, madly deploying them to boost engagement and make a buck off nostalgia.

The groundwork was laid in the early 2010s, right around the time my now ex and I started dating.

For better or worse, I have been a tech super-user since then too.

In my job as a technology journalist, I've spent the past dozen years tweeting, checking in, joining online groups, experimenting with digital payments, wearing multiple activity trackers, trying every "story" app and applying every gauzy photo filter.

Unwittingly, I spent years drafting a technical blueprint for the relationship, one that I couldn't delete when the construction plans fell apart.

If we already are part cyborg, as some technologists believe, there is a cyborg version of me, a digital ghost, that is still getting married.

The real me would really like to move on now. Continue reading

The Nov. 16-17 virtual meeting involved about 300 bishops on Zoom and many viewers watching the livestreamed public portions.

The two days of discussions went off without a hitch, save for the occasional bishop either on mute or repeating: "Can you hear me?" while Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, gave the thumbs-up sign from the USCCB studio that was the command center for these sessions.

The archbishop, led the meeting along with Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit, USCCB vice president and Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield, outgoing USCCB general secretary. The three sat at a desk behind plexiglass separators, quite different from the dais on the hotel ballroom stage at typical bishops' meetings.

Read More

Venerable Carlo Acutis
The teenager, computer geek and leukemia victim will be beatified. The Medical Council of the Congregation for Saints' Causes has approved a miracle attributed to the Venerable Carlo, who died in 2006.

The miracle involved a Brazilian child who was healed from a rare congenital anatomic anomaly of the pancreas in 2013.

The Italian teen's beatification is expected to take place in Assisi, which is where Acutis is buried.

Acutis, who was 15 when he died, offered his suffering for the pope and for the Church.

Last May, his mother, Antonia Salzano, said "Jesus was the center of his day."

He attended daily Mass, frequently prayed the rosary, and made weekly confessions.

His mother said priests and nuns would say they could tell the Lord had a special plan for her son.

"Carlo really had Jesus in his heart, really the pureness … When you are really pure of heart, you really touch people's hearts," she said.

Acutis's gift for computer technology resulted in a website which catalogued Eucharistic miracles.

This website was the genesis of The Eucharistic Miracles of the World, an international exhibition which highlights such occurrences.

Blessed Lazarus (also called Devasahayam)
A miracle has been attributed to 18th century Indian martyr Blessed Lazarus, who suffered severe persecution after converting from Hinduism to Catholicism.

Blessed Maria Francesca of Jesus
A miracle has also been attributed to the intercession of Blessed Maria Francesca of Jesus. Francesca, who died in Uruguay in 1904, was the missionary foundress of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of Loano.

Both Blessed Lazarus and Blessed Maria Francesca of Jesus can now be canonized as saints. Their canonisation dates have yet to be announced.

Fr Rutilio Grande García and two lay companions
The Vatican has recognized the martyrdom of a Jesuit priest, Fr. Rutilio Grande García, and his two lay companions, who were killed in El Salvador. Grande, a close friend of St. Oscar Romero, was shot by a right-wing death squad while travelling in a car on March 12, 1977.

Servants of God
The heroic virtues of Servant of God Mario Hiriart Pulido, a Chilean engineer and lay member of the Secular Institute for the Schoenstatt Brothers of Mary who died in Wisconsin in 1964, have been recognised.

So have the heroic virtues of three Italian priests: Fr. Emilio Venturini, Fr. Pirro Scavizzi, and Fr. Emilio Recchia.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Patheos

This time, a group that favours Trump is trying to ensure a repeat victory. And it's using something called geofencing to find Catholics at Mass.

For All Tech Considered, NPR's Audie Cornish spoke with Heidi Schlumpf of the National Catholic Reporter about what's going on.

HEIDI SCHLUMPF: Geofencing is a way of data mining that targets people based on their location.

So when you agree to those apps that want to share your location data, geofencers are able to capture that when you enter or leave a geographically prescribed area - in this case, a church.

CORNISH: How does it happen?

I mean, what is the trigger?

I guess, as you're going to and from Mass?

SCHLUMPF: If your phone is on and you have an app open in which you've allowed the sharing of location data, the geofencers can capture your IP address and other data from your phone.

Then they can target ads directly to that device.

But they can also cross-reference that data that they've acquired with other data sets, so in this case, probably voter rolls. And already we have this conservative Catholic organization that's doing exactly that to try to target Catholic voters.

CORNISH: Who's the organization, and what have you learned about what they're up to?

SCHLUMPF: The organization is called CatholicVote.

And on their website, it lists a number of issues that are important to them.

But in the end, they narrow it down to three culture war issues. And that's abortion, gay marriage and what they call religious liberty.

CORNISH: Now, you report that using geofencing, CatholicVote has already identified some 200,000 Catholics in Wisconsin, which of course is a key state heading into 2020.

They're able to discover that half of those Mass-goers are not registered to vote. Help us understand, from there, how does this give them the advantage, so to speak?

SCHLUMPF: Yeah. CatholicVote, the organization, is planning what they're calling the largest Catholic voter mobilization program ever, based on this geofenced information that they've mined.

It's basically a get-out-the-vote effort.

They've identified people who are regular Mass-goers.

They want to get them registered to vote and get them to the polls because they have data that shows that 60% to 70% of regular Catholic churchgoers - again, especially in these geographic areas of white suburban churches that they're targeting - are going to vote for the Republican Party, and in this case, Donald Trump. Continue reading

The new "technology" of Roman roadways made possible the rapid spread of Christianity in the Mediterranean.

So did the communication technologies of the scroll and, starting in the second century, the codex.

Centuries later it was a communication technology—the printing press—that helped ignite the Protestant Reformation.

Five centuries later, a new technology represents what could be a new Reformation.

For communicating the gospel, the internet is a technology as game-changing as the printing press.

It's a medium with its fair share of challenges, to be sure, but also powerful new opportunities.

God in his sovereignty has placed us in this specific era, with this unprecedented tool, for a reason.

What we do now could ripple through history and affect generations.

Will we seize or squander the opportunity?

Early Adopters

Christians have often been quick to adopt new technologies.

When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century, Bibles were some of the first books printed—thus helping to ignite the Reformation.

When movies were invented in the early 20th century, Christians were quick to see the power and potential of the form (for good and for ill).

Some of the earliest silent films were biblical epics or explored Christian themes. Soon after radio-broadcast technology debuted in the 1920s, Christians like Paul Radar, Bob Jones Sr., Charles Fuller, and Aimee Semple McPherson were using this powerful form to reach audiences in the millions.

When television broadcasting followed, evangelicals were quick to seize its potential. Billy Graham became a household name in part by using television.

And of course, a neologism soon entered the lexicon: "televangelism," with TV preachers like Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson gaining massive audiences.

Though the evangelical impulse to quickly leverage new communication technologies is understandable and admirable—evangelistic zeal is good!—often this zeal has not been accompanied by caution regarding unintended side effects.

The printing press was a huge win for getting God's Word into the hands of common people for the first time.

But it also contributed to our fragmented church today with "me and Jesus" ecclesiology and "what it means to me" hermeneutics.

Radio and television amplified the gospel to masses across the planet.

But it also gave rise to the "celebrity pastor" phenomenon, greedy prosperity preachers, and positioned faith on the same infotainment plane as The Ed Sullivan Show.

Evangelicals have been entrepreneurial in developing mobile apps—Bible apps, prayer apps, tithing apps, church apps—but slower to consider how such media might further degrade a user's (likely) already poor ecclesiology.

Media critic Neil Postman wisely observed, "Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose."

He said every technological change is a Faustian bargain: "A new technology sometimes creates more than it destroys. Sometimes, it destroys more than it creates. But it is never one-sided."

Technology changes the game

New potential strategies are introduced, but also new obstacles.

For Christians, the key is not to rush onto the field and start playing as fast as possible (often doing more harm than good); nor is it to stay on the bench in protest, because the rules aren't how we first learned them.

Rather, we should take a bit of time to understand the dynamics of the new game so that when we do throw our energies into the field, it's in the right way and the right places.

Three opportunities

As an editor for The Gospel Coalition—which has been an internet-based ministry since its inception 14 years ago—I'm aware of the downsides of the web.

I work and live in this world, and I know how ugly it can be.

But I also know how much potential there is to be salt and light in the oft-dark spaces of the web. For example, here are three opportunities I see for how ministries like TGC can make an unprecedented impact for the cause of Christ and the gospel. Continue reading

The international and interreligious conference, "Promoting Digital Child Dignity: From Concept to Action," was organized to combat the multiplying risks and challenges of the internet for minors.

Over 270,000 images of sexual abuse of minors are uploaded to the internet every day, according to data collected by Microsoft.

Pedophiles and sexual abusers hold their own conferences and create secret symbols to share their illegal content online.

About 80% of the victims are children under 10 years old, most of them female, photographed or taped in domestic environments.

But the danger is not only for the children exploited by criminals on the internet, but also for youth who have access to the internet and are exposed to violent and dangerous content. Continue reading

But chances are that the details of their lives — from their phones and their politics to their dinner plates and how they raise their kids — are still ruled by some sort of a religious impulse, says author David Zahl.

Zahl is the founder of the popular nondenominational Christian Mockingbird Ministries project, which formed 12 years ago to reach out to young adults who felt they had been "burned" by the church.

His most recent book, "Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do About It," suggests that American culture is not actually becoming more secular at all.

It's simply becoming more religious about more things, with people increasingly attaching their natural yearning to feel like enough to more and more things.

"If you want to understand what makes someone tick, or why they're behaving the way they are, trace the righteousness in play, and things will likely become clear," he writes.

Zahl, who also works for the Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, spoke to Religion News Service about the secular religiosities he sees ruling people's lives and anxieties. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Can you define "seculosity" and how you see it play out in the world around you?

It's a mashup of secular and religiosity.

It really refers to what I call religious devotion or religious feeling or even the impulse when it's directed at earthly rather than heavenly objects.

But also I wanted didn't want to ascribe belief in something divine or supernatural. So that's why I chose the word seculosity.

Especially as a young parent, I would see codes of behavior, people clinging to something that's righteous.

There's an orthodox way and almost like a heretical way of raising children.

People were constantly at war with each other.

You would see a parent at a playground correcting a perfect stranger.

And it felt to me like what you would see sometimes in a church event.

So I saw all the young parents around me always get so anxious, like they were being graded all the time.

Are there other areas you see it playing out?

Certainly you see it in things like exercise.

I remember being invited to a SoulCycle class, which is the classic example.

We're all facing one direction and we're standing and we're kneeling and there's someone at the front who just starts spouting out witty sayings.

But they weren't just about exercise, they were about betterment and perfection.

The community and the ritual that developed around exercise to me felt a lot like the small groups that I had been a part of in churches in the past.

Take something like food.

Look at the emphasis on the purity of where ingredients are sourced, what's being put into you, the way that we used to call it fasting and now we just call it a cleanse.

The moral language, the anxiety around food, the fear of getting caught eating fast food — again, the judgments we wield against each other based on diet. It felt like a lot of anxiety.

A lot of sense of righteousness was at stake in where people were eating and what they were eating and there was a lot of hiding.

And any time there's hiding there is usually some form of judgment or condemnation that people are afraid of.

I can go on and on. T.S. Eliot once said half the harm that is done in this world is by people who are absorbed in the "endless struggle to think well of themselves."

A lot of times we turn to these seculosities to make us feel better about ourselves but they end up making us feel worse.

Do you see the proliferation of social media and technology as exacerbating seculosity? Perhaps in the ways people present certain kinds of images of themselves online?

Absolutely.

But I don't think this tendency is something that's invented by social media or technology.

Church people have always felt that there was sort of Sunday face that you would put on where everyone was sort of shiny and happy sitting in church wearing nice clothes and got the sense that everything was going well.

Then there was the rest of the week where you were just who you were.

That phenomenon of like a "Sunday face" versus the "rest of the week face" — that's social media to me.

It's the gap between who you should be and who you actually are, which creates a lot of dissonance and a lot of, again, anxiety but also loneliness.

And the comparisons that people make each other jump through, it's pretty merciless.

In the church, there was a backdrop of sin and the idea that people are not perfect.

Without that you just have pressure to curate and put up a happy face or sophisticated face or effortlessly sophisticated face at all times.

That's really daunting.

There's some real spiritual and emotional fallout in that.

Do you think people of faith are less prone to seculosity?

In a lot of ways — I call it Jesusland, the kind of bastardized form of Protestant Christianity that dominated a lot of the West, or at least America — it resembles seculosity much more than medieval Christianity or Reformation Christianity or first-century Christianity.

It's a lot about church as the place to assert or earn righteousness, rather than a place to receive it.

Speaking myself as someone who is involved in a couple of churches, I found myself very, very, very much prone to seculosity and everything I describe in the book.

So I don't know.

Seculosity is not so much about worship so much as self-justification, like where people are finding their sense that they're justified, they're enough, they're OK.

That's part of what religion is about, a sort of guilt management system where you end up offloading your guilt or your shame, receiving some sort of better sense of yourself.

People are very much doing the same thing.

When the seculosities exhaust you, when they beat you into the total nervous wreck, that's usually when you find real faith, something that's not based in your performance.

What message do you hope religious and nonreligious people will walk away with?

One of the things I wanted to do in the book was not give people another set of things to feel like they're failing at.

I really wanted to point to whatever it is, wherever it is, a person finds some form of grace — that can be in the form of forgiveness, mercy, love in the midst of deserving something else.

That is what I hope and pray people will cling to and value a little bit more deeply.

Because you're not going to get it from your bank account or social media.

We're not going to get the gift of humanizing and absolving like that.

But I think we all tend to have something that functions in that way in our life, and I hope we can figure out a way to stay closer to it.

Can houses of worship aid in that journey?

I do have some prescriptions for what I think it would take for religion in this country to function again in that way, as a religion of grace rather than one that drives exhaustion and hypocrisy and perfectionism.

We have to evaluate our relationship to our performance, to find some sense of dignity in our being rather than our doing.

It's a little cliché, perhaps, but I think one thing that would help is talking a bit more about death.

So much of that anxiety that I'm describing is stuff that you don't think about on your deathbed.

Ultimately, death is the great equalizer. And I think that it actually, instead of being morose, it shows us that our performance really isn't the most important thing going on in life.

Our relationships are more important.

You realize that everyone already feels like a failure.

We all have some sort of treadmill that we're running on.

People are suffering under enormous burdens of who they should be. And what would it look like for our houses of faith to be places you go when you mess up rather than places you flee from when you have?

Religion at its best has been a place where we can go to with our guilt and our shame.

When you cut religion out of your life, a lot of times it looks like you're cutting out the oppressive part, the mandates.

But when you do that you're also cutting off the forgiveness.

Clergy used to be your local forgiveness person.

Wouldn't it be beautiful if our houses of worship were places we could go to unload, to atone, to be refreshed, to receive hope beyond your performance that day?

• Aysha Khan is a Boston-based journalist reporting on American Muslims and millennial faith for RNSFirst published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• Image: RNS

But they're on the brink of a mental-health crisis.

One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas.

She answered her phone - she's had an iPhone since she was 11 - sounding as if she'd just woken up. We chatted about her

We chatted about her favourite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. "We go to the mall," she said.

"Do your parents drop you off?," I asked, recalling my own middle-school days, in the 1980s, when I'd enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends.

"No - I go with my family," she replied.

"We'll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we're going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes."

Those mall trips are infrequent - about once a month.

More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned.

Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear.

They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other.

Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends.

"It's good blackmail," Athena said. (Because she's a minor, I'm not using her real name.)

She told me she'd spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone.

That's just the way her generation is, she said.

"We didn't have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people."

I've been researching generational differences for 25 years, starting when I was a 22-year-old doctoral student in psychology.

Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum.

Beliefs and behaviours that were already rising simply continue to do so.

Millennials, for instance, are a highly individualistic generation, but individualism had been increasing since the Baby Boomers turned on, tuned in, and dropped out.

I had grown accustomed to line graphs of trends that looked like modest hills and valleys.

Then I began studying Athena's generation.

Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviours and emotional states.

The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear.

In all my analyses of generational data—some reaching back to the 1930s - I had never seen anything like it. Continue reading

• Image: Periodis Moecuador

The first two generally come in the form of packages from the United Nation's World Food Program or other nonprofit organizations.

The latter, however, traditionally came in the form of kerosene lamps, which are less than ideal. In fact, they're often dangerous.

According to the Word Health Organization, roughly 1.5 million people a year die from toxic kerosene fumes.

In India, where the impoverished population heavily depends on kerosene, the lamps cause over 30,000 yearly house fires.

In South Africa, 200,000 people are injured or lose property due to kerosene-related fires.

Not to mention, kerosene users spend 30% of their income buying it.

"They can save that money for food, education, building homes," explains Alice Min Soo Chun, founder and CEO of Solight Design, who created a unique alternative: a slim solar lantern.

The SolarPuff is a two-ounce, flat-pack solar lamp which quickly expands into a 4.5-inch cube.

The lantern can last eight hours and easily recharges with clear sunlight.

It provides enough light for refugees or people in impoverished areas to perform tasks at night, without instigating any dangerous fires or needing batteries. There are even different settings (high or low), and a blinking option to scare off wild animals or signal distress.

To some degree, we likely take light for granted, but 1.06 billion people have no access to electricity or clean sustainable lighting, according to the World Bank.

Child trauma, kidnappings and sex trafficking

Chun explains how many Syrian refugees—often starving and sick—arrive by boat in the middle of night, at times when they cannot see where to land or how to safely disembark.

They are handed lights by NGO volunteers to navigate the waters so they don't crash into rocks.

From there, they might need to walk up to 30 miles in the dark to arrive at a camp, where there are no lights. (Refugees without access to kerosene lamps often find themselves burning plastic trash, "which is even more toxic," notes Chun).

SolarPuff brightens the trek—and their new life.

"A lot of times the kids are suffering from trauma and they're frightened, but when they're handed the light, they perk up."

The popping element of the design, she explains, "gives them a sense of wonder."

The SolarPuff has proven to be extremely useful in reducing camp crime, such as child kidnappings or sex trafficking. Continue reading

"People who go to church are more likely to volunteer and give to charity — not just because they're religious, but because they're part of a community," he said.

"A church doesn't just come together. It has a pastor who cares for the well-being of their congregation, makes sure they have food and shelter..."

In a speech delivered in Chicago last week Zuckerberg suggested Americans are in need of something to unify their lives.

In an earlier speech, a 30-minute commencement address at Harvard College, he followed a similar line. "When our parents graduated, purpose reliably came from your job, your church, your community. But today, technology and automation are eliminating many jobs."

Zuckerberg said we all get meaning from the communities we belong to, "they give us that sense we are part of something bigger, that we are not alone; they give us the strength to expand our horizons."

"It's so striking that for decades, membership in all kinds of groups has declined as much as one-quarter. That's a lot of of people who now need to find a sense of purpose and support somewhere else."

Zuckerberg thinks Facebook can help, using its networking power to organise people.

He says Facebook's artificial intelligence algorithm can power the website to more effectively organise online communities.

He pointed out that while that Facebook has almost two billion users "only" 100 million of them are currently part of "meaningful communities". He wants that figure to rise to a billion.

"If we can do this, it will not only turn around the whole decline in community membership we've seen for decades, it will start to strengthen our social fabric and bring the world closer together," he said.

Source

• recode.net
• cnbc.com
• cnbc.com
• independent.co.uk
• Image: twt-thumbs.washingtonpoast.com

The lead school in the project is Chanel College in Masterton.

The other participating schools are: St Patrick's College (Silverstream), St Patrick's College (Wellington), St Bernard's College, Sacred Heart College (Lower Hutt), Garin College, (Nelson), St Catherine's College (Kilbirnie), and Bishop Viard College (Porirua).

The Teacher-led Innovation Fund (TLIF) had received 69 full proposals when the second round of applications closed on 13 May. The Selection Panel chose 46 projects to receive funding over the next 2 years.

The Catholic schools inquiry project about enhancing students' outcomes in technology is the largest one in the second round.

What is the Teacher-Led Innovation Fund?

TLIF supports teams of teachers to develop innovative practices that improve learning outcomes - especially for students who are Maori, Pasifika, have special education needs, and/or come from low socio-economic backgrounds.

It allows teachers the time and opportunity to:

• inquire into ‘puzzles of practice', with other eachers, to find ways of helping individual (or groups of) students to succeed
• work in partnership with experts, for example, academics, researchers, community and/or cultural leaders, innovation experts
• share what works with other kura/schools and educators across Aotearoa New Zealand.

Innovative projects involve inquiring into new practices, or applying existing practices in new contexts, and investigating in a systematic way whether they result in improved learning outcomes.

The Government has allocated $18 million over five years, 2015 to 2020 for The Teacher-led Innovation Fund.

It's open to all primary and secondary teachers in state and state integrated schools, to support the development of innovative practices.

Skills Shortage

In a New Zealand Technology Industry Association (NZTech) study released last week, figures show there are 44,161 people working in high-tech manufacturing and 54,750 in ICT (Information and Communications Technology).

The study says there is a skills shortage.

NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller says the New Zealand education system is not evolving fast enough to generate local talent to support its growth.

"Currently there are not enough students entering ICT study paths to supply the demand for skills by industry. " he said

"New Zealand needs a skilled and innovative workforce in order to succeed in the global marketplace, for the tech sector to thrive and for all public and private sector organisations to perform."

"NZTech recommends ongoing efforts to lift the responsiveness of the education system to the needs of tech sector employers. It is also critical for all children to develop skills to prepare them for the jobs of the future."

Source

• education.govt.nz
• educators.co.nz
• makelemonade.nz
• nztech.org.nz
• Image: insig2.eu

"Passing the basket and taking those gifts to the altar is a very important part of the Mass," said Janine Young, chief executive officer of the Foundation for the Diocese of El Paso.

"And we will have cards that say 'I gave at the kiosk.' Read more

The interdenominational church is one of the most popular scenic icons in the country with an estimated 100,000-plus visitors a year.

The Mackenzie Co-operating Parish oversees the church.

Parish committee member Graeme Murray said the decision to ban photography was not taken lightly. Continue reading

But not everyone takes heed. There are instances of ringtones, texting or even calls during being taken during liturgies.

Deacon Greg Kandra says his favourite moment involving a cell phone in church happened near the end of one Mass.

The priest was about to make an announcement about the second collection.

During a dramatic pause, someone's mobile phone went off, playing the "Mexican Hat Dance."

Without missing a beat, the priest quickly improvised: "How appropriate. Because now we're about to pass the hat…" read more

Celebrity culture, the prevalence of sexual imagery and a lack of awareness about the consequences are among the pressures experts say are being piled on teenagers.

Parents are now being called on to educate themselves about the risks their children are being exposed to in the same way as they inform themselves about drink and drugs.

The issue has been raised by forensic psychologist Dr Maureen Griffin addressing a child protection conference.

One in four teenagers who responded to a survey admitted sending sexual images of themselves by mobile phone, Dr Griffin revealed.

Secondary school pupils are being surrounded by sexual imagery and are being pressurised to send provocative messages, the psychologist warned.

As part of the worrying trend, children as young as 10 are copying lewd celebrity culture by swapping naked pictures of themselves via mobile phone. Continue reading

These days Fr Schneider uses the latest technology in the classroom: smartboards, iPads, and so forth — a far cry from the chalk and blackboards when he started.

And he has now presented a short film about his life, called "There Once Was A Boy Named Geoffrey".

Continue reading