By Lona O'Connor
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Kosher cellphones that block incoming pornography; e-birthday cards for Pope Benedict XVI; a pagan podcast with hip, witchy background music. These are the latest methods of luring the faithful (and the lapsed) in the 21st century.
If Samuel Morse had known such miracles were on the horizon, he might well have repeated the words of his first telegram: "What hath God wrought!"
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Latest breaking news, photos and all of today's Post stories.
•State news
Storm 2006:Hurricane news
• Sound off in the forum
• Columnists
• Crime, live scanners
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Examples of the links between technology and religion are everywhere: In Boca Raton alone, it is possible to wave at a friend visiting Israel on real-time television or send a flirty text message in a wired e-cafe.
Out in cyberspace, the possibilities explode. There are pagan podcasts for aspiring witches and "Godcasts" that allow MP3 and iPod users to download prayers and Scripture. Christian Star Trek fans can read — and hear — the Bible online in the Klingon language.
According to the Pew Research Center, religious use of the Internet jumped from 20 million to nearly 82 million between 2000 and 2004.
Meanwhile, attendance at houses of worship held steady at 45 percent of American adults surveyed, while only 17 percent view the local house of worship as essential for developing faith, according to a 2005 national Barna Research poll.
With that troubling statistic looming, priests, rabbis and ministers are casting about for ways to spread the word electronically.
Like the temperance workers of old, who went to the beer halls to save souls, some "e-vangelists" take the message where troubled souls already hang out: on the Internet.
For example, www.xxxchurch.com helps people recover from porn addiction. Billing itself the "Number 1 Christian porn site," it offers to "let you know that you are loved by God and by the people involved in this ministry.... You have porn problems. Jesus will set you free."
Kosher cellphones sprang up last year in Israel in response to rabbis' calls for a workable compromise between the need for cell communication and the strict laws governing behavior of Orthodox Jews. The phone allows incoming and outgoing calls only — no text-messaging, Internet, photo, video or voice-mail applications.
Rabbi Sholom Ciment of Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Boynton said people in his congregation are interested in the kosher phones and other ways to use technology with care for their religious values. With many young families in its congregation, Chabad Lubavitch has a volunteer who helps set up Internet controls on home computers.
"If they feel like they have a weakness, I strongly advise them to use" the kosher cellphone, he said. "If someone has a weakness toward drinking, you don't send them to the bar."
Ciment uses e-mail to send his "Weekly Dose of Torah Inspiration," covering a wide variety of topics, including birth announcements, discussions of marital infidelity, holiday reminders and even a nod to a reliable shutter installer.
Wireless breaks down walls
Nondenominational Christian blogger and author Andrew Careaga noticed the e-religion phenomenon a decade ago among the old usenet newsgroups, many of which discussed religion.
He wrote a book describing e-vangelism in 1999 and has since set up a blog about the phenomenon, www.e-vangelism.com.
Online, he met a kindred spirit, Tony Whittaker, and now they collaborate on the e-vangelism blog. Whittaker lives in Britain, Careaga in Missouri. In the best tradition of e-pals, the two men have never laid eyes on each other.
Religion and communications have been linked at least since the Gutenberg Bible replaced the illuminated manuscript. At that watershed moment, books — and particularly the Bible — became widely available for the first time.
The invention of movable type in the 15th century also fostered the spread of religious ideas through relatively-cheaply produced pamphlets.
"If Martin Luther had not been able to have his tracts mass-produced and distributed, he'd have been another of countless people burned at the stake," Tom Ferguson, associate deputy of interfaith relations for the Episcopal Church, said in a recent online interview with TechNewsWorld. "Religion is not embracing the information revolution; it's reaping what it sowed hundreds of years ago."
The Internet, with its endless meeting places and easy Web sites and blogs, allows anyone with a message to become an electronic pamphleteer.
The Internet's attraction for religion seekers and evangelizers is the same as it is for any other users, according to Pew researchers: It's always open.
"Congregations can provide a thorough depiction of themselves to those who might be too shy to enter the sanctuary or ask questions directly of members of the congregation," they wrote in the 2000 report.
Cybercafe comfortable
That's the idea behind J-Café, a Wednesday night event at Boca Tov restaurant in suburban Boca Raton.
J-Café, sponsored by Hillel of Broward and Palm Beach, advertises to college students in both low- and high-tech ways, using slick paper fliers along with e-calendar items on its Web site, with Hebrew reggae music playing in the background.
The cafe is a wireless hot spot, so Michael Katz sets up comfortably on the balcony, checking e-mail on his Palm and sharing his iPod music on tiny speakers.
"Did you get my text message?" he asks a passing girl.
Inside, That '70s Show is playing on a large flat-screen television. At other times, the screen shows a real-time view of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a modernistic live-action postcard from the Holy Land.
A dozen students pick up trays of sushi and soft drinks and drift out to the balcony to watch the other live-action attraction: sunset. These are the same sort of things they might do at any gathering place.
The only significant religion-related difference is that many of them met on trips to Israel, a rite of passage for many Jewish teens and a watershed event that bonded them.
Most nights, Rabbi Baruch Plotkin makes himself available at J-Café, but it's not to launch intense discussions on the Torah or anything else formally religious. If someone wanders over and brings up a topic, he makes himself available.
"I like that format. I want to be there for them," he said.
The live video of the Western Wall is more than a flat-screen postcard, said Plotkin, who also arranges Israel tours.
"A lot of people are afraid of Israel," said Plotkin, a former campus rabbi who, not surprisingly, is packing a PDA, too. He points to the TV screen and says, "Look, there's Israel. Does that look dangerous to you?"
Plotkin is betting that his offbeat, high-tech approach will have the desired effect, bonding Jewish youth to their faith and its culture, and perhaps even spawn a future marriage or two.
Some connections head wrong way
Occasionally, cyberspace can lead a searcher astray. Bishop Joseph Perry, auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Chicago Archdiocese, had to have a serious heart-to-heart chat with a teenager who chose the name Lucifer for his confirmation patron saint.
The boy picked the Prince of Darkness during a period of dabbling in Satanism, the bishop discovered. After Perry intervened, the boy changed his patron to the more acceptable St. Lucien, a fourth-century Antiochan priest and martyr.
The question lingers whether electronic religion is just a fad, like the drive-in churches of the 1960s, or a true paradigm shift, as Ferguson, the Episcopal official, believes.
He recalls reading that religious Web sites are second only to online porn. Whether or not that's the case, the parallels seem obvious to him.
"Anonymity and having the user be the one in charge have driven the online porn and spirituality engines," he said.
As for the long-term significance, Ferguson is convinced the possibilities for religious communication are limitless.
"Technology has allowed thousands — if not millions — of people to begin to develop spirituality outside of the traditional power structures," he said.
Where it all began
Kosher cell phones sprang up last year in Israel in response to a call by alarmed rabbis who requested the phone as a workable compromise between the need for cell communication and the strict laws governing behavior of Orthodox Jews.
The phone allows incoming and outgoing phone calls only — no text messaging, Internet connections, photo, video or voicemail applications, which can be used to contact sex and gambling lines or to covertly contact members of the opposite sex, a practice prohibited by ultra-Orthodox rabbis.
Overseen by a panel of rabbis checking its effectiveness, the kosher cell phone service also blocks calls to more than 10,000 numbers for sex, gambling and other services frowned on by the rabbis.
More than 20,000 of the phones have been sold in Israel. Israeli Arabs expressed interest in a similar phone, which provides downloadable Koran verses.
The developer of the kosher phone expects other religious conservatives to embrace the phone and hopes to introduce it to the United States later this year.
Interest in the phone peaked as soon as it was publicized.
"I know something has sparked the community's interest when I get six e-mails that are all the same," said Rabbi Sholom Ciment of Chabad-Lubavich of Greater Boynton.
Saying he would not order his congregants to use the kosher cell phone as Israeli ultra-Orthodox rabbis have done, Ciment appreciates its ability to help people avoid unnecessary temptation.
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Kosher cellphones that block incoming pornography; e-birthday cards for Pope Benedict XVI; a pagan podcast with hip, witchy background music. These are the latest methods of luring the faithful (and the lapsed) in the 21st century.
If Samuel Morse had known such miracles were on the horizon, he might well have repeated the words of his first telegram: "What hath God wrought!"
More local news
Latest breaking news, photos and all of today's Post stories.
•State news
Storm 2006:Hurricane news
• Sound off in the forum
• Columnists
• Crime, live scanners
• Photos | Special reports
• Weather | Traffic | Obituaries
Examples of the links between technology and religion are everywhere: In Boca Raton alone, it is possible to wave at a friend visiting Israel on real-time television or send a flirty text message in a wired e-cafe.
Out in cyberspace, the possibilities explode. There are pagan podcasts for aspiring witches and "Godcasts" that allow MP3 and iPod users to download prayers and Scripture. Christian Star Trek fans can read — and hear — the Bible online in the Klingon language.
According to the Pew Research Center, religious use of the Internet jumped from 20 million to nearly 82 million between 2000 and 2004.
Meanwhile, attendance at houses of worship held steady at 45 percent of American adults surveyed, while only 17 percent view the local house of worship as essential for developing faith, according to a 2005 national Barna Research poll.
With that troubling statistic looming, priests, rabbis and ministers are casting about for ways to spread the word electronically.
Like the temperance workers of old, who went to the beer halls to save souls, some "e-vangelists" take the message where troubled souls already hang out: on the Internet.
For example, www.xxxchurch.com helps people recover from porn addiction. Billing itself the "Number 1 Christian porn site," it offers to "let you know that you are loved by God and by the people involved in this ministry.... You have porn problems. Jesus will set you free."
Kosher cellphones sprang up last year in Israel in response to rabbis' calls for a workable compromise between the need for cell communication and the strict laws governing behavior of Orthodox Jews. The phone allows incoming and outgoing calls only — no text-messaging, Internet, photo, video or voice-mail applications.
Rabbi Sholom Ciment of Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Boynton said people in his congregation are interested in the kosher phones and other ways to use technology with care for their religious values. With many young families in its congregation, Chabad Lubavitch has a volunteer who helps set up Internet controls on home computers.
"If they feel like they have a weakness, I strongly advise them to use" the kosher cellphone, he said. "If someone has a weakness toward drinking, you don't send them to the bar."
Ciment uses e-mail to send his "Weekly Dose of Torah Inspiration," covering a wide variety of topics, including birth announcements, discussions of marital infidelity, holiday reminders and even a nod to a reliable shutter installer.
Wireless breaks down walls
Nondenominational Christian blogger and author Andrew Careaga noticed the e-religion phenomenon a decade ago among the old usenet newsgroups, many of which discussed religion.
He wrote a book describing e-vangelism in 1999 and has since set up a blog about the phenomenon, www.e-vangelism.com.
Online, he met a kindred spirit, Tony Whittaker, and now they collaborate on the e-vangelism blog. Whittaker lives in Britain, Careaga in Missouri. In the best tradition of e-pals, the two men have never laid eyes on each other.
Religion and communications have been linked at least since the Gutenberg Bible replaced the illuminated manuscript. At that watershed moment, books — and particularly the Bible — became widely available for the first time.
The invention of movable type in the 15th century also fostered the spread of religious ideas through relatively-cheaply produced pamphlets.
"If Martin Luther had not been able to have his tracts mass-produced and distributed, he'd have been another of countless people burned at the stake," Tom Ferguson, associate deputy of interfaith relations for the Episcopal Church, said in a recent online interview with TechNewsWorld. "Religion is not embracing the information revolution; it's reaping what it sowed hundreds of years ago."
The Internet, with its endless meeting places and easy Web sites and blogs, allows anyone with a message to become an electronic pamphleteer.
The Internet's attraction for religion seekers and evangelizers is the same as it is for any other users, according to Pew researchers: It's always open.
"Congregations can provide a thorough depiction of themselves to those who might be too shy to enter the sanctuary or ask questions directly of members of the congregation," they wrote in the 2000 report.
Cybercafe comfortable
That's the idea behind J-Café, a Wednesday night event at Boca Tov restaurant in suburban Boca Raton.
J-Café, sponsored by Hillel of Broward and Palm Beach, advertises to college students in both low- and high-tech ways, using slick paper fliers along with e-calendar items on its Web site, with Hebrew reggae music playing in the background.
The cafe is a wireless hot spot, so Michael Katz sets up comfortably on the balcony, checking e-mail on his Palm and sharing his iPod music on tiny speakers.
"Did you get my text message?" he asks a passing girl.
Inside, That '70s Show is playing on a large flat-screen television. At other times, the screen shows a real-time view of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, a modernistic live-action postcard from the Holy Land.
A dozen students pick up trays of sushi and soft drinks and drift out to the balcony to watch the other live-action attraction: sunset. These are the same sort of things they might do at any gathering place.
The only significant religion-related difference is that many of them met on trips to Israel, a rite of passage for many Jewish teens and a watershed event that bonded them.
Most nights, Rabbi Baruch Plotkin makes himself available at J-Café, but it's not to launch intense discussions on the Torah or anything else formally religious. If someone wanders over and brings up a topic, he makes himself available.
"I like that format. I want to be there for them," he said.
The live video of the Western Wall is more than a flat-screen postcard, said Plotkin, who also arranges Israel tours.
"A lot of people are afraid of Israel," said Plotkin, a former campus rabbi who, not surprisingly, is packing a PDA, too. He points to the TV screen and says, "Look, there's Israel. Does that look dangerous to you?"
Plotkin is betting that his offbeat, high-tech approach will have the desired effect, bonding Jewish youth to their faith and its culture, and perhaps even spawn a future marriage or two.
Some connections head wrong way
Occasionally, cyberspace can lead a searcher astray. Bishop Joseph Perry, auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Chicago Archdiocese, had to have a serious heart-to-heart chat with a teenager who chose the name Lucifer for his confirmation patron saint.
The boy picked the Prince of Darkness during a period of dabbling in Satanism, the bishop discovered. After Perry intervened, the boy changed his patron to the more acceptable St. Lucien, a fourth-century Antiochan priest and martyr.
The question lingers whether electronic religion is just a fad, like the drive-in churches of the 1960s, or a true paradigm shift, as Ferguson, the Episcopal official, believes.
He recalls reading that religious Web sites are second only to online porn. Whether or not that's the case, the parallels seem obvious to him.
"Anonymity and having the user be the one in charge have driven the online porn and spirituality engines," he said.
As for the long-term significance, Ferguson is convinced the possibilities for religious communication are limitless.
"Technology has allowed thousands — if not millions — of people to begin to develop spirituality outside of the traditional power structures," he said.
Where it all began
Kosher cell phones sprang up last year in Israel in response to a call by alarmed rabbis who requested the phone as a workable compromise between the need for cell communication and the strict laws governing behavior of Orthodox Jews.
The phone allows incoming and outgoing phone calls only — no text messaging, Internet connections, photo, video or voicemail applications, which can be used to contact sex and gambling lines or to covertly contact members of the opposite sex, a practice prohibited by ultra-Orthodox rabbis.
Overseen by a panel of rabbis checking its effectiveness, the kosher cell phone service also blocks calls to more than 10,000 numbers for sex, gambling and other services frowned on by the rabbis.
More than 20,000 of the phones have been sold in Israel. Israeli Arabs expressed interest in a similar phone, which provides downloadable Koran verses.
The developer of the kosher phone expects other religious conservatives to embrace the phone and hopes to introduce it to the United States later this year.
Interest in the phone peaked as soon as it was publicized.
"I know something has sparked the community's interest when I get six e-mails that are all the same," said Rabbi Sholom Ciment of Chabad-Lubavich of Greater Boynton.
Saying he would not order his congregants to use the kosher cell phone as Israeli ultra-Orthodox rabbis have done, Ciment appreciates its ability to help people avoid unnecessary temptation.
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