Social networking leads to suicide! God hates MySpace! The Archbishop hath spoken

In this paranoid, conservative worldview, where everything new is generally dangerous and everything old is generally safe, the Archbishop is far from alone.

SHOOT: There was a time when human beings didn't innovate, or couldn't for thousands of years. Change can spell either death or flourishing, so change is a big deal. Now innovation - new toothbrushes and phones come out virtually weekly. It may seem like we're on top of our game, that we've beaten the system, but have we? Haven't all the rapid unthought-about changes sped us to a top-heavy system poised for collapse? While I agree that the church have their fair share of hypocrites, they commonly mean well and take the trouble and make the effort to care. I tend to think in order to salvage human relationships we need less time in front of the TV, less time at the computer, and more time with each other.

clipped from www.sfgate.com As you might guess, I don't really care much for the goodly Archbishop's take on things. No one really should, given how the church hasn't exactly been relevant or intelligent or even remotely accurate in matters of popular culture and the vagaries of youth for, well, just about ever. Besides, you always know if something is rather new, if it upheaves the norm and messes with social mores and especially if it dares to dance with definitions of love and sex and gender, the church will most assuredly come out, rather snarlingly, against it. It's just how they roll. Nor should we dwell too long in the most painfully obvious truism of all, the one the kindly Archbishop conveniently overlooks: If anything throughout world history has shoved anxiety-riddled kids further down the path of confusion and misery and even suicide, it's the massive waves of guilt, shame and sin that have been foisted upon them like a brick blanket by organized religion. Deny it at your peril, Archbishop Nichols.