The latest issue (Nov. 12) of the Presbyterian Outlook has their Reports and Resources section, titled “Web 2.0: The New Connectionalism,” devoted entirely to the church and new technologies.  If you don’t subscribe to the paper version you can view it on the web with a free registration for the web site.

The articles are interesting and informative, especially if you are just getting up to speed on the new technology of not just blogs but wiki’s, podcasts, and news feeds, to name a few.

However, I especially appreciated editor Jack Haberer’s editorial “ The church is flat.”  In the piece he talks about how the leveling of the playing field by the internet, where any one of us can be the purveyor of news and commentary on our own web page or in our blog, is nothing new.  The reformers did it 500 years ago when they stripped the hierarchy out of the church and allowed the common folk to interact directly with God through prayer and scripture.  But, he goes on, that was just an extension of what Jesus and the Holy Spirit did 1500 years before that when they too, although in a different way, abolished the need for temple rituals preformed by priests and empowered every individual who believed.  And you thought this was something new.