Monday, October 31, 2011
Being Present
Matt Anderson on technology and faith:
For one God did not come to save technology - he came to save us, and when we put technology into that mix, we tend to try and make him save that instead of us. It is a way of dodging the genuine issues.
Secondly, we tend to idolize the technology, or the program, precisely because it allows us to avoid the genuine issue.
My wife likes to give me a hard time as I like to milk injury and illness for all the sympathy I can get. She had figured out that if I ever end up on a pair of crutches, I'll never let go just so people will ask me what happened. (She has an exaggerated point.)
The same can be said for our use of ministry tools. If we use them too much, or wrongly, we do not heal.
The silence of the tools in the formation of the temple is not a critique of technology per se, but rather points to (I think) the ultimate imperfection of human making in a world marked by sin. There are some things which tools simply cannot and should not do in a fallen world. This isn’t simply a critique of using tools as instruments of war or violence. Rather, it is a critique of our pretension to turn the objects of human making into recipients of our worship, a pretension that we are not free from even though the ends to which we put our making are “holy.”I agree, but like to put things a bit more plainly. We cannot set up technology, or even programs, to do that which God made us for. There are a couple of reasons for this as I see it.
For one God did not come to save technology - he came to save us, and when we put technology into that mix, we tend to try and make him save that instead of us. It is a way of dodging the genuine issues.
Secondly, we tend to idolize the technology, or the program, precisely because it allows us to avoid the genuine issue.
My wife likes to give me a hard time as I like to milk injury and illness for all the sympathy I can get. She had figured out that if I ever end up on a pair of crutches, I'll never let go just so people will ask me what happened. (She has an exaggerated point.)
The same can be said for our use of ministry tools. If we use them too much, or wrongly, we do not heal.
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