Techne - How should Christians view technology?

It has been two weeks now since I attended the Center for Pastor Theologians annual conference in Oak Park, Illinois. The theme, as the title above infers, was to discuss and understand how Christians ought to view, utilize, and understand technology in this rapidly changing world.

There was a lot to process and many implications for various fields. I found the plenary and breakout sessions all to be very informative and interesting. I'm indebted the many speakers and presenters, including Dan Brendsel, Karen Swallow Prior, Charlie Dates, Felicia Wu Song, Joel Lawrence, Andy Crouch, Christina Bieber-Lake, and Jeff Hardin. The following take-aways originated with these highly-qualified and informed people.

I thought I'd share my biggest takeaways in no real order of importance:

1. It is probably helpful to differentiate between techne as a tool and modern technology. Humanity has always had tools of some sort - hammers, roads, writing utensils etc. But what marks are current era is how exponentially greater the quantity of power that has been harnessed and put into automated systems. This was a point made by Andy Crouch and essentially in boils down to the fact that we had used tech as a tool. Now we are tools of the "technique" system. I did find that there were differing views on this differentiation, but there is a common agreement that this pursuit for better and easier tech is driven by our innate desire for control and self-determination. 

2. Technology often invents problems that don't exist. And one of those developing problems is going to be that of our human identity. Clearly many cultures are already grappling with this from the aspect of sexuality. But as the digital and virtual worlds become mor eand more dominant, Christians especially will likely be confronted with issues they dealt with when gnosticism was a dominant world view. Our understanding of the "oneness" of the material and immaterial needs to be reaffirmed. And along these lines, it will be very important for the Church to clarify our mission potentially even showing the world a different way than one anchored to tech. We should be ready to highlight the longings of our souls that remain unfulfilled despite all the technological progress we are making.

3. Technology can be good and used in positive ways, but we must be keenly aware to its dangers too. Tech in general can really hinder our spiritual lives. It can reflect "the dark heart of man in an instant" as Charlie Dates said. It brings transparency in that sense. For pastors and ministers, it is especially crucial that we seek to be faithful rather than famous. Technology can also deceive, making good on its promises in the short-term, but never the long-term. It creates a sense of life being lived elsewhere. Life is lived on my Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook feeds and not in my actual physical context.This creates an obligation to technology that causes stress and forms it's own worship system. 

4. To balance out the above point, there are many practices we can embrace that will help us navigate this technological world wisely. Some I picked up on include:

• Embrace good technology. What would that be? Crouch defines it as any tech that serves, helps bring people together, and blesses others.
• Read. Dr. Prior made a good case for reading print and reading it contemplatively as a way to sharpen our brains and help better for our inner life.
• Intentionally design your living spaces with tech boundaries and create limits and routines that distance ourselves from our phones, tablets, and tv's. Something as simple as creating a family charging station where everyone puts their phones at night so they aren't waking up immediately to a screen.
• Demonstrate within our Christian communities the value and special nature of what the life with Christ is. The Eucharist (Communion to us low-church folks) was highlighted by more than one speaker as a regular observance that can be an oasis for our tech-saturated souls. One aspect that wasn't explicitly mentioned was fostering a spiritual environment where we are in tune with the Spirit.  But as we navigate this world, we need to recognize how it can numb us to experiencing true gratitude, to learning through suffering, and to receiving grace in the ups and downs of our lives.

This conference gave me a lot to think about and a lot to read (love the book tables!) and it confronted me with everyday ways I'm too tethered to technology. Good things to ponder and good reasons to seek God's empowerment to live like he wants me to live.

Music Mondays - Manufacturing Controversy

Several years ago, as an pastoral intern at my home church, I was witness to a brief encounter after a worship service that really made me cringe.

Our church music was a "blended" style mixing contemporary songs with traditional hymns. As part of the worship set, we sang "Create in Me A Clean Heart" which is based word for word on Psalm 51. 

I was near the stage at the end of the service when I noticed an older lady in our church approach the worship leader and associate pastor. She told him she objected to that song because it mentioned "taking the Holy Spirit" from the author/singing audience. That was just incorrect theology and we should not have sung it. 

Now the leader graciously received her input and agreed with her theologically. As I remember it, he also mentioned that we'd sung that a few months prior and had made comments of qualification before singing it then (I do remember this instance and it was clear and well-done). He apologized for not repeating that step this time and promised to do so in the future. 

Crisis averted. 

On the one hand, it's good that this person was thinking critically about her worship. 

But at the same time, I'm cringing watching that go on precisely because of the context. Our church was staunchly theologically conservative with clear statements about their beliefs about Holy Spirit written in it's constitution. And this pastor had previously made a recent extra effort to clearly explain the nuances of our NT position in Christ vs. the OT differences - that affect seven words of a beautiful song about confession and repentance. Side note, how many other worship songs are there about confession and repentance?

Again, I'm all for discernment and thinking through what we're singing in worship. I don't want to dismiss the idea that our worship should be theologically sound. I'm very much for that. 
Maybe it's the effect of modernity on our society or maybe it's a ripple effect of the Church's own "Worship Wars" over the past 30 years but I've observed a lot of manufactured controversy over various modern and traditional church music. 

This case wasn't "manufactured" exactly, but over the next month or so I'll be featuring cases where some within Christendom have stirred up controversy needlessly. 

They will run the spectrum of very recent to very old. But all will be cases where - in my opinion - some people are "straining gnats while swallowing camels".

And if you have some examples you can think of, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Music Mondays

I have to agree with author and biblical scholar Gordon Fee, that of all the commands Paul wrote in Scripture, the most important is "be filled with the Spirit" in Ephesians 5:18.*

Yesterday we encountered this command as we studied 5:15-21. I've concluded that being Spirit-filled or Spirit-controlled is THE secret to the Christian life. 

Therefore, I find in concerning that the Holy Spirit has been overlooked and ignored by many in Christian circles (see Forgotten God by Francis Chan for a helpful corrective). This is certainly true about our worship - which is ironic because a major result of being filled by the Spirit is worship - "addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart..." (vs.19).

There has been an influx recently of Spirit-centered songs.  I thought I'd feature two such songs which share the same title but are very different.

The original:

The new song:

While each are distinct unto themselves, they both do emphasize the transformative work of the Spirit that we all need. Without it, we are hopeless to please God. But thankfully we've been given the third person of the Trinity to enable us to live out our faith from the inside out.

*Gordon Fee, God's Empowered Presence, p.721-722, 1994. As cited in Klyne Snodgrass, Ephesians NIV Application Commentary, p.289, 1996.

Sermon Snippets

Thanksgiving is most often associated with food. Ever since that first meal enjoyed by the Pilgrims and Native Americans, our country has paired giving thanks with sumptuous meals.

There's another pairing that involves food which we as Christians can remember this Thanksgiving week.
Galatians 5:22-23a says,

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."

If we depend on the Spirit on a daily basis (Gal. 2:20, 5:5), He will produce spiritual fruit in our lives that taste good to our Lord.

It's easy to focus on each of those individual traits. It's also easy to focus on that list, then look in the mirror and become preoccupied with which ones that are our strengths and which are our weaknesses.That would be a mistake though.

We cannot naturally produce all of these in our lives on a consistent basis. The key to the fruit of the Spirit is THE SPIRIT. We must submit and surrender to the Spirit's control (Eph. 5:18), staying connected to the Vine. And when we do, those qualities will supernaturally grow out of our transformed hearts.

I decided not to preach a special 'Thanksgiving' message. Where we are at with Galatians 5:16-26 is a great fit. With food on everyone's minds, maybe it will be easier to remember the spiritual fruit that the Spirit desires to produce in our lives.