Church in Society Committee

Social Justice and Theology Group

(Republic of Ireland)

Pastoral Care in
The DigITal World
A Reflection for the Church of
The Third Millennium

Gordon Wynne
Lachlan Cameron
CP 5442
 13 MAY 2009

Pastoral Care in
The DigITal World

A Reflection for the Church of

The Third Millenium

Gordon Wynne
Lachlan Cameron

Church of Ireland Publishing

 Published by
Church of Ireland Publishing
Church of Ireland House
Church Avenue
Rathmines, Dublin 6

Designed by Susan Hood

© Representative Church Body, 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise), without the prior written permission of
both the copyright owner and the publisher

ISBN 978-1-904884-24-8

Printed by Paceprint Trading Ltd,

Dublin, Ireland
 Table of Contents

Working Group members

. Introduction

Technology as an Agent of
Social Change

The Capability of IT

What is Reality?

IT in the Moral Universe

Communication

Conclusions

Summary

Bible Studies & Themes for

Discussion

LG: Historical Studies

Contemporary Needs

Interactivity

Some Individual Perspectives

14. Acknowledgements
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 Group Members

THE WORKING Group of the Social Justice and

Theology Committee (Republic of Ireland) adapts its
membership according to the subject that it has in
hand.

For the present booklet, the actual drafting members

have been the core that is always present, drawing on
a wide variety of knowledge and expertise partly
acknowledged below and partly found in general
publications.

The core members are:

The Very Revd Gordon Wynne

Dean of Leighlin & Chairperson of the Social Justice
and Theology Group,
Old Leighlin, county Carlow

Mr Lachlan Cameron
Retired educationalist & Deputy Chairperson
Enniskerry, county Wicklow

Ms Fiona Forrest-Bills
Secretary
Ferns, county Wexford
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 1
Introduction

HE CHURCH OFTEN GIVES THE IMPRESSION

that it is sleepwalking into the digital era. The

Church is quick to use the evolving
technology of communication when it suits it. The
Church also sees many of the dangers and risks
inherent in the new digital world, and the new balance
of power that this implies.

But the pastoral implications of this huge change in

life seem inadequately understood and insufficiently
acted upon. The current booklet is an attempt to
redress the balance, to bring the whole pastoral
dimension into the open and to suggest ways of
coping with it: ways of bringing out the good and
dealing with the bad.
PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD
 2
ae

Technology as an Agent of
Social Change
HROUGHOUT HISTORY THERE HAS BEEN

nothing like technology to bring about social

change. All too often the impetus to change
technology has been the need to gain advantage in
war. However much those who muse and write about
society may deplore it, altruism seems rarely the
motive. When we look back over the early phases of
human history, the change from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’
stone age, then to bronze and then to iron, all the time
there is the driving force of military advantage.
Nowhere is that better illustrated than in First
Samuel’s account of the state of affairs versus the
Philistines. in Saul’s time, where we téad that:

Now there was no smith to be found throughout all the land

of Israel; for the Philistines said, “The Hebrews must not
make swords or spears for themselves”; so all the Israelites
went down to the Philistines to sharpen their plowshare,
mattocks, axes, or sitkles; the charge was two-thirds of a
shekel for the plowshares and for the mattocks, and one-
third of a shekel for sharpening the axes and for setting the
goads. So on the day of the battle neither sword nor spear
was to be found in the possession of any of the people with
Saul and Jonathan; but Saul and his son Jonathan had
them.
I Samuel 13:19-22 NRSV
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

Indeed the mythical power of the smith pervades

much early literature. The smith appears in Genesis
even before the Flood (Genesis 4:22), alongside the
herdsman and the musician, so important was he. One
of the worst difficulties of the exile to Babylon, much
later, was that Nebuchadnezzar carried off from
Jerusalem ‘all the craftsmen and the smiths’ (II Kings
24:14). Nearer to home, it cannot surprise us that of
the waves of people who have entered Ireland the two
who are considered the most influential are those who
brought new technology and new weaponry: the Celts
who brought iron and the Normans who brought the
longbow.

Examples can be multiplied. The ironclad steamship

arose during the American civil war and took
tremendous steps forward to become the
Dreadnought battleship of the early twentieth century,
under the impetus of worldwide competition for
imperial domination. The aeroplane became a
ptacticable proposition because of the needs of the
artillery spotter during the First World War. The e-mail
originated in 1971 in the US military-industrial
complex, where computers began to be connected
together in a network.

Often the greatest leap forward is made when one

10
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

technology cross-fertilises, as it were, with another.

The technique of wine-pressing in the late middle ages
was wedded to that of dye-making for legal purposes,
and printing was born. The church loves to recount
the vast importance of that change, how the
Gutenberg Bible and the expertise of the early
printers generally altered the whole structure of
ecclesiastical authority and became the backbone of
the Renaissance and the Reformation. The present
age, the age of Information Technology (IT), is no
less radical in its implications, possibly more so, and
the church needs to reflect on that fact.

11
PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

12
 3
The Capability of IT

NFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INCREASES our

capability by many orders of magnitude in

several areas of life, so much as to bring about
what is known not simply as a big difference but as a
‘quantum leap’ or ‘paradigm shift’.

To take some examples, consider verbal

communication, whether oral or written. Orally we
can now communicate freely, irrespective of location
or occupation at the time. The old constraints of time
and space have been swept aside. The five centuries of
domination of the printed word is over. Print is only
one competing possibility. Consider the passenger
sitting in the train reading a newspaper and talking on
a mobile telephone. What a diversity of technology.
Rail transport is a sixteenth-century idea, the modern
style of train was developed in the nineteenth-, the
newspaper is an eighteenth-century invention, while
the mobile telephone originates in the late twentieth-
century. Recall; also, that in the experience of that
passenger his electronic conversation will take
precedence over his ‘ordinary’ one to the passenger in
the next seat. ‘Ordinary’ interaction is relegated in
people’s priorities. Avoid the person in the street on
their mobile telephone or they will bump into you. On

13
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

the other hand, the passenger in the train has saved

hours of his business’s time and maybe made much
more money than he otherwise would.

Interactivity over the internet is important enough to

merit a few thoughts of its own. Broadcasting has
always taken account of the receiver’s response, and
politics have always been sensitive to the voter’s views.
But in both of these areas there has been a huge
empowerment of the many rather than the few,
thanks to the internet. Interactivity in broadcasting is
now many orders of magnitude more quick and
widespread than it ever was, and that profoundly
influences the character of what is broadcast and how.
A particular application of this principle applies to
politics, where he or she who is master or mistress of
the internet is becoming master of the election too.
Interactivity of this sort is set to grow in leaps and
bounds, both in quantity and in technological variety,
as time goes on. It represents a huge increase in
democratic empowerment, consolidating and
extending the influence of the ordinary person as
never before. It can only reinforce our culture of
suspicion, our intolerance of top-down authority, and
the triumph of consensus and post-modern plurality.
The more that digital technology advances in
cheapness and compactness, the more the trend will

14
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

accelerate. All who ate involved in education,

including the Church, should take note.

We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Once again we live in an iconic world, a world
dominated by the visual image. It was so in pre-literal
times, when the stained glass window, the sculpture
and the decoration of the church conveyed truth to
us. Still more so, and in a totally different way, does the
icon to this day bring divine grace to the Orthodox
Christian. But now we speak of icons in another way
as well. Princess Diana of Wales (1961-97) was, or still
is, regarded as an ‘icon’ of her time, because of her
visual appearance. Countless other images ate seen as
‘iconic’. Visual imagery is immensely influential, often
subliminally. The Reformation distrusted the eye in
comparison with the ear, partly because ancient Israel
was enjoined to ‘hear’ the Lord although she could not
‘see’ Him. That distrust is well and truly gone now.
The capability of the hand-held device is already
immense. It can bring images of anything to us as
quickly as we want them, and it is on the instant that
we do want them, whatever they may be.

The world of sound is hugely enriched by IT. Our

musical taste can be fed and indulged wherever we are
and whatever we are doing, Quality, range and choice

15
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

know no limits in comparison with what was available

to former generations. The virtual world that can be
entered so easily through IT is as much for the ear as
for the eye. Never have the senses been so nourished
as now. They are, we could say, fed to the point of
satiation, and it is all a matter of choice, not dictated
by circumstances beyond our control.

There is a special rural dimension to the utility of the

digital world. Wherever there is a special rural
dimension there is a special interest for the Church of
Ireland, it being an organisation whose heart and soul
is so much a rural one. Where the ordinary, real
community is small, scattered or weak, so does the
potential importance of the internet community
become greater for people’s quality of life, whatever
age group they might be in. It is excellent that there
exist organisations like Carlow Rural Information
Services Project (CRISP). For further information
about CRISP see:<www.crisp.ie>, to bring skill and
information to country people in matters of this sort.

16
 4
What is Reality?

EEPER QUESTIONS INEVITABLY ARISE. What

is ‘real’ and what is ‘virtual’? Where is the

boundary between real experience and the
cyber-world? Is there such a boundary? Are we gaining
insight through the new technology into the nature of
ultimate reality?

The eighteenth century saw the universe as a clock, at

around the time of that vital invention, the nautical
chronometer. The nineteenth century saw the universe
aS an engine at just the time when steam was
becoming dominant. Should we see the universe as a
vast computer system or network on the analogy of
IT? Many people think so. Some versions of what is
known as ‘the strong anthropic principle’ suggest that
we afe tiny computer programmes within a vast
system of software. Important avenues of thought
open up if, in those terms, we think about the
remarkable fact that the universe does appear to be
somewhat comprehensible to the rational human
mind.

The Church must never cut itself off from the

contemplation of the nature of God and the universe.
There is no doubt that the new technology, like many

17
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

of its predecessors, gives rise to reflections in this area

that are much too important to be ignored.

18
 5
IT in the Moral Universe

T IS NOT SIMPLY THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE that

bears upon this matter, but the more immediate
requirements of the moral universe press in upon
the church also. Like all human instruments, IT’ is
morally ambivalent, capable of being used for good or
for ill. It is useful to consider these moral dimensions
under four headings, to cover major areas of perennial
human interest: power, money, sex and time.

Information technology, like all other technology,

brings about a transfer of power. In the case of IT,
the transfer is from the old to the young and from the
poor to the rich. In many former human eras, and in
many civilisations, power lay with the aged, and they
enjoyed respect because of their wisdom. In times of
lower technology, also, the poor wielded power in
terms of their labour, a fact well known to trade
unions and employers in the past. The sage and
ploughman between them had much to contribute to
society. But IT brings power to cleverness not
wisdom, to those who can invent and operate robotic
and other automated systems rather than those upon
whose hatd hand work life once depended. The
younger you are, the better access you have to
electricity, and the stronger your ability to control and

19
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

manipulate IT, the more power you now have. Those

in poor and developing countries, and those whose
wisdom and experience are not directly relevant to the
digital world: power is no longer theirs even as far as
it once was. Even the power of social cohesion and
community sanction is greatly reduced, everywhere.
The digital world is individualised and atomistic: it is
fissile and fragmented. Delicate structures like the
family and the village are greatly threatened. ‘Real’, or
non-electronic, encounters are put at risk and
downgraded in many ways, whether between
individuals or between people and things that they
have loved and valued in the past.

There is huge new power to make and save money.

Digital networks are the basis of the financial world
itself, indeed in an important sense they are the
financial world. Electrons move much more quickly
and cheaply than pieces of paper. Retail business is
increasingly based on the internet, to the advantage of
everyone. Paradoxically the rising world volume of
book sales now largely depends on electronic
shopping, even more in the second-hand sector than
the new. Dot.com swindles and scams abound, but the
business potential of IT shows sustained growth
worldwide. This has huge implications for the creation
and distribution of wealth: a movement whose speed

20
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

and universality far outperforms the Industrial

Revolution itself.

Personal and relational networking using digital

methods is a huge, indeed sometimes dominant,
reality in the lives of countless people, especially — in
world terms — the rich and the young. Bebo, MySpace
and Facebook all testify to this. Virtual society to no
small extent complements and often replaces the old
ranges of friendship. There are great blessings here.
Remoteness and distance are no longer barriers to
communication, to the joy and relief of many. Much
can be done to improve understanding across the
world. There is also huge potential for misuse. It is
cheap, quick and highly effective for bullies to operate
in the cyber-world. Vulnerabilities are multiplied a
thousandfold, especially when it comes to sex and
other possible exploitation. The power of youth and
glamour in the contemporary world feeds on this to an
extent that has almost no limit, especially when
children have computers in their bedrooms. Sadly
there is an obverse side to the coin of fun and joy. The
Internet Advisory Board publishes excellent booklets
on subjects like this, and for further information see
<www.iap.ie> (especially its publications page).

Time is a resource that is dramatically economised by

2k
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

the use of digital technology. It was the same with the

coming of the steam engine. Journeys by land or sea
had been unpredictable in timing and duration and
dependent on wind or sinew. With steam they took a
fraction of their former time and were timetabled.
That made a huge difference to world trade and
business, and the digital revolution does so once again,
only still more dramatically. There are benefits from
this in every sector of human life, but as more and
more can be achieved per hour, so is more and more
expected. The expectation usually outruns the actual
achievement, and the result is increased stress. The
natural rhythms of the day or the year are farther than
ever from the actual world of work. Also, in the area
of pleasure and entertainment, gratification is
expected to be instant. There can be no steady
ripening of the fruit on any tree. ‘I want it, I want it
all, and I want it now: that is the cry. Whither
patience, reflection, consideration or maturing,
imaginative insight?

In the world of work, is instant availability of the

worker at any time and in any place a price worth
paying for flexibility in office hours and the ability to
work from home? Less commuting may mean easier
transportation planning, but will there be significantly
mote loneliness and depression as a result?

22
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

There arises the general point that those whose world

of thought and action has IT at its centre ate often
noticeably better at deductive reasoning than
inductive. Propositions like If X then A but if Y then
B’ are easily translated into action at the computer
keyboard and the deductive process is an integral part
of life, well grown and well watered. But the more
speculative, inductive and indeed imaginative
processes of thought are much less well nurtured, and
the person used to IT can be notably immature and
undeveloped in the judgment that life often requires.
This can be quite problematic in the work of a body
such as the Church and requires sustained attention. A
basic requirement would be to ensure that there is no
further attrition in the study of the arts and
humanities in third and fourth level education. Some
regions of the country, notably the south-east, have a
serious deficit in this area already, and the matter
needs to be addressed. Also needed is a positive
commitment to the simple cultivation of good
manners, so often sacrificed to the insistent call of
technology.

There is a particular pastoral difficulty for a

constituency that often has a low priority in Church
life: older, but not elderly, adults. These people are
neither young nor old, neither poor nor sick. Unlike

23
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

their parents, they have had to come to terms with IT

in order to survive socially and commercially. Unlike
their children, they do not naturally and effortlessly
work with IT, yet everyone expects them to do so.
Stress is the result, often considerable and often
hidden.

Information Technology is systemic in all things. It

runs like blood through the arteries of everything. An
excellent example is the recession of 2008. Debt could
only have been first incurred and then securitized on
the scale of the preceding boom by means of the
digital network worldwide. The speed of economic
downturn would have been impossible prior to the
computer age, and thus 2008 is quite different to the
Wall Street Crash of 1929, largely because of the new
technology.

24
 6
Communication

EVELOPMENTS IN COMMUNICATION have

had a profound effect on human social

relationships. The most important, the
faculty of speech, which is believed to have been
largely influential in the development of the human
brain and human society, has perforce gone
unrecorded. An important consequence of this was
the development of writing and particularly the
alphabets, in which instead of ideograms a small
number of symbols (only 20 plus) is used to represent
sounds. In this sort of ‘synthetic’ writing, words can
be built up without having to learn a large number of
ideograms, thus making writing and reading more
accessible. The use of paper (attributed to the
Chinese) was more convenient than stone or clay
blocks or expensive vellum, but a major development
(attributed again to the Chinese, but reaching Europe
by the 15th century) was the printing press. Previously
the process of writing out texts by hand had not only
been much slower but was also far less accurate as
each successive scribe was liable to include further
ettots of transcription (not of course that even
modern printing is totally free of such errors). The
resulting spread of books enabled the diffusion of
knowledge and new mindsets which were the basis of

25
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

the renaissance and, together with the increased access

to the Bible, lead to the Reformation.

Further developments such as linotype, offset

printing, and even modern electronic printing are
really only refinements of the original Gutenburg
machine, but enabled faster and cheaper production
leading to the explosion of pamphlets and daily
papers in the 19th and 20 centuries. These
developments made printed material available not only
to an élite but increasingly to the ordinary people. To
some extent, this may have been a consequence of, but
it was also a spur to, increased literacy.

By the jth century and the improvement of roads,

came an increase in the ease of physical
communication. The steam engine, originally used for
such tasks as pumping water in mines was applied to
locomotion on railways and even in cars and motor
cycles. The internal combustion engine using
petroleum products has enabled modern air travel (in
a more effective form than the hot air balloon). We
should not forget also the invention of the bicycle to
which Steve Jones, professor of genetics, and one of
the best known contemporaty commentators on
evolution, has attributed a sudden increase of the
homogeneity of the British gene pool. All this has

26
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

meant that not only have physical goods been mote

widely spread, but people have been able to interact at
first hand with individuals and cultures that the
forebears would never have known.

Later with the invention of radio and its offspring

television ideas can be even more widespread. In the
past was the phenomenon of ‘vertical transmission’ of
knowledge, whereby information (and ideas) were
passed from the elders to the young, (and were filtered
in the process). Now we have ‘horizontal transmission’
whereby these ideas are spread directly to all and the
young, watching more television, ate often more
informed than their elders. These processes are
carried to an extreme by the internet and mobile
telephones. Indeed there appeats to be a large overlap
between them where the young are often more adept
in these areas than their more culturally constrained
elders. These devices can lead to an even mote
widespread diffusion of ideas and knowledge, but
knowledge can be true or false, ideas useful or
dangerous (and sometimes both) and here is no
‘filterine’ mechanism to distinguish them. There is also
the risk of all communication being of this sort, and
even friends being virtual rather than real.

Thus we see how these technological developments

Di.
 PASTORAL GARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

have lead to massive changes in society, bit they have

their attendant dangers and it is doubtful whether we
have developed social mechanisms to cope with them.

28
 i;
Conclusions

T MAY BE WORTHWHILE to marshal some thoughts

for the Church under the headings of the three
most significant moral questions of our time: the
stewardship of the planet, the conquest of poverty,
and globalisation. Each of these areas of primary
concern to the Christian community is powerfully**
affected by digital technology and each would benefit
from careful consideration in its own right.

i: Stewardship of the Planet

At the higher levels of science, mathematics and
philosophy, the implications of the digital world are
ptofound indeed. They also have a considerable ~
impact on the person in the pew and on the moral
choices that the person makes day by day. The most
obvious area of potential benefit is to maximise
electronic communication and so cut out the use of
paper, time and fossil fuels for the energy needed for
the movement of people, goods and information in ,, _
the traditional ways. Also, the digital media have huge |
potential for informing people of the underlying
questions they ought to consider when trying to be
better stewards of creation. As educational tools the
DVDs and other things like Powerpoint have no equal ~
in effectiveness.

2D
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

2. Conquest of Poverty
This can be influenced by giving power to those who
do not have it now in IT. It would for example be a
great blessing to the elderly, especially those who live
alone, if they could be educated and persuaded to use
IT to communicate with one another. It is possible to
imagine a variety of Bebo which might be designed
for older persons to use, and by means of which
people — who might be immobile or homebound —
could be put in touch with one another and with the
world in which they grew up, by means of visual
images and sound recordings. Such a change would
represent a considerable cultural change, but it could
well be possible to make rapid progress, and in
particular, make good use of the. grandparent-
grandchild relationship along the way. The young
might make much the best teachers of the old. It is’
interesting to speculate how the current teenagers will
construct their world when they themselves are old.
How digital a world will it be? It may be that in future
it will be considerably simpler for the elderly to have
access to the benefits of the digital world. If voice and
touch replace mouse and keyboard as the interface,
then everyone will benefit.

As regards the poorer regions of the world, a mobile

telephone and electricity network may form the

30
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

necessary infrastructure, together with satellite

communication and such receivers as might be
necessary. The huge upcoming economies of China,
India and South America have already developed a
strong business incentive in this direction already, but
a mote charitable outreach might be necessary to
bring comparable benefits to Africa and other parts of
Asia. Educational and other aid programmes, such as
ate supported by the Bishops’ Appeal, could be
helpful in furthering this aim. There is a strong risk of
impoverishment by people becoming unfamiliar with
art and nature unmediated by electronics, and indeed
unfamiliar with their own neighbourhoods. This
should be actively worked against, for young and old
alike. This is a matter for education at home, all the
way from primary to quaternary level.

3. Globalisation
Information Technology is an inextricable component
of this phenomenon, both as a beneficial aspect of it
and, sometimes, as its dark underside. The more that
people can be genuinely and comprehensively
informed about other countries and ways of life, the
better. A particular difficulty is the unsupervised and
unregulated nature of the internet. It is difficult to
distinguish between official, authorised and
trustworthy information, on the one hand, and

31
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

suspect or downright harmful material, on the other.

Better means of protection of the public from
unscrupulous persons ate required in this as well as
many other areas of interest to those who ate weak
and vulnerable.

32
 8
Summary

EW AREAS OF LIFE AND EXPERIENCE femain

untouched or at least profoundly influenced
by IT. In this, the digital revolution stands in
the line of technological changes as one of the most
recent and most influential chapters in a long story.

There is the same potential for good or evil as in any

other human tool. In the case of IT, however, the
stakes are higher than ever before, because of the
huge power and potential available.

The Church needs to be fully aware of the main

dimensions of this revolution, just as it was
conspicuously aware of the implications (for example)
of printing and the industrial revolution. There are
practical things that can be done to help, especially the
weak and vulnerable people at home and abroad, and
encouragement can be given to the vast potential for
good that still has to be unlocked.

33
PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

34
 9
Bible Studies & Themes for
Discussion

IGITAL TECHNOLOGY IS IMMENSELY

POWERFUL in the moral universe at

advancing the general progtess of
technical change and in communication.

These things can all be studied in the Bible, and the

following themes might be considered:

GOOD AND EVIL

Discuss, for example: Genesis 4, Deuteronomy 11,
Isaiah 45:7, 54:16-17, Romans 8.

‘TECHNOLOGY AND WAR

See: l oamuel 13, 17,

COMMUNICATING THE TRUTH

See; Ezeldal 13, Job 12, John3:1-20.

35
PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

36
 10
Historical Studies

HE STUDY OF HIsToRY also provides rich

examples of how technology has changed all
life. Here are some subjects, the evolutionary
stories of which will provide further discussion
themes:

® Printing

® The Renaissance

® The Reformation

® The steam engine

® The electric telegraph

® Radio

37
PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

38
 11
Contemporary Needs

F THIS BOOKLET IS STUDIED, there are many hints

and ideas to be found as to how, specifically, the
digital technology could be brought to bear on
parish life.

Search these pages, think and talk about, for example

the following subjects:

® Children

® Youth

® The elderly

® The poor

® Sustainability

® Transparency and accountability

® Eco-Business

39
PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

40
 12
Interactivity

An example of an interactivity in broadcasting

and politics for further study:

Study and compare, for example, the most recent USA

presidential election of 2008, with all former
presidential elections. Think out the importance of
the digital world for this election, and predict how it
might ultimately affect Irish politics.

A good way to work at this would be to ask — electron-

ically of course — a young person you might know
who lives in the USA, whether they or their friends
were involved in President Obama’s campaign. So
widespread was the participation that it should not be
hard to find a way into someone’s experience and its

significance for the future.

4]
PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

42
 13
Some Individual Perspectives

IN THIS SECTION we invite regular users of the IT

medium to comment on their experiences.

Revd Ian Poulton, Rector THE REVD IAN POULTON, Rector of Killiney
in diocese of Dublin
(Ballybrack) in county Dublin, writes a daily blog
& blogger
<www.forthefainthearted.com> — from his suburban
parish.

These are his thoughts on the values and challenges of

the Digital Age:

“LIKE THE PRINTING PRESS, the Internet provides an

opportunity for publishing the best as well as the
worst of material. It is undeniable that the
opportunities for the dissemination of undesirable
material have become limitless, yet to judge the
Internet on such a basis would be like judging the
publication of books and magazines on the basis that
some have used the print medium for the worst of
purposes. The Net, as it has become known, is a tool
of communication; what it communicates 1s
determined by its users.

Approaching the use of the Net from a Christian

 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

perspective, there are innumerable opportunities for

sharing the faith, finding resources for church life and
even for pastoral cate. The Church of Ireland realized
at an early stage that the Net offered significant
opportunities to resource parishes and clergy with
news and liturgical material. The facility to access
weekly readings and all the liturgical material from the
Book of Common Prayer has proved a boon for many
clergy. There has also been the opportunity to tap into
the liturgical and spiritual riches of many and diverse
other traditions from around the world.

Perhaps one of the less explored dimensions of the

Net is its use as a tool of Christian pastoral ministry.
Such ministry may be intentional and formal, such as
the many websites that provide material and contacts
for those seeking help in a particular situation or crisis.

However, recent years have seen the proliferation of

‘bloggers’, writers of ‘weblogs’ or journals on the
Internet. The readership of even the most modest of
these often runs into hundreds every month and, in
some cases, may run into many thousands. The
Opportunity to communicate with numbers
significantly larger than the typical Church of Ireland
parish is one that should be approached with caution
and responsibility. Difficult issues may be explored in

44
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DictraL WorLD

a non-threatening and interactive way, many blogs

have the facility to post comments, or to communicate
directly with the blogger. The opportunity of
anonymity is sometimes important to people who may
be endeavouring to work through painful memories
from the past.

The Internet is both anarchic and egalitarian and does

bring with it dangers as well as opportunities. Church
responses to the Net have often been to acknowledge
that there are opportunities and to focus on advising
on website design, which would be like a publisher
focusing on the paper and binding of a book without
asking questions about its content. Little attention has
so far been devoted to what websites and blogs exist;
what issues they raise; and what ways the Church as a
whole might utilize the opportunities available.”

Shane Tucker SHANE TUCKER is an American who has lived in

Church of Ireland Youth Treland for the past nine years with his wife Christy,
Daan daughter Neve and son Aidan. He travels the island
Mcces’ Forte Charch! of trciand "vouth Department
<www.ciyd.org> spending his spare time with
‘Dreamers of the Day’ <www.dreamtoday.org> — an
organization utilizing the arts, spiritual disciplines,
evocative speakers and symposiums to engage people
in their journey with Christ. Shane can be reached via

45
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

the website, <[email protected]> or at his blog:

<http://wwwdreamtoday.blogspot.com>

He writes:
“TECHNOLOGY IS LITERALLY DEFINED as ‘the application
of scientific knowledge for practical purposes’ and it most
certainly has been applied to nearly every conceivable
sphere of living with great effect. Not many aspects
of our lives can claim being free from its influence. In
truth, advances in technology have propelled
humanity to the place in which it resides today making
life that bit easier, broader, more effective and most
certainly - faster.

Not every change technology has brought could be

considered beneficial to society, but most are deemed
so. The last of the changes mentioned above is
considered by some to be the most dangerous to the
(spiritual) Christian life. Author, philosopher and
speaker Dallas Willard has been known to say: ‘Hurry
as the greatest enemy to the spiritual life’. It seems that
despite all of our advances in technological
development, one thing we have not managed to save
in any way is time. It still slips through our fingers at
the same rate and seemingly the very thing we have
created to save time, steals more of it from us. It must
be common knowledge that there is just as much to do

46
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

or accomplish in life since recent technological

advancements like the personal computer, if not even
more. Much of the time we hoped to save by use of
these systems and products is re-invested into other
forms of technology like browsing and buying on the
internet, watching films at home, previewing music
and speaking to others around the globe for free.

The wussio Dei, or mission of God unlike advances in

technology has never changed. People were, and are
still the priority of the Godhead. God has always
been about (and will continue to be) reaching out to
and redeeming creation (humanity included)! We, in
the Christian context realise this as central to our faith
and trust in God - ‘God sent His one and only Son...’
God Himself has gone so fat as to become one of us
AND offer to reside within us (as the Spirit) in order
to redeem and preserve His relationship with us.
What other faith system has a God who makes
Himself a servant of those whom He has created?
Right at the heart of God is mission, a love that
perpetually reaches out to the world. As those who
ate being transformed by this ‘unbelievable’ belief in a
God who is Love, we also ate invited into this mission
of God (missio Dei) to partner in His work of
redeeming creation.

Can technology serve God’s purposes? How can it do

47
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

so? These questions rise to the surface as we explore

living a life of faith in the twenty-first century. In the
Western world, it is nearly impossible to escape the
reach of technology - so how can we engage with it
and utilise it for good? As we know, relationship is of
utmost importance to God, therefore technology
must always work toward facilitating greater
connection and communication between human
beings. Any ways in which it might be employed for
the greater good we must explore. It is obvious that
in sharing the message of hope with the world,
technology has a large part to play through the
internet (facilitating access to much of the globe) as
we make information available via web sites, stay in
touch with telephones (fostering otherwise impossible
relationships), post parcels anywhere we choose (as in -
the work of relief agencies) and develop a greater
awareness of other cultures. Information though is
only part of the message that God invites us to share.

St. Francis of Assisi is quoted as saying, ‘Wherever you

£0, preach the Gospel and, if you must... use words’.
Implicit within that challenge we again get a glimpse
of the essence of mission, that it is primarily and
foundationally relational. We must be in close
proximity to share the whole story of God as it’s
written with our lives on a day to day basis. Never will

48
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

there be a time when in God’s eyes, developing

relationship will be superseded by other means of
reaching out. God has intended from the beginning to
invite and involve His people in reaching humanity
through breaking and pouring themselves out for the
‘other’ just as Jesus demonstrated. Technology is of
use to God only in so far as it works toward this end.
We see this truth displayed time and time again in our
celebration of the Eucharist - God’s invitation to join
with Him in his work in the world - and when we hear
the closing words of worship services, ‘Go out in peace
to love and serve the Lord.’ and the response is: Tn the
name of Christ, Amen’.

May technology long serve the purpose of God in

reaching out, in relationship, to redeem a world in
need of Him. It’s just too bad that technology hasn’t
helped to stem procrastination...’ ?

Jack Deacon, JACK DEACON is in Transition year at school, and lives

Student in rural Wexford, His journey to school takes half an
& Net surfer
hour’s drive from his home, which is a much further
distance than some of his classmates. He writes:

“T USE THE INTERNET and the World Wide Web to

communicate and chat with my friends, to look at
videos, listen to music, to play games on, and to find

49
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

out information for school or anything else I want to

know about.

Bebo and MSN Messenger are two of the websites I

use to chat to my mates. To use Bebo, you create a
profile that tells everyone all about you and friends can
leave comments on your profile. But I prefer MSN
Messenger because it’s instant. MSN is a programme
you can download onto your computer and chat with
any friends who have the same programme. It’s very
simple.

You Tube is another great place where anyone can

find out about anything, It allows you to look up any
of its millions (maybe hundreds of millions) of videos
and watch them. It has videos of everything you-
would ever want to watch, including sports videos,
music videos, ‘How to’ videos, and so much mote.

The Internet is a great place where anyone can find

out about anything. One of the best websites for
information about anything is Wikipedia. This is an
online encyclopaedia of knowledge. It has billions of
pages to find out about anything and everything.

There ate tons of good gaming websites out there.

Online games are not as advanced as games on CDs

50
 PASTORAL CARE IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

simply because they would take too long to load. So,

there are loads of small, easy to play, simple games
online that are fun and easy to find. Another way I can
play games online is using my Xbox. Using a paid
service called Xbox LIVE I can play games with
people from around the globe whenever I like. I can
also talk to my friends and download content and
movies on Xbox LIVE.

I use the Internet every day and I think the same can
be said for the vast majority of teenagers around
Ireland — especially in rural areas. This has been made
easier by the wider availability of broadband around
Ireland.”

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 14
Acknowledgements

IN ADDITION TO GENERAL SOURCES and everyday

knowledge, we particularly acknowledge help from the
following:

®The organisers of ANOIS ‘07

®The students and staff of Muine Bheag and Borris
Vocational Schools; and Presentation de la Salle
College, Bagenalstown, county Carlow
®Tech World News — Commentary, from the
Episcopal Church of the United States of America
®Information Technology (IT) Ministry — Trinity
United Church of Christ
®Carlow Rural Information Series Project (CRISP)
@Internet Advisory Board and its publications
<www.iab.ie>
®Shane Tucker, Church of Ireland Youth
Department (Republic)
<wwwdreamtoday.blogspot.com>
® Revd Ian Poulton, blogger,
<www.forthefainthearted.com>
@Jack Deacon, Transition year student in FC),
Bunclody

<p)
 = —= ne

cicesenngbtheiondad
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ers bey Bw ie ove OF wormdds wi

ort meant fk ggbat cis /haluchriney sew-agjheioecna ;

— =~ auraelict ™s, a
- : ’

“Y GOS to ominege atte os

devilt-nais od seat Ya Dhara Leven: ashes af] @ -

‘sller 4h %hs noice? fins phd! toot .

: whe) “ine .owonkeoeestl sulin”) "
oa mat swesmaG) — ewet bho dosT@ _ a R
<9 sorerch, te Hane beaver} ath Seo shoguet? iequxeig’ ci ;
’ pinnT — cel! (TD yyolkewbed cotennotel® i i
i. vaintl’)
fodione) ama vou
(Tei, expt Pate mentaner wat tema wit
= snoktenildun ii bn Baeolt ath wwe? .
= Shika oan
frac bested yodoa) radoaT saat
 HE CHURCH OFTEN GIVES THE IMPRESSION that it is sleepwalking
ghee the digital era. Yet it is quick to use the evolving technology
of communication when it suits it. The Church also sees many of the
dangers and risks inherent in the new digital world, and the new
balance of power that this implies. But the pastoral implications of
this huge change in life seem inadequately understood and
insufficiently acted-upon. The current booklet is an attempt to redress
the balance, to bring the whole pastoral dimension into the open and
to suggest waysof coping with it: ways of bringing out the good and
dealing with the bad.

HN
P-287-506
The oakaeons of the Ghawchin Society Committee are authorised .
to issue statements and reports in their own names. The mission of
the Social Justice and Theology Group (Republic of Ireland) is:

"To provide where possible pro-active, as well as reflective theological

comment, on contemporary issues of social justice within the
Republic of Ireland, and where relevant to make suggestions on pos-
sible courses of action’.

THE Working Group of the Social Justice and 978-1-9

Theology Committee (Republic of Ireland) adapts.
its membership according to the subject that it has
in hand. This booklet was written by the Very Revd
Gordon Wynne, Dean of Leighlin and Chairperson 781904" 884
of the Group, and Lachlan Cameron, Deputy
Chairperson.