If we are going to "discern the spirits" in association with iPhones and Web 2.0 generally we need to start with the good stuff. iPhones and Facebook are awesome!

Again, as I said in Part 1, these aren't going to be Luddite posts. I love my iPhone, and while I'm not on Facebook or Twitter I am, obviously, a huge fan of blogging--a signature of Web 2.0.

Here's my little Web 2.0 testimonial. In 2006 I was feeling kind of lonely. I had a lot of good friends, but I was struggling, socially, to find outlets for all the stuff that was rumbling around in my head. And to find someone who thrilled to the ideas I was kicking around and would join in. I think people are generally unprepared for the sheer volume of stuff I think about. If you ask me, in a passing social encounter, what I've been thinking about you are asking for a two hour conversation. If you are a regular reader of this blog I expect you know what I'm talking about. But given that I have a modicum of social skills, I don't inflict two hour discussions on people. So while my friends were interested in what I was thinking about I had too much to say, too much to communicate. I needed another outlet.

Plus, there were times when I would share thoughts with my friends and would be dismissed as odd or unserious. I keenly remember sending an email to many of my friends on campus, around 2005, telling them that universalism was going to be an important conversation for this next generation of students. One of my friends, who worked in the College of Biblical Studies, dismissed this as borderline crackpot.

Given how things have developed since 2005, I feel pretty much vindicated on that score. Before and definitely since Rob Bell's Love Wins, universalism has become a very hot topic. But in 2005 I couldn't get a whole lot of traction among my ACU colleagues about this topic. Not that I expected to. ACU is a pretty conservative place, theologically speaking. As are the Churches of Christ. So I was used to being in the minority. Still, it was lonely. Theologically and intellectually lonely.

But then I started this blog. And here I could pour out every crazy idea I had. I could write and write and write. Even about universalism. And the most amazing thing happened. People came here and talked to me. Suddenly, I had all of you. And I didn't feel so lonely anymore.

My day developed two tracks, intellectually speaking. My ACU track, where I talked very little about the stuff on my blog, was pretty boring. I mean, who wants to hear me go on for two hours about the theology of serpents in the snake handling churches of Appalachia? Or about how Type 1 and Type 2 errors make for a really cool metaphor for soteriology? Or how monsters are transgressive hybrids? Or how the Eucharist might be like a "strange loop"? Or about the theological implications of Calvinball? Or how Game Theory can be used to talk about the Sermon on the Mount? Or about the figure of Judas in art history? Or about reverse perspective in Greek Orthodox icons? Or about the problems of free will in Openness Theology?

See the problem if you're my friend? Where was I going to dump this stuff on campus? How does any of this stuff come up in a normal conversation, particularly if you have a modicum of social skills?

So I'd hardly ever talk about this stuff on campus. That was my ACU life, Track One. But I now had a second intellectual outlet, Track Two. The conversation here. On Tack One I was a normal person having normal conversations. But throughout the day I was also living on a second track, participating with you in the conversation I'd started here. It was awesome. I didn't have to burden friends with some odd idea I was kicking around ("Hey, do you want to hear the difference between weak and strong volitionalism and their relationship to moral luck?). But I could kick these ideas around on Web 2.0. That world was so big there were always a few people who, for any given post, would say "Cool. I like this. Have you thought about..."

In short, I've never been happier, intellectually speaking, than since I started this blog. So thank you and thank you Web 2.0.

And while we are talking about all this, let me say that I think Web 2.0 is the reason why universalism recently hit its tipping point. There were always people who believed in universal reconciliation, in every denomination. Catholic. Baptist. Pentecostal. Evangelical. Church of Christ. We were in every church. But we were always in the minority. Quiet and closeted. Feeling alone and strange.

But then Web 2.0 hit. And guess what? We found each other. Suddenly we realized we were not alone. Web 2.0 allowed us to "come out" and feel confident we weren't crazy.

Web 2.0 was the tipping point for universalism. It allowed the minorities within each church to connect with each other and start up a more public conversation.

To conclude, my story is just one of millions, if not billions. You are the grandmother who uses Facebook or texting to keep up with your grandkids in another state. You're the missionary overseas who uses the Internet to stay in touch with home. You're the lonely person who found companionship via the Web. Or the best friends who celebrate everyday together on Facebook, even if you live hundreds of miles apart. The stories go on and on.

Connection is a wonderful thing.

In short, any assessment of the spirituality of Web 2.0 and social mobile computing has to start with its enormous good. To miss that is to miss why we are so drawn to it all and how our lives can become impoverished, in real human ways, without it.

(Picture above is the world map drawn by Paul Butler using Facebook connections.)