The FTL neutrino saga offers some useful comparisons with theology. The OPERA team’s initial neutrino observations suggested that something utterly new had happened — something startling, unprecedented, and contrary to all previous experience.

The OPERA team didn’t go out and proclaim their initial observations as a final, unchallengeable revelation. On the contrary, the team announced its observations with great caution, and relentlessly subjected them to critical scrutiny. The team actively sought out alternative explanations; it also encouraged others to do likewise, and to check whether their initial results could be replicated. And when that didn’t happen, the team didn’t insist that their followers should keep the faith because vindication would come any day now.

Sure, the team members might well have indulged themselves in wishful thinking, a desire for recognition, etc. But they didn’t let those completely-human longings override their (putatively) highest commitment: to the truth, whatever the truth turned out to be (hat tip: the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor).

It’s not clear that the institutional church works that way — or ever has.

And that brings me to my next point. Candidly, I wonder what the diocese does with our apportionment—I’m rarely impressed with what I see from them. What *would* be a major help is a solid full-time diocesan IT person whose main function is spearheading web and mobile developments for the diocese, its parishes, and its outreach as a whole.

Just as the monks had to understand the basic technologies of parchment production and illumination, modern church folk need to have at least a few in every bunch who know the basics of html. It’s frankly a scandal that the national church doesn’t have a fully indexed and hotlinked edition of the BCP on the web–the closest to it are volunteer efforts like Chad Wohlers’ page and http://www.bcponline,org. Development of stuff like this really ought to be a top priority for mission in a digital age…

I don’t own a smart phone. I can’t afford the data plan right now. I certainly accept your reasoning on this, and I need to take another look at your cathedral’s mobile site to see what you have done. As a non-mobile web user, I am curious about the use cases which would apply to the mobile user.

The major use case I can see is basic contact info for visitors, with perhaps a higher emphasis on maps and special services information. I can easily imagine someone who is visiting from out of town, or trapped in the office late at night and realizes that it is Ash Wednesday (or whatever) and where can I find a service close by? How about a mapping app which accesses the GPS info on the phone to customize a map and directions?

The major need here is for guidance and sharing of resources, especially for smaller churches without a staff of programmers in the congregation. I will be pushing our parish site towards a redesign in WordPress so that we can use plugins to address the mobile space. I think we may see a move toward CMS based approaches so that small parishes can leverage software work done by others.

That difference seems to drive the way that other denominations here in America deal with our government. And we Episcopalians have learned from them. Which means we’re different than parts of the communion where the Church of England experience is still pretty close to reality – like in the Commonwealth nations of Canada or Nigeria for instance.