As a coda to my recounting of the encounter between the bishop and the geeks at the Digital Space gathering a couple of weeks ago - here's a footnote from Bishop Alan Wilson's blog. He was responding to the Roman Catholic Primate Vincent Nichols who has had a pop at social media as a work of the Devil (sort of). Archbishop says MySpace leads to suicide - screams the headline. (I know how he feels)
Alan Wilson makes the point that the popularity of social media derives in part from our mistrust of 'truth' served up once a day. Truth is emergent rather than inductive - we discover it - no one can tell it to us. And that faith communities ought when they function properly to fulfil a role where truth can be discovered in much the same way. Which was similar to the critique that Bishop Tom Wright was making at Digital Space of internet communities and his emphasis on the church as a community gathered in space and time.
