Found another site/blog on the same theme as this site: religital.com. It's about page is simple: Religital has a PhD in Studies in religion and is dedicated to reporting on the new issues raised within religions in this new Digital Age. This definition is intentionally broad so as to include many of the things I see challenging religions. Hopefully I’ll keep people interested along the way.

The Social Science Research Council, with the support of the John Templeton Foundation, invites proposals from journalists to participate in an initiative to enhance public knowledge of the social, cultural, psychological, and cognitive dimensions of prayer, and of its origins, variations, and correlations in human life. A small number of grants, of up to $50,000 each, and each with a maximum duration of two years, will be awarded to support journalists working on the topic.

Helping religious leaders become theologically savvy about technology

Faith communities and their leaders need help navigating the changing landscape of communication in America today. What’s the latest social media trend? Will it last? How do I use YouTube? Should I podcast or not? What does it all mean?

I saw this today as I was driving in Santa Rosa, CA.

Good connection between old type of information (Institution based on the Bible the "Good Book") and new type (company based on the internet). By making the connecting the institution targeted the audience well, who is probably immersed in both worlds.

I am not a Catholic and I don't own any i-device (iPad, iPhone iTouch, not even an iPod) but ,my corner of the online world, including the mainstream media is abuzz about "Confession: A Roman Catholic App" so I must cover it. Here is the timeline how I learned about it:

• February 4 - Greenflame's blog entry pointed to the "Forgive me i-Father" piece at stuff.co.nz of the same day. That quotes one of the people behind the app ("his team had wanted to engage Catholics with new media in response to the Pope's World Communications Address last year, in which he spoke of its potential benefits") and his bishop ("Bishop Kevin Rhoades went as far as to grant it an imprimatur - official endorsement from a church authority.")
• February 7 - David Sheppard's (great name for this) report on the app for Reuters under the heading "Bless me iPhone for I have sinned" gave a little more background information ("The app was developed with the help of Reverend Thomas Weinandy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Reverend Dan Scheidt, pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mishawaka, Indiana.")
• February 8 - News about the app showed up on a CNN blog as 'Catholics can confess on the go with new app."
• February 9 - Longer version on CNN proper under "New app helps Catholics confess on the go" and an analysis of it at GetReligion.org as "Time for confession at Times of London". Maureen Dowd  also covered the app for the New York Times under the title "Forgive Me, Father, for I Have Linked".

As of February 1, the Association for the Sociology of Religion has a new website. The address is the same as it was sociologyofreligion.com. The announcement of the news is rather short, "We are pleased to announce the launch of our new ASR website," but they also say on the home page "Please bear with us, this new site is still under construction."

From a blog entry of The Rev. Steve Bates, Rector at The Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

Bishop Duncan graciously agreed to receive Aaron into the Episcopal Church via Skype. ...

Earlier in January the recently graduated Tim Hutchings created a new Facebook page titled The Digital Kingdom Research Project. Its short description currently reads "The "Digital Kingdoms" Project is Tim Hutchings' current research project, exploring the role of digital media in journeys into Christian faith. You can follow Tim on Twitter at @tim_hutchings." Its mission is stated as "Finding new faith in the digital world."

Vincent Gonzalez' essay at Religion Dispatches does a great job of describing both what Penance (an application released for the iPhone in early December, allowing users to absolve one another’s sins) is and how the experience using it feels. His more reflective obsevrvations include: