“Know thyself, not thy selfies!” So declares Ron Broglio, minister of the made-up Digital Tabernacle, part of Arizona State University’s festival Emerge: Carnival of the Future. Broglio and other faux-priests are on a quest to get people to “confess their digital sins” and put away their devices—at least for a little while.

There’s nothing religious about it, but the experiment did hint at the near-addictive primacy that digital devices have taken for many.

Wrote Marcel O’Gorman for Slate: “At Emerge, the ministers absolved every filthy digital sin that came their way, from ‘I don’t email my mother often enough’ to ‘I sleep with my device under my pillow even though I know it’s bad for me.’ Some penitents experienced an epiphany at the Digital Tabernacle. As one righteous soul proclaimed, ‘I was arrogant and thought that I was in control. But it turns out that I needed an education. I could barely survive 30 minutes away from my device. Now I know better and I have nothing but gratefulness in my heart.’ Amen, brother! We all have insecurities about our reliance on digital devices, a nagging sense that we are slowly losing our souls—but few of us are prepared to admit it.” (Slate)

Paul Asay has covered religion for The Washington Post, Christianity Today, Beliefnet.com and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. He writes about culture for Plugged In and wrote the Batman book God on the Streets of Gotham (Tyndale). He lives in Colorado Springs with wife, Wendy, and his two children. Follow him on Twitter.