The Financial Times (“FT” or “The Pink Paper”) has two articles of interest today. Beginning with a free(!) trial subscription some years back, I stayed with it for the international coverage, the writing, the depth and breadth of articles and did I say the writing? FT seems increasingly to have become the paper of record… replacing the one-toned Wall Street Journal.
Here are some clips from the first article is “Faith 2.0″ covering Belief.net and its impact, but I encourage you to read the whole thing.
“The Pew Internet & American Life Report found that nearly two-thirds of internet users have gone online for religious reasons. “Religion occupies a huge amount of the cyber-landscape,” says Susan Harding, an anthropology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz. On that landscape, Beliefnet has emerged as a sort of spiritual Wal-Mart, with everything under one roof, and easily accessible.”
“The spiritual landscape is radically different to what it was 20 or 40 years ago,” he says, laying out three key changes that have benefited Beliefnet. The first was a boom in the market for religious media – a trend borne out by a visit to any big book store. The second was a greater willingness among people to change or adjust their religion to something other than what they practised while growing up. The third, and perhaps most dramatic, was demographic. “The main thing driving this spirituality boom is the ageing of the baby boomers. If you plot when people tend in their lifecycle to be most interested in spirituality, it’s a very predictable path,” Waldman says. He sketches a graph on a scrap of paper that shows spirituality increasing on a diagonal slope as people confront illness, the death of parents and – ultimately – their own passing.”
“While religious scholars marvel at the conversations and outpourings the internet enables, some express misgivings. “There is an ideology embedded in this – the idea that we can all get along,” says Mark Silk, a professor of religion at Trinity College, Connecticut, in a tone that makes clear he finds the notion naive.”
“The great religions have tackled great problems and come up with great solutions to them. They’re challenging. They’re hard,” says Boston University’s Stephen Prothero. “The kind of stuff Americans gravitate toward now is not so challenging, not so hard. It aims at things like happiness instead of salvation and enlightenment. In that sense, [Beliefnet is] watered down.”
I find this both encouraging and discouraging, but over-all a balanced article. Over-all, I think it suggests the importance of the internet, but also its limitations.
After some heavy sledding, there’s always gotta be a little levity! So the second article is more entertaining. It’s on beards, and written by an Orthodox fellow (Peter Aspden) with a good sense of humor. After some heavy lifting… it’s always worth a little levity. Enjoy.
jamesthethickheaded