This and the following three entries all deal with the ways cultural forms (especially technology) shape Christian spirituality. Again and again, I return to this central insight from my friend Ken Myers, editor of Mars Hill Audio Journal (www.marshillaudio.org): “Cultural practices, forms, and fashions are treated by most Christians in a utilitarian way, not as carriers of meaning.

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My wife surprised me this past Christmas by giving me an Amazon.com Kindle as a present. Considering how much time I spend with my iPhone and a computer laptop, I did not think she would want one more electronic distraction in my hands. I love the device, and though I prefer the “Incarnational” feel of an actual book in my hands for novels and other substantial reading, I much prefer my Kindle for my news subscriptions and journals to an actual newspaper. The daily local paper often languishes at the end of my driveway until I return home at the end of the business day. Thanks to the Kindle, I simply do not read it as my morning ritual any longer and am considering canceling my delivery subscription.

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The first link below takes you to a book review by Ben Yagoda of a book by John Freeman entitled, The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four Thousand Year Journey to Your Inbox. Yagoda sees at least one important contribution email has made to human communication: brevity. “E-mail in particular and online writing in general have their well-known flaws and limitations, but they have also served as cleansing agents for prose, much as journalistic writing did early in the 20th century. That is, while they may disinhibit [sic] inappropriate declarations, they also inhibit dull, abstract wordiness.

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The worship of the church I serve is bound to inherited forms rooted in the early church and largely shaped by the musical heritage and prayers of the English tradition. The Book of Common Prayer is a rightly cherished sacred resource for biblical, orderly and beautiful worship. And not unlike other worship expressions, it is bodily. Newcomers to the Anglican tradition will often comment (if not complain) about the amount of standing and kneeling that accompanies our liturgies. Yet physicality in worship is not unique to our tradition. Nor is it unimportant or somehow esoteric. And other streams of the Christian faith embody worship in different ways and through different media.

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