On Religion: What Would Happen If Pastors And Their Churches Had Phone-Free Services?
(ANALYSIS) The scene unfolds whenever the Rev. Russell Moore asks people in the pews to read a passage of scripture as he begins a sermon.
At that point “most people pull up their phones and go to their Bible app rather than their physical Bible,” said Moore, editor in chief of Christianity Today and former head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Once those digital screens light up, one thing leads to another, he said. People keep saying: “I have an hour where I come in and worship ... and I’m distracted by — I’ll get pings on my phone. I'm getting distracted by all of that.”
Maybe churches should consider a strategic change in their worship plans, said Moore in a podcast conversation with Jonathan Haidt, author of the bestseller “The Anxious Generation” and the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University.
There has been a trend in some evangelical churches, noted Moore, to offer “scent-free services” in their schedules. By doing this, church leaders are saying: “We have some people with allergies, so we're going to have a service — you don't have to go to this service — but if you do, you're going to say, ‘I’m not coming in wearing cologne or perfume or whatever.’”
Moving to the challenges of the digital age, Moore asked: “Do you think it could work to say: ‘We're going to have specific worship services that are phone-free. We're not mandating that everybody come in without phones — but for this service.’ Would that do anything?”
Haidt interjected: “That’s a great idea, because there are a couple of things going on here that are interesting psychologically. One is that many of us have desires for how we want to be in the long run ... but then when faced with temptation, we cave.”
The key is whether clergy are willing to discuss screen-culture problems and then dare people to consider acting — together.
“I’ll bet, if the pastor talks about this with the congregation and says, ... ‘How many of you feel that your phones — your digital stuff — is distracting you in ways that you're not comfortable with?' Almost all hands are going to go up,” said Haidt, a self-avowed Jewish atheist.
The next question: “How many of you would like to really be present when you're worshipping, versus distracted?" Once again, he predicted, the “hands are going to go up.”
The problems found in religious communities mirror those found in schools, where researchers are seeing patterns of anxiety, depression and digital addictions among the young. Millions of people feel trapped.
“We want to connect with each other and to God, but our phones keep calling us away,” said Haidt.
Thus, clergy should start asking: "What would you say about having worship services — and maybe it's just an optional one, or maybe it's all the services — what would you say, if I asked you to literally ... put your phone on airplane mode, or power it down, or put it in a phone caddy at the front. What would you say?' That would be an interesting question for a congregation to discuss.”
In the wider culture, calls are growing for more states to pass legislation requiring strict limits or even bans on children being allowed to use smartphones at school. Meanwhile, the U.S. House of Representatives is preparing — in its lame-duck session — to discuss passage of the Kids Online Safety Act and the Child and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act.
It is past time for religious leaders to speak out and then act, especially in schools and congregations, Haidt told me in a recent Zoom interview.
“I have tremendous respect for religion, for religious communities. ... If we don't have religious communities, we end up making some other community quasi-religious and that often works out very badly,” he said.
“Adolescent development needs to be guided by elders in their community. That’s how you pass on a culture. ... Once you get a phone-based childhood, now there's very little room for mentors of any kind — offline. There’s just no room. So, what they get, in essence, are mentors online who are chosen by an algorithm for their extremities.”
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Terry Mattingly is Senior Fellow on Communications and Culture at Saint Constantine College in Houston. He lives in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and writes Rational Sheep, a Substack newsletter on faith and mass media.