Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Was It Conceived Shallowly...
...or did we make it so?
Justin Taylor quotes an excerpt from a book that contends the Internet is shallow intellectually.
Has the Internet resulted in shallow intellectual activity? - yes, but is it the cause? - Oh hell no. We are the cause. We fall pray to this stuff of our own accord - we have no one to blame here by ourselves.
And you know, the more I think about it, the more I think that all the arguments that culture is changing us for the worse, is essentially an anti-Christian message.
Does Christ not promise victory? Are we not to be winners in all things? If Christianity can overcome the Roman Empire then certainly it can over come television and the Internet. When we allow ourselves tobe victimized by this stuff, we fail to claim the power that Christ has given us - we fail to rely on His strength.
Am I tempted? - Yes. Do I succumb to temptation? - By the grace of God not always.
If there is anything to blame here it is the lack of intellectual depth in Evangelicalism itself. When our faith sinks to the lowest common denominator, what is left to pull us out of the mire?
I grow weary of battling straw men in the culture wars. There is evil in our culture (abortion) and then there is stuff that is morally neutral, if less than wholesome. Let;s use our culture impact against evil, and our religious impact against the other stuff.
Justin Taylor quotes an excerpt from a book that contends the Internet is shallow intellectually.
You write that the Internet encourages a mental ethic of speed and, in effect, distraction. Tell us a little about how you arrived at this idea.Forgive me, but I refused to be victimized by a computer network. I mean for crying out loud - I have choices I can make here.
It was originally spurred by my own personal experience. Like a lot of people, I had been using the Net heavily for more than a decade. In fact, every time the Web gained some new capability, I used it more. What I started noticing around 2007 was that I seemed to be losing my ability to concentrate. Not just when I was sitting at a computer. Even when the computer was off and I tried to read a book, to sustain a single train of thought, I found it difficult.
Has the Internet resulted in shallow intellectual activity? - yes, but is it the cause? - Oh hell no. We are the cause. We fall pray to this stuff of our own accord - we have no one to blame here by ourselves.
And you know, the more I think about it, the more I think that all the arguments that culture is changing us for the worse, is essentially an anti-Christian message.
Does Christ not promise victory? Are we not to be winners in all things? If Christianity can overcome the Roman Empire then certainly it can over come television and the Internet. When we allow ourselves tobe victimized by this stuff, we fail to claim the power that Christ has given us - we fail to rely on His strength.
Am I tempted? - Yes. Do I succumb to temptation? - By the grace of God not always.
If there is anything to blame here it is the lack of intellectual depth in Evangelicalism itself. When our faith sinks to the lowest common denominator, what is left to pull us out of the mire?
I grow weary of battling straw men in the culture wars. There is evil in our culture (abortion) and then there is stuff that is morally neutral, if less than wholesome. Let;s use our culture impact against evil, and our religious impact against the other stuff.
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