People of the Nook

Leslie Leyland Fields:

It's true: I'm a dying breed. I've been lugging around this doorstop version of the Scriptures partly for its inconvenience. It reminds me of its import and my commitment to the words I so laboriously carry. But…I've downloaded the Bible on my iPhone, and, like millions of others, have begun to use it, which has caused me to wonder: Are we Christians still people of the book? And if we're becoming instead people of the Nook, does it matter?

. . .

This unprecedented ability to carry the words of God almost weightlessly everywhere I go, and to read them on the same device that helps me manage my life, strikes me as utterly theologically fitting. I am reminded of the priesthood of all believers, and the Scriptures' self-definition as the "words of life"—meaning, surely, at least this: words that are to inform and infuse every part of our lives, commingling with [other things I pull from my purse—] breath mints, photos, and phone calls.