The 18th XBRL international conference took place the week before last in Washington. Didn't know about it? Didn't care? Don't worry, apparently you're not alone.

Out of the roughly 500 attendees, only a handful were from public companies, which will likely have to file quarterly and annual reports using the new technology starting next year. Instead, the vast majority were what many have dubbed the “evangelicals”—software vendors and consultants who praise XBRL but who are also likely to profit from its utilization.

While lead missionary Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox couldn't make it, he was there in spirit.

Speakers such as the SEC's point man on XBRL, David Blaszkowsky, praised interactive data as one of the most important changes to corporate finance in decades. He and others asked attendees to “go forth and multiply” by spreading the word that XBRL would lead to “future miracles.” More than one invoked the biblical Tower of Babel, whose plethora of languages led to chaos and confusion. And they laughed at a description of accounting as a “man-made scheme devoid of divinity.”

Religious fervor aside, XBRL certainly has the potential to benefit most companies, streamlining external reporting and internal data management. But it is also likely to pose a significant initial cost to smaller companies and still has many kinks to be worked out, as even some of the devout acknowledge.

The XBRL conference last week showed the vast divide between the heretics in corporate finance, who have not yet seen the light, and the evangelicals, who were largely preaching to the choir. Linda Kelleher, executive vice president at the National Investor Relations Institute, explained the lack of corporate interest by saying executives are stretched thin by the credit crunch and have more important things to worry about than tagging their data so investors can slice and dice it as they see fit via their computers.

Maybe it doesn't matter that CFOs, auditors and investor relations officers are not yet fully behind interactive data. If the SEC mandates XBRL, they will be forcibly converted. But it seems that for them to embrace it may require an act of faith.