The 21st Century Christian and Technology

Technology has a great impact on human life. It provides us with new and powerful ways of interacting with the world. These interactions are geared towards making things more effective, efficient and convenient for us. So for example portable music players mean that I am able to enjoy music when I want to as opposed to only when there is a live performance.

Such advances are certainly enjoyable and satisfying. At the same time however we must recognize that the values of efficiency and convenience are not necessarily God's highest values. The Bible often shows God having his people do things that are decidedly inefficient and inconvenient (ex. Israel marching around the walls of Jericho, the command to only carry the ark of the covenant only by poles, Israel having to hamstring any horses they captured as they conquered the land of Canaan).

Instead, what the Bible is concerned to teach us is that our lives must be oriented first and foremost around God's standards. Everything in our lives should submit to God - no matter how inconvenient this might be. The basic assumption of Romans 12:1-2 is that there are some ways of life that Christians must wholeheartedly reject. God tells us to instead "think differently" by having a renewed mind so that we can live the transformed life that fits with God's will, namely all that is good and acceptable and perfect.

Christians begin to have a renewed mind when they believe in Jesus. In Christ they gain a new life with God. But this new life must be nurtured and matured. We must "test" it so that it aligns with God's will.

Too often our approach to life is a naive immediate consumerist adoption of everything shiny and new that comes our way. The transformed life of the Christian will instead "test everything" before swallowing it down and incorporating it into our lives and churches (cf 1 Thess 5:21-22).

It's from this vantage point that we begin to realize the importance of great discernment when it comes to technology. Technology has great value for us but it also holds great danger for us. For technology impacts us not just in how we use it but in the fact that we use it, that we then begin to depend on it, and that we then demand to have it. So for example cell phones have made it easier for us to contact people. However, the use of cell phones also changes our expectations about contacting people. We begin to expect that we should always be able to contact people whenever we want to (and thus get frustrated whenever this doesn't happen), and we begin to live in such a way that we expect to be easily contacted by others (which means we get used to constant interruptions throughout our day).

At a certain point, technology can become like a god. It subtly but powerfully reshapes our persepctive, priorities, and expecations away from what God wants us to do towards whatever is most convenient and satisfying for us to do. Neil Postman writes how technology has become a god for us in that, "...people believe technology works, that they rely on it, that it makes promises, that they are bereft when denied access to it, that they are delighted when they are in its presence...and that, in the born-again mode, they will alter their lifestyles, their schedules, their habits, and their relationships to accomodate it."

This is why it is absolutely crucial to be discerning when it comes to our engagement with technology. Such discernement and testing I believe will reveal some clear dangers to avoid and some major biblical emphases to embrace.

Dangers in the technologically centered life
1. Tendency to elevate information
Technology makes it easier and easier to find out whatever we want about anything. But just because we have a lot of knowledge available to us doesn't actually mean we actually know anything! As Christian blogger Tim Challies recently wrote, we can begin to think that memorizing the Bible is unimportant if we think that we can always just instantly call up any information we need off our laptops or cell phones.

2. Tendency to elevate the trivial.
In every generation there is a tendency to drift towards diversion, to dwell on silly and useless things. Note for instance Paul's instruction to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:4.

It says a lot about us, that we are able to find time to check our Facebook page throughout the day but struggle to find even a few minutes to pray or read fromt eh Bible. We are able to carve out time to watch a few of our favorite hourlong dramas on television each week but have a number of excuses for why we can't make a weekly church gathering. We stay up on what new movies or new music is coming out but are clueless about what's really going on in other people's lives.

3. Tendency to elevate the immediate.
Our current technological world has effectively rewired many people's attention spans. We've become addicted to getting an immediate and constant flow of media, which it makes it harder to stay focused on any one thing. Our minds constantly wander from whatever task we are engaged with to something else. In the space of 15 minutes we will go from working on a paper to checking email to answering a cell phone.

4. Tendency to elevate a "browsing" lifestyle.
We "skim" or "browse" through life, never really engaging with anything or anyone. Douglas Groothuis in his book "The Soul in Cyberspace" describes how many go through their days having an "absent presence." We might be physically there with people, but not really engaged with them. We are simply browsing through our interactions with people as we busily text and chat and watch TV.

There tends to be a false sense of intimacy born out of the "browsing" lifestyle. We will for instance reveal very personal things through technology but remain superficial when it comes to talking face to face with someone.

The above list clearly holds great danger for the Christian concerned to live in right relationship with God and others. In contrast to this the Bible emphasizes certain things that will instead orient us to God and rightly develop our lives with God.

Emphases in the God-oriented life
1. The importance of being present.
The Hebrews writer directly tells us in Heb 10:24-25 to not give up the habit of meeting together. He ties in important "one anothers" like loving one another or encouraging one another with the habit of meeting together. True Christian relationship come out of people coming together regularly and knitting themselves together in the love of Christ. Note also 1 John 1:1,3, where we see that the disciples' physical encounter with Jesus launched them to start proclaiming the gospel that announced a way for all people to have a relationship with God through Jesus. As we proclaim the gospel and develop relationships that involve real presence and deep engagement with others, we carry on the mission that the apostles' first began.

Technology has a bad habit of pointing us away from this biblical emphasis. But it can also help encourage and point us towards these kinds of relationships. They can be used to extend and further enhance and deepen our existing relationships.

The apostle John for instance certainly took advantage of the technology of writing and the Roman road system to connect with various Christians in the 1st century. But nevertheless he affirms that there are some things that could not be conveyed in letters, that required physical presence. As he writes in 2 John 1:12, "Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete."

2. The importance of humility and authenticity.
Technology can facilitate honest and humbly engagement with people or destroy it. The internet too often is a place where peopel engage in driveby shootings of people's character. In addition, it is geared to making you be the star. It provides tools for you to promote yourself, to obssess about yourself and what other people think about you. Josh Harris rightly points to what the Bible instead emphasizes when he writes, "I need to grow in self-forgetfulness. I need to worry more about what God is thinking of me. I need to be preoccupied with what he's written in his word, no what somebody just wrote on my 'wall.'" The "one anothers" of Scripture imply that our basic orientation is not to oursleves but towards others. And our highest priority is to be what God wants to do in and through us; it is not about us but about God!

A practical guideline to these first two points would be to encourage habits of life that make us engage people fully. Put the phone down and instead look be present with people.

3. The importance of reflection and "digestion."
Just as we should be present/engaged with people so also we should seek to be present/engaged with God's word and our own lives. We must regularly engage in the practice of examining and thinking over the word and then taking its truths into our hearts in such a way that our lives are deeply affected and radically changed.

On reflective digestion of the word, see Ps 119:11, 1 Tim 4:13, and 2 Tim 3:14-15. On reflective examination of one's own life, see 1 Cor 11:28 and 2 Cor 13:5.

A practical guideline here would be develop sustained attention over immediacy. This means:
- Reducing multi-taksing and any other habits that encourage distration and an ADD type of spirituality.
- Engaging in regular media fasts/techno-Sabbaths
- Truly studying God's word. Then study yourself in light of what you study in God's word.

4. The importance of words - specifically God's words
The Christian faith is a word-centered faith. Our technology tends to be image-centered. Images are important and significant. But they are important and significant to the degree that they implant certain words within us, more specifically, God's words. Note how the tabernacle and the temple in the Old Testament, while they had some striking visual elements, all had at their center a box within which you found not a statue of God but stone tablets on which was written the law of the Lord. When Satan attempted to tempt Jesus to live strictly by his physical senses, Jesus told him, "Man will not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

What we see can't be understood apart form being anchored to God's word. Technology, wisely used, can help spread and reinforce this word into our lives.

A practical guideline for this point is that we must diligently develop a love for God's word over media. This means:
- Regularly read scripture aloud and in community
- Have a solid bible that you regularly bring with you and whose truths you apply as you are out in the mix of life.

5. The importance of wisdom and understanding.
We have tons of information instantly available at our fingertips. But just because we have a lot available doesn't mean we are actually doing much with it. The Bible calls us to not having simply a lot of knowledge but towards having wisdom. Indeed, wisdom begins with the "fear of the Lord" (Prov 9:10) This will often mean dealing with inefficient and inconvenient things like suffering and patience.

A practical guideline here would be to develop wisdom over trivia. This means:
- Reduce useless information and trivia in your life. Instead seek to read large chunks of important things. Seek to know and memorize important things (like God's word)
- Use technology for the sake of cultivating wisdom. If you are using things like facebook, blogs, and text messaging, then saturate it with stuff that points people to God and to the kind of lives that we want to live with God.
- There's some technology that some of us, probably most of us, should absolutely reject and avoid. It takes up valuable time and energy and more often than not engages us in useless diversion as opposed to developing wisdom within us. Do we really need to watch as much TV as we do or have as many TV channels as we do? Do we really need to have an account with the newest social networking thing out there? Do we really need to daily check as many websites as we do? Answer to all these questions: No!

In the end, we must say that while technology is a great and powerful tool, let it always be seen as a power that submits to the far far greater power of God that is able to bring salvation to everyone who believes (Rom 1 1:16). It is this power that we should embrace, seeking the salvation of many through it. We bring all other things in this world, including technology, in service to this great mission.

What are your thoughts on being a Christian in a technological world? How has technology functioned in your life and how do you make sure it functions in a way that does not slowly deteriorate your walk in the Lord?