Technology Is Forever Changing How We Pray

[news]

[news]

Christian leaders are no strangers to social media. On any given day, even Pope Francis will use his Twitter platform to offer a prayer of peace or healing to the world.

But does posting a prayer on social media distance us from the actual act of praying? In a recent HuffPost Live segment, host Zerlina Maxwell posed just that question.

Maxwell's guests included Donald Cyprian, developer of a new religious app; Tim O’Malley, director of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy; Heidi Campbell, a communications professor at Texas A&M University; and Dr. Pauline Hope Cheong, an associate professor of communications at Arizona State University. Each weighed in on how technology is changing the way we pray -- and why this might not be a bad thing.





"Social media allows people to find their spiritual tribe online," Campbell said.

Roughly 1 in 5 Americans shares their religious faith online in an average week, according to a 2014 study by the Pew Research Center. Forty-six percent of Americans say they have seen someone else share “something about their religious faith” online -- which may allow social media users to more easily connect with others who share their spiritual beliefs.

Among social media users, millennials are much more likely to engage in almost every platform than any other age demographic, according to Pew. The HuffPost Live guests discussed the ways they hope millennials will engage with social media as an outlet for religious expression, especially if they don't connect as well with traditional worship practices.





Religious apps and websites are helping define the emerging niche of spiritual social media. Among them is Instant Christ, an app Cyprian developed that helps Christians and other people connect with one another through prayer, as well as to find sermons and locate churches. Watch Cyprian talk about what inspired him to develop the app:





Watch the full HuffPost Live conversation about how social media is shaping prayer here.

Sign up here for Live Today, HuffPost Live's new morning email that will let you know the newsmakers, celebrities and politicians joining us that day and give you the best clips from the day before!

Also on HuffPost:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.












More...