Kindling the Presence of God

Some hotels are replacing print versions of the Bible with electronic e-readers.

In Moses' day, God's Word was inscribed on tablets, just like today.

Well, okay, not just like today. Moses' tablets were made of stone, while ours are made of plastic, glass and silicone.

Still, you may have read God's Word on such a device, especially if you happened to stay at the Indigo Hotel in the British city of Newcastle recently. There, the management swapped out the usual hardcover Gideon Bibles in each of its 148 guest rooms for an Amazon e-reader — a Kindle — that's preloaded with the Bible. Guests can download other religious texts free of charge, and other reading

material for a small fee.

While the Indigo is part of a chain, the Newcastle location was chosen to test Kindles as Bible e-readers because that city was once one of the largest print centers in Britain, and the tablet introduction there pays tribute to that literary past. The idea is that if the Kindle experiment works well in Newcastle, the chain will consider providing them at its other locations....