Are they in need of God's word?
Imagine that you are trying to spread the Gospel, educate illiterate villagers on the teachings of Jesus. What might be an effective means to do so?
While the Gutenberg Bible revolutionized the Christian religion in Europe, it's not much help if you only speak Limbu or Bambra but can't read any language. Proselytizers have recognized that you need to transform the word of God into an acceptable format, or as Tim Bulkeley says:
If MP3 recordings of the Bible were available in someone's tribal language their children or grandchildren could download them and play them, and pass them on to friends and neighbours. The illiterate villagers could HEAR the Bible.
In fact, the
Washington Post reports that since 2000, the Bible has been translated more than 600 more languages. And what better platform to spread Scripture audio books that One Laptop Per Child's XO computer? It's lightweight, durable, with built in speakers, and when backed up by Internet-connected servers with Bibles in multiple languages Tim is right to call it:
The most cost effective means of Bible distribution ever (whether cost is measured in dollars or people-hours).
Wait till Tim hears about the newest OLPC innovation,
text to speech:
Hemant Goyal and Asiem Deodia are working on getting a text-to-speech synthesizer integrated into xbook (and perhaps into Sugar). Arjun Sarwal is mentoring them as part of Summer of Content.
They have an initial design working, involving a dbus service that will capture highlighted text and play it with espeak. A global “play” button is planned for the Sugar activity toolbar so that this is accessible from all activities.
Its not just audio Bibles that excite the clergy. Last week in Rome, Nicholas Negroponte and Matt Keller joined Antonio Battro, who is OLPC's chief education officer and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, for a one-day whirlwind tour of the Eternal City. They were showing off OLPC XO technology to the Jesuit Order and got a
very receptive audience:
U.S. Jesuit Father Keith Pecklers told CNS the Jesuits were encouraging other religious orders to become involved in the One Laptop Per Child project. "The impact the One Laptop Per Child program will have on a global level is phenomenal," he said.
A professor of liturgy at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University, Father Pecklers said the Jesuits have always been "at the forefront of education, particularly in the poorest of the poor areas where many would not wish to go, so it strikes me as appropriate and important that the Jesuits would take the lead in supporting this particular program."
While your opinion of the Catholic Church may vary, the idea of religiously-sponsored, OLPC-enabled education poses the very significant question: do we want Bible-thumping children or community elders using the "$100 laptop" to further spread Christianity? Might we do more harm than good if the first wave of OLPC XO's come with religious audiotapes or speak of Jesus in native tongues? Or as
other people of faith say:
Technology is great, but as people and as Jesus-followers we need to be very careful how we share technology with other societies. What may seem like a good idea might actually be a cross-cultural force-feeding, with long term negative effects on these developing countries.
And against the backdrop of the US involvement in Iraq and the OLPC connection to
the other Negroponte, maybe Tim should temper his enthusiasm for linking OLPC to Christianity, or at least recognize that the Koran, Torah, and Pali Canon should be equally available and promoted depending on local customs and traditions.
Tags: Bible Distribution | OLPC Bible | Proselytizers | Scripture Audio Books | Teachings of Jesus | Word of God | XO Technology |
