Apps and spirituality a mixed blessing.

• Position: Your Life

Smartphone apps that deliver everything from sacred Christmas and Easter music to reminders to attend worship to scriptures for meditation can be potent tools for spiritual growth, but such technology also has the potential to diminish worship and fellowship with other believers, according to Douglas Henry, associate professor of philosophy at Baylor University, Wace, Texas.

Henry has the BibleReader app on his phone and uses it to read the King James and English Standard versions of the Bible, as well as the Latin Vulgate. He also has the Universalis app, with prayers and meditations for various times of the day and special religious seasons such as Advent, and he acknowledges that iPads, netbooks, and smartphones can be put to good spiritual use.

"Especially when traveling, I use my iPad to search, read, and study scripture. It gives me pictures of nature and works of art that inspire my contemplative gratitude to God," but "living in a world of perpetual mobile connectivity can be spiritually distracting--and even deforming--for those who succumb to its inducements. Whatever technology's wizardry does for us, it cannot fundamentally alter our heart's desire to love God and to love others in God."

There is the temptation to love technology too much, Henry indicates. "We can be the quickest on the draw to find the latest gossip or news--but there is also an impatience we're cultivating, a desire to get instant answers and solutions. Christians are called to be pilgrims, a people who walk...