A production of Sola Media
White Horse Inn: Conversational Theology

What hath Jerusalem to do with Palo Alto?

Release date:

May 16, 2011

Topic(s):

Worldview Culture

Church, digitizedSubmitted by Dr. Brian J. Lee of Christ Reformed Church in Washington, D.C.

The May 16th New Yorker (behind firewall) delivers “The Facebook Sonnet,” a delightful poem by Sherman Alexie, which captures the anomie of “the endless high-school reunion” that is Facebook. Interesting that for Alexie the desire to “exhume, resume, and extend Childhood” ends with a perversion of the divine:

“…Let one’s search for God become public domain.
Let church.com become our church.

Let’s sign up, sign in, and confess
Here at the altar of loneliness.”

Where is wisdom to be found? Theologians seek to rebuild the house of God as a “virtual resource center,” but poets see the pitfalls of making the sacramental digital.