I found
it noteworthy that as I read the book iGods
by Craig Detweiler, about technology and theology, in a local coffee shop, several
of the surrounding conversations centered on technology. One group was
discussing the speed of their home Internet, Apple’s Time Machine device and
smartphones. Another couple was celebrating Skype and the ease of connecting
visually with friends. Technology is all around us, in us and is clearly one of
the major culture creators. Books like iGods
are crucial for the church today to read, digest and grapple with, as the
explosive technology revolution of our age is shaping ideas
about spiritual formation. As unmistakably stated in the book, technology is
not neutral but is a defining force shaping how we view ourselves, community,
faith, spirituality and God. Both overt and subversive, technology companies
like Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and others are impacting the church with
the same force as the printing press did over five hundred years ago.
Detweiler
opens his book by stating, “Our faith in technology is impatient. It does not
tolerate delays.”[1]
Technology trains us to move fast, think fast, respond fast and get what we
want fast. If the video is buffering or the website bogs down or the computer
takes too long to turn on, we grow impatient. The daily paper delivery and
nightly news are dinosaurs of a day long gone. Why wait twenty-four hours or
even a few hours to get the news when you can have the news instantaneously streamed
to your portable electronic device. How fast is fast enough? Not even a
consideration. Fast enough no longer exists in an emerging 5G world. Has
technology trained us to get what we want when we want it and how we want it?
It is not a stretch to say a resounding, yes. And yet, how counter to the
Christian story this is. God worked through thousands of years to bring the prophecy
of a Messiah to fruition and two thousand years of post-Christian history has
still not seen the words of Revelation 21, with the New Heaven and New Earth,
fulfilled. Peter writes that God is a patient God and that a thousand years are
but a day to the Creator of all things. The lost discipline of waiting on God
has been eroded away by the technological cult of fast and now. Detweiler
writes, “Patience is repeatedly celebrated as a virtue. Waiting seems to be an
inherent part of Christian discipleship. Speed is never held up as something
valuable or desirable. In fact, the notion of eternity challenges the entire
notion of faster.”[2]
Jesus
took three years to focus his attention on a small group of followers called the
disciples. The very foundation of Jewish disciple-making had to do with
intimate time together. A disciple was not just a person who wanted to know
what the rabbi knew, but was also one who wanted to be what the rabbi was. They
listened to the rabbi’s interpretation of the Torah but they also wanted to see
how the rabbi interacted with leaders, the government, widows, Gentiles and
shepherds. To be a disciple was a complete and utter transformation of thinking
and action. Faith and belief in the Jewish mind were never purely cognitive
endeavors, but rather a complete change of essence. This was and is true of discipleship.
Technology infects us with the idea that we cannot wait three minutes, let
alone three years. No wonder many church-based discipleship programs fail to
truly make committed followers of Jesus Christ when the discipleship is
squeezed into a one-hour, ten-week group. If I purchase a book on Amazon
through my Kindle Fire (I purchased and read iGod along with several other books on my Kindle), the expectation
is that the moment I push the purchase button, I get what I want instantly. How
counter this is to following Christ, which is a long, slow journey in the same
direction. Amazon and Google provide, at our fingertips, more information than
any one person or community could ever digest. And yet has this abundance of
information created Christians who believe that discipleship is just the
accumulation of more knowledge? The more I know, the holier I am. It has now moved
beyond what we know to how much we can access through Google, Bible Logos, Blue
Letter Bible and Bible Gateway. The more we can access, the more we perceive
that we grow in our Christian maturity. This is an age-old danger. It was not
created by modern technology. Our obsession over information access has poured
rocket fuel on the already enormous challenge of connecting the mind and heart.
Community
has always been and will always be at the core of the Christian story of
spiritual formation. The necessity of community began in Genesis and continues
into Revelation. The story of time, as we know it, begins in a garden with
people and will end in a city with people. This insatiable need for community
is birthed in the truth that we are created in the image of a God who exists in
the perfection of Community. Because God is three in one and we are created in
the persona of God, we need God and each other. Facebook, Twitter and other
social media services have scratched this heavenly itch. And though we are more
connected than ever before, we are living in virtual communities of distracted
isolation. “We are hyperconnected and easily distracted, always available and
rarely present.”[3]
Facebook has given us hundreds of friends and in doing so, stripped us of
friendship. It has created pseudo-communities of individuals sharing their
lives with a group of people who don’t really care. Our Facebook friends have
become our audience to affirm us, to like us and to re-post our life. The
bigger the audience, the more likes, the greater value we have. Social media
increase the desire to self-promote and show the world that we are important,
needed, and living the good life. It is no longer enough that our identity is in
the image of God or that we are part of a spiritual family (unless God and our
church community friend us). As Detweiler writes, “Sophisticated Facebook users
perfect the art of the underbragger[4].
Rather than tooting accomplishments, the underbragger manages to seem humble
while still getting out the overall message, ‘Look at what I’m doing.’” Whether
it is underbragging or sharing too much, they are both a desperate plea to be
noticed. This a clear challenge to what Paul writes in Philippians 2, pointing
to the example of Christ who was the ultimate servant living for the fame of
his Heavenly Father.
All of
this is not to say that Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and the other
technology companies have not helped, expanded and positively informed the
Christian story. I am so thankful for the research, resources, communication
and connectivity that each of these companies has provided to aid in the
journey of following Christ. The clear vision of Christ to go into the world
and make disciples has been catapulted forward by the use of modern technology.
Technology has not only provided resources for spiritual formation, but has also
shaped what the process looks like and the very definition of formation. And
this is where the caution lies. Embrace the opportunities technology offers,
but do it with an I-pad in one hand and the Bible in the other. We cannot just
brainlessly utilize every technology because it seems to “work”. We must
evaluate technology through the grid of the special revelation of God’s Word.
In doing so we become like Daniel, knowing when to abstain and when to partake
as we pursue our journey of becoming more like Christ.
Jason
Esposito
Lead
Pastor, CrossWay Church,
