(Geneva Blackmer)
Review of February NAIN Digital Connect By Vern Barnett,
Community Resources for Exploring Spirituality, (CRES)
Above is a screen shot from Geneva's Blackme’s Zoom lecture and discussion from Bonn, Germany, for dozens of American and Canadian friends involved with interfaith work. In addition to our very own favorite, Geneva, we reconnected with Bettina Gray, who with Vern, was on the planning committee in 1988 for the continent's first conference espressly for interfaith organizations, programs, and offices. You can read The New York Times report here. Bettina also remembered CRES arranging a continental NAIN-Connect in Kansas City some years back.
Using up-to-the-minute scholarship and published studies, made vivid by her own experiences, Geneva presented the surprisingly acute problem of inadequate access to critical digital information and opportunities and the alarming lack of digital content literacy, With so many occasions for religious ignorance and bias to shape our collective lives, this program made clear the harm from both mere misinformation and from pernicious disinformation. Acquainting digital users with such basic questions as the following would support more accurate information about various faiths and their adherents:
* Where did you find this information?
* Is this a reputable source?
* Does your source of information have a particular bias?
* What are the implications of posting this information?
Participants exchanged responses to this problem as well as how various groups employed digital media in their own religious organizations and in thinking about interfaith activities.
(CRES initiated our website in 1997 and has always managed it; so it is surprising how many faith groups are still wrestling with digital issues.
