Laptops and mobiles say the bells of St Lawrence

Sometimes I get terribly down about reactionary religious types and their stuck-in-the-past-edness. Other times, like this week, I despair because of modern religious types and their faith-can-be-fun-call-me-tony-ishery. St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London had a service this week in which people's mobile phones and laptops were blessed . Sweet, if I may say, Jesus. I know it's just a bit of fun and all that, but please please please please please please no. The idea behind it was to have a modern version of Plough Monday , when in oldy times ploughs would be brought to the door of the church to be blessed. These days, certainly in the City, the tools of trade are phones and computers rather than ploughs, so the service included a "Blessing of the Apple and the BlackBerry". Aaaargggh! I hate myself for being annoyed at this, but I am and here is why. Firstly, ploughs were blessed because if your plough didn't do its job properly you and your family starved. If your phone doesn't do its job properly, your loved ones might not know what train you're on and you'll have to see your friends in person to talk about Big Brother. On plough Monday, the plough would be blessed and then paraded through the streets to help extort money out of local landowners – if they didn't cough up, their front doorstep was pulled up with the plough. A lovely cross between trick or treat and an anti-capitalist march. Not quite the same spirit as blessing smartphones in the Square Mile. I suppose it's like that bit in the New Testament where Jesus blesses the moneylenders' tables. Oh no, hang on … But I'm also annoyed because I'm generally a fan of churches. I may not have been into one to worship for many years, but I frequently go in a spirit of meditation, peace, and often awe. Whether or not one believes in the specifics of a religion, religious buildings are rare and precious places of contemplation, where one can light a candle and have a think, get in touch with things more fundamental that get drowned out by day to day nonsense brought to us by COMPUTERS AND TELEPHONES! Technology's brilliant, but it's also bloody awful and I am all for legal separation of the Church and the State and the Informationsuperhighway. It also stinks of gimmick and our generation's obsession with, not even style over substance, anything over substance, because substance might embarrass us. Politics has been robbed of sincerity, so has much of the arts and education. For all its flaws, please don't let faith be next.