From the Garden to the City, Ch. 11: Virtualization

December 22, 2011
Books, Faith, Technology
7196Leave a Comment2011-12-22+18%3A53%3A46jason

This is Part 11 of my chapter-by-chapter blog of From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology by John Dyer. (Thankfully for you, it’s also my last.)

The subject of technology and how it relates to the Church certainly isn’t new, and there are a ton of different books and blogs and so on out there that have their own spin on it. The reason for that, I think, is because technology is a moving target. It’s constantly changing, and therefore how we think about it, how we approach it, and ultimately how we use it changes as well.

Technology, we said, is “the human activity of using tools to transform God’s creation for practical purposes.” It’s a means to an end, a bridge from one world to a better one, allowing us to overcome some sort of problem to accomplish a goal we couldn’t have on our own. Defining it further, we broke it down into four separate layers: technology as hardware, technology as manufacturing, technology as methodology, and technology as social usage. The first two layers, we concluded, are inherently neutral; a shovel is just a shovel. However, the knowledge used to create those tools and how the tools are used are most definitely not neutral; how we approach those various tools is determined by our own internal values but also has the ability to reshape those values over time.

We said that people inevitably think of technology in terms of either instrumentalism (the idea that tools are neutral and therefore interchangeable) or determinism (the idea that technology is an “unstoppable power” that “operates independently of human choices”). Depending on where people fall along that spectrum, a certain amount of conflict can arise. Typically the newer the technology, the more varied opinions there are of it and therefore more disagreement with how exactly it should be used. And sometimes even the mere presence of a new technology can act as a disruptive force that can create conflict.

And one of the most disruptive technologies in all of human history is that of the Internet.

Virtualization.

There are obvious pitfalls for Christians living in the Internet age. While we have greater access to information than ever before, that information is not always beneficial to us, and the way we process it profoundly impacts the way we function offline. We’re gradually losing our ability to distinguish between knowledge and information, and with the ever-increasing tidal wave of stimuli we encounter on a daily basis, our ability to make wise decisions is becoming impaired. Also, many of us have mastered the art of scanning text but find it harder and harder to read with great depth. And with constant access to all our various Internet-connected gadgets, disconnecting is sometimes next to impossible.

But even beyond the physiological aspects, the Internet has a number of social implications. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter affect how we see ourselves and how others view us. As Dyer states:

[A] Facebook profile transforms your identity into one that fits within its framework. When we use an online service like Facebook, we are, in effect, taking our identity and pushing it through that medium. Like meat put through a sausage grinder, what comes out on the other end is both like and unlike what we started with.

As we continue to fill out our profiles, add pictures, quotes, and favorite music, we are creating an identity that is closer to the “real” us and yet still not truly us. We then use that identity to interact with other people who have gone through a similar identity-shaping process.

The result is a distorted view of ourselves and the world around us, which can have serious social repercussions. It’s been said that we tend to compare our insides with other people’s outsides. If that’s true, then with social networking, we’re comparing our insides to a highly filtered, selective view of other people’s outsides. If we lost by comparison before, then there’s absolutely no hope for us now.

It’s also way to easy to get caught up in the metrics of the Internet: how many Facebook friends we have, how many Twitter followers, how many blog subscribers, and on and on. As I’ve mentioned before, sometimes the worst offenders of this are Christians themselves, who take every opportunity to promote themselves, repeatedly tweet their latest blog post, and build their “personal brand”, somehow forgetting that it’s not their own identity that’s important but that of their Savior.

But does that mean that the Internet and social media are completely without merit? Certainly not. While online connections through Facebook, Twitter, and email do not in and of themselves constitute “community”, they can certainly enhance it and make it stronger. But the line between the corrupting nature of technology and the redeeming nature of it isn’t always clear. To know which tools to use and how best to use them, we need some sort of framework.

Recommendations.

Dyer concludes his book with a set of recommendations for how we as Christians should approach technology:

Valuation – Continually returning to the Scriptures to find our Christian values and identity. Is this tool or app or service in line with what we say we believe?
Experimentation – Trying it out to see how it works. Only through using it will we begin to understand its “technology as usage”.
Limitation – Placing appropriate boundaries on it. We saw in Chapter 10 how dangerous it is to overdepend on technology, believing it can solve all our problems. Every technology comes with an opportunity cost.
Togetherness – Using the technology as part of a genuine community, not in place of it. Instead of making it all about extending our personal brand, it should be about bringing the body of Christ closer together as a family.
Cultivation – Supporting those who are leading the way so that we can continue our mission of cultivating God’s creation.

We started out this process by asking how the Church should relate to technology. Should it blindly embrace it in order to appear more relatable and relevant? Or should we reject it because of its ability to amplify our innate selfish, sinful nature? Or is the answer somewhere in between, accepting it in some cases while rejecting it in others?

I said at one point that the “in between” answer was somewhat of a non-answer. But I don’t think it is. We’ve seen how God can work through technology for redeeming purposes even when we’re all too willing to do the opposite. So to reject it — if that were even possible — would be to deny God’s grace and providence. But to embrace it without discernment would be to reject His wisdom and command to cultivate the earth. The answer, then, is to approach technology intentionally, basing its methodology and usage on our biblical values and not the other way around.

Technology is constantly changing. The tools and techniques that I use day in and day out today will not be the same ones my children use. But that doesn’t mean we have to automatically throw them out. While these tools can be used for rebellion, building man-made cities in the wilderness as a way to separate ourselves from our Creator, they can also be used for redemption, extending God’s Kingdom and His plans for those He created.

We’ve been given the tools. What we do with them is up to us.