Coming in at 2,132 ft high, the largest Christmas “tree” will be lit up this coming week using an iPad. And not using just any iPad, but the Pope’s iPad:
Of course we saw Pope Benedict sending his first tweet via an iPad earlier this year, too. And while this doesn’t make the pontiff a regular Tweeter or genuine iPad user, it’s important that he continues to make these very significantly symbolic gestures regarding the use of technology and the Church’s embracing of it.
However, I am looking forward to when the novelty wears off and it’s no longer a headline that the Pope, and more importantly the Church, uses the latest technology. The Church has been in the past - and should be in the future - expected to be using the latest and greatest technology when it is both good and useful. In fact, we should be on the cutting edge of helping develop and apply it all.
Of course, on a personal level regarding the Pope, he’s an octogenarian who’s come pretty far without an iPad. It’s understandable if he doesn’t prefer to personally use one every day. But as a Church, the fact that it’s “cute” or “novel” or any kind of news headline in the first place that we use fancy things like “computers” is not really a good thing. Fortunately, I think we’re beginning to get past it and on to all of the wonderful, substantive things we can do with such amazing technology.
Not that lighting up the world’s largest Christmas tree isn’t still cool.
UPDATE: The Pope will apparently not being using an iPad, but a Sony tablet running “Android.” At least he’s being ecumenical about it.
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I think American news media’s reaction to the Catholic Church’s tech savvy comes at least partly from America’s culture and history. This started as a mostly-Protestant country, and is still 51.3% Protestant. (United States, CIA World Factbook, page last updated November 17, 2011) My experience has been that there’s a strong Luddite streak in American Protestantism: the sort of “God never meant man to fly/watch television/whatever” thing. Add that cultural foible to the Church’s two millennia history, media’s surprise at a religious leader who uses post-18th century tech may not be so - surprising.
To continue Brian’s point, tack onto that the ongoing myth that the Church hates science. (You know, because asking Galileo to either back up his model with real evidence or stop teaching it as proven was so anti-science.)
While I also look forward to the day the Pope using technology is no longer viewed as novel (I mean, look at all the blogging bishops!), I agree the tree is pretty cool and I’m sure the town appreciates the Pope’s involvement.
I fully agree that this IS a Protestant nation founded by and for Protestants, or at least those who wanted to be and promised to be the most anti-popish of all Protestants they could be when the original settlements were founded and eventually achieved independence from a mother nation that had by that time, 1783, gone nearly lukewarm (or simply to stale warm beer and port sherry.)
One thing for sure about Protestants ... are they EVER good at shaking the dollars n’ cents (not good sense) when it comes to collecting the green stuff to fund whatever they find worth funding. Hmmm, since a lot of what they find funding so important lately involves a heavy imput of juice, the electronic kind, I mean, i.e. the same kind used to light up that mountain ... let’s hope the Pope had some electricity-bill payer’s best helpers walking up that hill with all their buckets ... and sure as heck not send the bill to a certain large building in a few blocks from the Tiber River!
And you watch ... just because OUR MEGACHURCH is loaded with REAL artwork all around, they’ll be figuring that if the guy wearing white who’s the chief pastor of that long renowned and ancient Mother of All Megachurches started up this tree ... they’ll (think) they know just where to send the bill.
Hmmm, how ‘bout Willow Creek or Crefalo Dollar’s “worship facilities” instead?
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