You should know there's a new slj site! Check it out

[A potpourri of cultural observations, thoughts & trends]

HEAVEN REPACKAGED
“Proselytizers of cyberspace proffer their domain as an idealized realm ‘above’ and ‘beyond’ the problems of a

	It’s cool to be “spiritual” “Perceiving oneself to be spiritual is one of the legacies of the ’90s. Seven out of 10 adults now say they’re spiritual. That includes nine out of 10 Christians, half of the adults who don’t consider themselves to be Christian, and even three out of ten atheists!” —Vital Ministry, July/August 1999, based on data from the Barna Research Group, quoted in Discipleship Journal, issue 113.

troubled material world. . . . One way of understanding this new digital domain is as an attempt to realize a technological substitute for the Christian space of Heaven.

“Cyberspace is not the product of any formal theological system, yet for many of its champions, its appeal is decidedly religious. Not being an overtly Christian construct is in fact a crucial point in its favor; for in this scientific age, overt expressions of traditional forms of religion make many people uncomfortable. The ‘spiritual’ appeal of cyberspace lies in precisely this paradox: it is a repackaging of the old idea of heaven but in a secular, technologically sanctioned format. The perfect realm awaits us, we are told, not behind the pearly gates, but beyond the network gateway, behind electronic doors labeled ‘.com’ and ‘.net’ and ‘.edu.’”

—Margaret Wertheim, quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, June 4, 1999.

Shop till you drop—online
“Bruce D. Weinberg has set foot in a store only once in the past six months.
. . . He has vowed to shop only over the Internet. . . . His goal? To give his electronic-commerce students at Boston University an inside look at what works, and what bombs, when selling in cyberspace.

“Working in teams of two, the students create their own Web sites, which may make money but don’t have to. One student created a Web site with everything a consumer might need to know about buying watches, while another set up an online travel agency.

“One student in the class ordered a single bag of M&M candies at 6:05 p.m., just as class started. At 6:40 p.m. two delivery men knocked on the classroom door and handed him a box containing one bag of M&Ms and a bill for $1.05. The class was shocked.

“Mr. Weinberg says he’s in no hurry to go back into a ‘real’ store, but might be forced to this summer. ‘Our third child is due in June, so it might be tricky’ when the disposable diapers run out, he says.”

—Chronicle of Higher Education, March 10, 2000.

Mud Wrestling, Anyone?
“When we fell out of Eden, we did not land in the First Methodist Church. We landed in the primordial swamp, where life was ruled by raw power and the exercise of conscience was a death wish.

	Cheatin’ heart A recently published survey by Ball State U. found that 50 percent of students surveyed have cheated at least once during college. Researchers at Rutgers and Columbia University found that the number of students who admitted to cheating at nine medium-to-large universities rose from 39 percent in 1963 to a record 64 percent in 1993. What does the future hold? Well, a recent study by Who’s Who Among High School Students found that 80 percent of high school students confessed to cheating. —Source: National On-Campus Report, February 15, 2000.

At that point God’s options were clear: to destroy us utterly or to get down and muck about in the mud with us.”

—William Muehl, professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School, quoted in The Living Pulpit, October-December 1999.

Stop and Listen
“The task of authentic religion is to keep this world a sacred place, to remind us to wonder, to tread reverentially on the humus and be compassionate to all sentient beings. I believe we do this best by remembering: in the beginning there was silence.

“The Word is still spoken in sparrowsong, windsigh, and leaffall. An electron is a single letter, and atom a complex word, a molecule a sentence, and an indigo bunting an entire epistle of the sacred. The ocean whispers its mystery within the chambered seashell. Listen quietly to the longing in your heart for love and justice and you may hear an echo of the holy word that addresses you. Hush for a while. Be still and know.”

—Sam Keen in Spirituality and Health, Spring/Summer 1999, quoted by Martin Marty in Context, March 1, 2000.

Okay, you write it!
Top ten ways the Bible would be different if it were written by college students:

10. Loaves and fishes would be replaced by pizza and chips.

9. The Ten Commandments are actually only five, double-spaced, and written in a large font.

8. The forbidden fruit would have been eaten simply because it wasn't dorm food.

7. Paul's Letter to the Romans would become Paul's e-mail to the Romans.

6. The real reason Cain killed Abel: they were roommates.

5. The place where the end of the world occurs: finals, not Armageddon.

4. The Book of Armaments would be in there somewhere.

3. The reason why Moses and his followers walked in desert for 40 years: they didn't want to ask directions and look like a freshman.

2. The Tower of Babel would be blamed for the foreign language requirement.

1. Instead of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, he would have put it off until the night before it was due and then pulled an all-nighter.

—Unknown source.