Technology and Faith

We watched The Nativity Story last night. It was interesting to use a high Tech DVD player with lasers and computer chips and watch a movie about people who lived a very low-tech lifestyle. Their style of life lasted a millennium or more without changing. People and news traveled by walking or horseback. Then the automobile and telephone were invented. Travel and communication speeded up. Now we have the computer and the internet and in some ways we can say that both "travel" and communication have gone light speed. I have read articles and insights from people all over the world from the comfort of my own home. I can log on and see what is going on in Grand Teton National Park or Yellowstone. And through the coaching of my wife and children, I have "chatted" with a young woman in Malaysia and even video chatted with her and her family.

In the title song of Jesus Christ Superstar Judas asks the question of Jesus

"Why'd you come to such a backwards place and such a strange land.
If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation,
Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication."

In some ways Judas is right, but I firmly believe that the Christian faith travels best through relational paths. Technology can help, but whatever we do with our technology, I believe it serves us best when it helps us develop deeper and more authentic relationships. Speed isn't necessarily the goal.

Greg

Darcy - Luke 1:37-38 verse of the day

Luke 1:37-38 :: Contemporary English Version (CEV)

37"Nothing is impossible for God!"
38Mary said, "I am the Lord's servant! Let it happen as you have said." And the angel left her.

I get a daily devotional verse in my email each day from the church, and while I am possibly not as diligent as I could be in this pursuit, I am occasionally caught by the meditative reflections I can have after reading the verse.

This one catches me at a moment of transition in my life. Coming up on a wedding and graduation can be a bit stressful, and life always manages to throw in extra unexpected events to sometimes add to things. But the affirmation in this verse is simple - "Nothing is impossible for God." I know that our family will be carried through the difficult times, that God will not bring us to something He refuses to bring us through. God is capable and willing to give us grace in every moment of our lives, all we have to do is give in.
"I am the Lord's servant! Let it happen as you have said." These words are hard when we are accustomed to 'building' our own life, making 'life decisions' and 'preparing' for the future. However, who am I to know God's plans for me? What good are my plans? They are useful to make, but most likely they will change, I will change, and it will be because God's will is not something I can always guess at. Change is good, it means I become more of God's servant, that if I let Him move me in His way I will become more fufilled in my path.
Society will seek to move me, and it will always be tempting for me to move for myself, but at the root I am God's servant, and the only true movement is movement for him.

So where will my life go and what will I do? I will seek to allign myself as much as possible to God's calling and trust His benevolence and grace in my life.

It sounds good... and hopefully with practice it will do more then "sound good."
Here is to a journey.

Darcy

Darcy - reaction to our first session

Last night we met for the first time in our technology and faith session of our small group. Already someone had talked to one of our members about the blog before it had even been unveiled to all of our group! That was exciting and imediatly set us in the mood that technology could facilitate our faith by both helping us understand our own spirituality and God's grace along with inviting others to share in this exploration, even if only through reading the blog. I should mention that anyone in the area is welcome to come to our meetings. I put an age guideline up, but it really was a guess and I am going to add "the young at heart" or "pre family stage" to the listings. Besides, our pastors Kim and Greg are the proud parents of a junior in highschool and an 8th grader and they participate. Anyone is welcome :)

We also covered possible uses of technology to enhance our faith such as research on spiritual topics, which is suprisingly well facilitated by wikipedia, and GodTube, and google. There are plenty of sights that could start your intellectual and spiritual wheels turning. Also we discussed (quite a bit sense it is the biggest niche for our generation right now) facebook and how it can be used to read your daily Bible verses, converse about spiritual topics, and express a side of yourself that might not be seen in casual conversations.

However, it seems the bulk of our discussion centered on the difficulties that technology has brought to our generation including: desensitization, and the reversal oversenitization, distorted views of beauty and virtue, lose of moral sense due to anyonimity, time "killing", and having too much noise/busyness to "be still and know that I am God."

We considered how technology like the atom bomb have devestated humanity and still somehow allowed growth. But this was a tricky topic, because it is sometimes hard to see progress through extreme devestation, and even when progress is seen it is sometimes hard to see progress as God's plan so much as mans. An interesting idea we tackled: Is progress God's thing or is it the creation of man? Does God love us more when we create new things, advance our health systems, or are able to access more information? It is a hard set of questions that leads one to consider what are humanities goals for us and what are God's goals for us.

We thought about whether God forged a path of technological progress and if man were playing out God's plan, but I think most of us thought more that God's gift of free will has allowed this growth and whatever else it may be. However, one of the main ideas was that God would love humanity at whatever progress we were in our epochs or stages, and that humanity has covered some dark areas of history and that we generally do seem pretty well off in our day of age.

Our concluding thought was on the best possible way to use technology responsibly considering our spiritual self. We concluded that the internet would be responsbily used building real realitionships based in truth. And while 'real realationships' can be tricky, the idea that we are genuine in who we are and that we seek to connect on deeper levels then casual internet occurences made sense to me. We also decided that we should occasionaly take 'technology retreats,' having segments of our day, week, or life that we take a break from technology and try to still our minds and stimulus in order to be still and let God enter into our minds and hearts.

Notes on faith and technology by Daryl Culp

well written outline to one person's viewpoint on technology and faith with Biblical references:

http://individual.utoronto.ca/darylculp/lectures/faithandtechnology.htm

Excerpt from Site:

"Thinking faithfully about technology

As Christians, we believe that this is God’s world, and everything in it should give glory to God. Even the things we make, and the way in which we organize our lives, should exhibit commitment to the source of all good. There are several aspects of our technological existence that should be examined through the eyes of faith.

Responsibility: Every technology changes the world, in ways the makers intend, and often through unexpected interactions with its environment. We have a responsibility, as God’s creatures, to look after our world. Technology is part of our stewardship, and can help us care for ourselves and our environment. It can also have harmful effects that we have to curb.

Creativity: Human beings are co-creators with God in this world. Our inventiveness comes from God, and displays the glory of God. We are not independent inventors, though. If our inventiveness participates in God’s great gift of creation, we should bathe our discovering in the light of God’s wisdom. No technology for its own sake, but rather making God’s good world come to fruition.

Identity: Our environment, including the artificial surroundings that we create, shapes us in many ways. Tools enable us to be different people, by giving us new possibilities for existing (think of how the car has made us mobile, or the TV has given us an eye on the world). What would it mean to subject technology to the mandate of love as displayed on the cross? Our identity as children of God, forgiven and sent into the world to serve, should not be displaced by a technological imperative.
These are general principles which we should consider as we encounter a world increasingly defined by our own inventions. In many ways, our environment is human-made, and reflects us to ourselves. When do we look up and out of this hall of mirrors, and gaze at the face of God in the other, in nature, in the imagination, in meditation?

Questions for discussion

How does technology change how we pray? (How do we pray for healing in the hospital? How do we pray for healing for the earth? Do we pray for God’s intervention in a human-made world? Or is prayer meditation on God’s wisdom, truth and creativity?)

How does technology change our church community? (Do we spend time with each other? Does the church building facilitate worship? Do we consider our spiritual life together as a problem that needs to be solved by techniques?)

Is our community life governed by norms “rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency?” Or do we take seriously the fallibility of human beings, the need for meditation on God’s word, and the communal discernment of God’s truth?"

taken from http://individual.utoronto.ca/darylculp/lectures/faithandtechnology.htm by Daryl Culp

Video - How Technology Distorts Our View of Beauty

Godtube link to video which shows process a woman goes through to be featured on a billboard -

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=5a2ccb30e7bbafc011b0


link from where the video came from: the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty -

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.ca/flat2.asp?id=6960