It makes me cry

Do you ever get through the news anymore without feeling numbed, stunned and amazement at our world?

While some countries continue to not be able to supply water, or a basic education other countries are tearing themselves apart with stone age barbarism.

Meanwhile in advanced economies we are focused on the arrival date of the next smartphone or when the first driverless cars will be publicly available. The technological gulf in this world seems to yawn wider by the day.

The global poor may finally have had their lives improved over the last decade or so with the Millennium Goals but it feels increasing like some of the global population are beginning to live space age lifestyles while many of our fellow human beings still live worse off than perhaps did many in the 1500-1600s (Elizabethan England and Renaissance Europe).

It makes you want to weep over the world.

Ellul and Genesis

Even when you disagree with someone it is possible to respect their arguments. I disagree with Ellul but I respect the thoroughness and scale of his work.

What bothers me is how his name gets used as a talisman to ward off evil technology but I am convinced he is more referred to than read. I admit I find much of what I have tried to read of his tedious and I am put off with how he seems to have a knack for highlighting the wrong technologies (I think it is the beginning of The Technological Bluff where he reveals how amazing he thinks  lasers are).

However, Ellul is a pivot point in the literature on technology, he mounts a serious intellectual argument against technique in general and from that particular technologies from a Christian point of view - gathering together the loose threads that have gone before him. After Ellul those that are against technology at the very least start with Ellul (and Heidegger), the former for Christians might be okay the latter I find much more troubling.

So to Ellul. What was the premise of his arguments. Where can we begin in digestible format finds keys to his thinking. We actually start with two interesting articles.

Vanderburg, W. (2010) 'How the Science Versus Religion Debate Has Missed the Point of Genesis 1 and 2: Jacques Ellul (1912-1994)' Bulletin of Science Technology & Society 30: 430-445. This is a journal article of Ellul's writings from a book of material that Vanderburg has translated from Ellul. The second I will introduce later.

(In this Case Vanderburg is the translator - the text belongs to Ellul) I can't do justice to Ellul by trying to paraphrase  so I will quote at length.

(pp431ff) Before we begin the study of the text, I would like to make two remarks. First, we have become accustomed to thinking that the creation story is so fundamental that the Jews put it first. Commonly referred to as the doctrine of creation, this text is thus thought of as the decisive point of departure of Jewish thought. However, the most recent studies of this thinking, which occurred between the eighth and seventh centuries b.c. (the text is thought to have been written during the seventh century), show that this is simply not the case. There was no ‘problem’ of creation requiring an extensive discussion. The most important given, functioning as a point of departure for Jewish thought, was the salvation of humanity and the covenant with Israel. They began with salvation, and because they learned that humanity was saved, they asked questions such as, Saved from what? Were they saved from death, from evil, or from something else? How did this whole situation develop? In other words, their train of thought went in the opposite direction to the one we are accustomed to. They did not begin with a theory of creation, to come to the recognition that because humanity is separated from God
it is lost and thus in need of salvation, which in turn requires a saviour, an election, a covenant, and so on. Jewish thought developed in the opposite direction, working back from where they were. This helps to explain why the text is in fact posterior to most of the accounts in the Pentateuch (the five books  of Moses). My second remark is that we must be mindful of the purpose of this text when we seek to understand it. It is not a question of these texts explaining how the world was created. That is not its objective, ...

(pp436ff) Compared to the diversity of animals, there are no differentiated groups of people. Humanity is a single and unique animal, while the other animals are a plurality of
sorts. The difference stems from humanity being created in the image of God (or in the form, or likeness of God). This brings me to the question of the image of God, about
which libraries full of books have been written. What does the text mean when it says that Elohim created Adam (humanity) ‘in our image?’ What is so strange is that the word ‘image’ has been interpreted independently from the rest of the text. Commentators have zeroed in on this word ‘image’ and attempted to analyse in what way people are the image of God. In traditional Catholic theology, humanity is in the image of God either because of the existence of a free will or because of their intelligence. Sometimes, but principally in Orthodox theology, it is held that humanity is in the image of God because it is the microcosm of God the macrocosm. God is seen as the All, of which humanity is the microcosm and the reflection. For Calvin, the image of God means to be endowed with a personality: as persons they are the image of God. I believe that to sort this out, one has to stick to the text. Verse 27 clearly states: ‘Elohim created humanity in his image (or in his form), in the image of Elohim he created him (or her), male and female he created them.’ It cannot be more straightforward: what is the image of God in this text is that he is man and woman. That is the image of God. However, this is not first and foremost a question of sexuality, but of his being two in one. The text is intriguing: ‘Elohim created humanity, Adam’ (which is in the singular) ‘in his form/image, in the form of Elohim he created him (or her)’ (in the singular), which is followed by: ‘male and female he created them’ (in the plural). Because there is no punctuation, the Hebrew text could also be read as follows: ‘In the image of Elohim he created him (or her) male and female. He created them.’ So he creates him (male and female), and he creates them afterwards. In what way is this the image of God? Recall that Elohim is a plural singular, that is, the name Elohim is a plural which grammatically is always treated as a singular.

Hence, God is several in one. Humanity is the only being created as one person separated into two forms. This, I believe, is what the text tells us. This raises the question of what the relationship is between these two who are one. It can only be love. The relationship
between man and woman is love, which expresses the fundamental relation, as Jesus puts it later, that the two will not be two but become one. Here we are faced with something complex because this love is, at the same time and in inseparable ways, a sexual and physical love and a spiritual love of the entire being. The Bible does not distinguish between these two elements. Hence, the image of God is love; and this corresponds
exactly to what the text has already taught us in speaking of Elohim. God is love. When we spoke about this plurality within the unity of God, we were in effect saying
that the only relationship is that of love. I believe this is a vision of the image of God as love, and the love of a man and a woman as two in one. It is in accordance with this
vision that all of humanity and all human beings should conduct themselves. I will return to this question of the image of God; and we will also see that in Hebrew Adam is a collective name. It is therefore not a question of a single man and a single woman, from which the rest of humanity has descended. Adam could be translated as ‘humanity,’ understood through this vision of love...

Humanity is therefore both an autonomous and a non-autonomous being, and in the same vein, perfect and imperfect. Humanity is autonomous in being free, because he-and-she is the image of God and thus necessarily free. (Freedom is a prerequisite for love). At the same time, humanity is not autonomous, because he-and-she is image. Here I return to what I mentioned before, namely, that the principal orientation of this text is to remind us of the ambiguity of humanity. Humanity is free and not free at the same time: free because humanity is an image of God, and not free because humanity is an image.

The ambiguity of humanity is also confirmed by observing that each time God creates something during the preceding days he proclaims, ‘Here is the good.’ However, following the creation of humanity God does not say this, and this is the only exception. A radical difference is thus established: humanity is not the good. Humanity is not good in him-and-herself. All this fits with the thrust of the text: humanity is independent and free, and thus neither good nor evil in itself.

(pp439ff) God’s decision to rest takes place within history. The implication is clear: it leaves humanity its freedom in history. God stops acting in order not to interfere in the activities of humanity. Once again, this revelation is fundamental and decisive with respect to all other religions because of this difference. As soon as God has created humanity as the element that brings love and implies freedom within this world of harmony, he will not constrain what he has created to be free.

So to be clear then, it appears that for Ellul the 'image' language is purely and only relational - it has no meaning other than love. It doesn't appear that image has maybe more implications - it only has one! Now to be clear, this reading of Ellul is terribly interesting but it is not the only way to read Genesis - apart from the natural language approach we all gravitate to with the Bible in our own language. Rikk Watts, for example, places special emphasis on how the imagery of Genesis must be read (as Ellul actually alludes to as well) in the context of the other Near East stories. Watts points out in particular that the imagery is very similar to idols in the temple/palaces of the people around Israel. But God in the Jewish version is placing his idol in his temple - rather than the other way around. But what is important is that this gives meaning to the function of humanity - we are to provide for the ordering of creation under the King - humanity is the vice-regents of God. [Watts, R. (2002) The New Exodus/New Creational Restoration of The Image of God in Stackhouse, J. What does it mean to be saved. Baker Academic. Grand Rapids.]

But we can analyse Ellul further, we can find the source of his belief that without the fall (which he understands theologically not literally we would not have techniques of any kind including technology. Ellul, J. (1984) “Technique and the Opening Chapters of Genesis.” In Theology and Technology: Essays in Christian Analysis and Exegesis, edited by Carl Mitcham and Jim Grote, 123–37. New York: University Press of America, 1984.

(pp125) And, of course, as the preceding text shows, whoever says "work"means "technique." The assumption that there was work in thegarden of Eden leads to an assumption that there was technique.Adam was an inventor and a technician in Eden. As people havecomplained to me: "If Adam was commanded to cultivate, what didhe do it with - except with tools?' ,...We do have one certainty: creation as God made it, as it left hishands, was perfect and finished. "And God saw everything that hehad made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). "Godfinished his work ..." (Genesis 2:2). Provided that we take thesetexts as they stand, we have to recognize that God's work wasaccomplished, that it was complete, that there was nothing to add.This does not mean that a static situation was created in whichnot.hing changed. There was certainly change, according to theinternal rhythm of creation, as is in fact indicated. There was,however, no imaginable progress; there was no change derivingfrom a third party. What would progress mean, since everything wasperfect?

Perhaps God did call man to a certain collaboration, but it was by no means creative. It was only a matter of accomplishing the will of God, of fitting into the order of creation, of being vis-a-vis God, the image of God. This collaboration was such that it had nothing in common with any work we are able to imagine. Man worked in creation without completing it, without expanding it, without making something new, but only living within this perfection.

(pp126) Within creation there was work without necessity (Adam would not die of hunger if he stopped working) I work without finality, without production. It was not work to gather a surplus, to make a living, to produce: it was work for nothing.

(pp127) Why then did Adam work? There is only one reason that should appear compelling and sufficient-because God told him to do so.

(p129) Furthermore, let us note that those who hold to the idea of technique in Eden and say that, for cultivation, it was necessary to have a tool, should not stop when they are doing so well. For alas, our text does not say only' 'to cultivate" but it says to cultivate and to guard. Therefore, we have to conclude that if Adam needed tools for cultivation, then he also needed weapons for guarding. The two things are identical. If Adam's world was the point of departure, the beginning and the justification of technique, then his mission to guard was the point of departure, the beginning and the justification for police and armies. Is this not unlikely? It could not be more so. And if we reject weapons then we have to reject tools as well.

(p130) When Adam named a plant, for example, he would not call it "crucifer" because it exhibited such and such characteristics, and plants exhibiting all these characteristics were of such and such a family, etc. He conferred on it a destiny to fulfill before God. Master of creation by and for God, in naming the animals, Adam thuspresented them to God. He was free to do so.

(p135) And now it remains for me to beg the reader not to have me say what I did not say. I did not say that technique is a fruit of sin. I did not say that technique.is contrary 1;0 the will of God. I did not say that technique in itself is evil. I said only that technique is not a prolongation of the Edenic creation, that it is not a compliance of man to a vocation which was given to him by God, that it is not the fruit of the first nature of Adam. It is the product of the situation in which sin has put man j it is inscribed exclusively in the fallen world; it is uniquely part of this fallen world; it is a product of necessity and not of human freedom.

Ellul as an extremely logical thinker follows an explicit line of reasoning and therefore it is possible to find the crucial 'hinge' points in the argument where disagreements make profound differences.

There are at least 2 of these points in the papers above.

A. I believe that to sort this out, one has to stick to the text. Verse 27 clearly states: ‘Elohim created humanity in his image (or in his form), in the image of Elohim he created him (or her), male and female he created them.’ It cannot be more straightforward: what is the image of God in this text is that he is man and woman. That is the image of God. .. that there is a relationship and love at the centre of the mystery of humanity.


Much of the selected writings collected in the first journal article by Vanderburg emphasises that we can not read into the Genesis story anything about the science of the creation event as the text says nothing about this. Genesis is the theology of creation; we were made for a purpose by a creator and that has implications for how we live. We can apply the same standard to the question of 'image'. While other writers have inferred from the context of other near east writings that image is a big concept we would not even need this information. The Bible is not a text book of our attitudes to sociology or technology, even if the the writer wanted us to understand the importance of humanity as a set of relationships, its quietness on a topic is not the absence of meaning. The text maybe silent simply because it has other purposes. Applying Ellul's own standard would force us to ask is it reading too much into the text to say 'image' only means one thing.


B. Therefore, we have to conclude that if Adam needed tools for cultivation, then he also needed weapons for guarding. 

This it seems is a really fundamental point for Ellul. But there is a massive assumption here. Guarding automatically means guarding from terrors from without - enemies at the gate. But as Ellul points out this is a ridiculous concept for Eden. However, there is a meaning that Ellul fails to even consider. The enemy within. Man even in freedom in cultivating can overstep the boundaries and destroy the garden. Cultivate and keep - create but not fall into greed. Garden but not just for our purpose you must also consider all the species of the garden - a message we still need to hear.
Cultivate and guard the garden from your own ability to destroy it - is surely a possible meaning of the text.

For me these are crucial points at which the assumptions and arguments of Ellul break down, Ellul is not infallible and it is possible he was wrong. The same standard to me.


My other arguments concerning this work of Ellul are:


1. In the first reading Ellul highlights than Humanity has a rather ambiguous place - he is free but his freedom rests on imaging God. (pp439ff) God’s decision to rest takes place within history. The implication is clear: it leaves humanity its freedom in history. God stops acting in order not to interfere in the activities of humanity.  If there is no creativity in that picture - as Ellul ruled that out in the second reading then truly there is not much freedom for man except to go off the rails. However, in ambiguity there is also uncertainty and thus to absolutely rule out possibilities seems to be a challenge.

2. A number of Biblical scholars would dispute the conclusion that 'it is very good' means 'perfect' - finished complete - as we moderns understand that term. Creation may have been finished but that is far from excluding the possibility of change and new creations.

3. Even if that were not the case, the story of God himself reveals he has a passion for design. The Tent of Meeting and The Temple did not emerge from the ideas of men they were the designs of Yahweh himself. Read the end of Job or the new city in Revelation - we worship a God who like a fine craftsman loves to design and build.

4. Finally, let us examine the very end of the Bible to see what light it might shed on what perfection may look like. 

Rev 21:22. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Our Bibles have God taking on a city for his dwelling - not a garden and then notice that the city has open gates through which the nations bring their splendor (creations perhaps).

All this seems to indicate a God with expansive views of creation where even the end is just the beginning. Perhaps our God in creating an entirely inconceivably massive universe has grand designs. Is that too big a God to believe in?

We will be restoring normality just as soon as we are sure what is normal

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that I have tried to write one blog per month. You will probably have noticed that over the past few months this pace as slackened.

This not because I have lost interest in the topic. Actually, it is the other way around. I have been reading and working on a rich seam of theological thought which is taking a bit of effort to work through.

Therefore until your regular program is restored may I suggest some reading and listening.

First, I have recently been listening to some podcasts by

http://www.gospelconversations.com/

There is great stuff there, including discussions with Edwin Judge a notable historian of 1^st century culture.

I highly recommend the 3 talks by Mark Strom:

http://www.gospelconversations.com/mark-strom-paul-and-the-open-cosmos/

http://www.gospelconversations.com/mark-strom-paul-and-the-open-society/

http://www.gospelconversations.com/mark-strom-paul-and-the-open-heart-2

They are all good. But the open Cosmos talk is simply exceptional.

I have also be reading some writings by Brian Edgar

http://brianedgar.seedbed.com/category/blog/

..... It just possible that what is accepted theology by a number of writers on technology could have large holes it....

Merry Christmas

Brian.

Twitter from a Christian perspective

A growing problem over the last 40 years or more has been the privatisation of religion. It is okay to believe just don't talk about it at work or in public - outside of family and church that is. Talking about neutral subjects like the kids etc is fine but don't be divisive. And so there was and is a growing gap between private and professional lives.

Os Guinness called it the private zoo in the gravedigger file summarised here.

“Privately engaging, socially irrelevant.”  This phrase succinctly summarizes what the Assistant Director calls “the private-zoo factor.”  It is a form of dualism that restricts religion to the personal lives of believers and prevents the Christian faith from invading “public life with integrity.” ....

 Unfortunately, many Christians—perhaps most—have come to accept this sort of dualism as normal.  Things of faith are “specialized” to their personal spiritual lives.  Faith must be left at the door, along with hats and coats, in the everyday world of work—all nicely summarized by the Assistant Director. 

Has social media made much difference - no not really.
Facebook - most people sensibly in my opinion try to separate there family life from their work life. In this data age having family and real friends and bosses / teachers etc all together in the same social media space is not a generally a good idea.

Blogging - this was an interesting development but its still non-integrative. If you blog the readers of that blog will be readers because of the topic and because you are a good writer. Its like reading a book - not reading the person.

Then along came Twitter.

Take a randomly look around the Twitterverse and there is a curious phenomena taking shape. More and more people it seems acknowledge their diverse private lives. They may follow a sports team, be a father, mother, potter or like a particular TV show. Its all there. Follow someone and you'll often see a little bit of their private and professional passions on display. Not interested ignore it.

With Twitter you follow a person an individual - their work and other interests. It may only be 140 characters and thus Twitter may seem an unlikely hero to re-unite private and public and make space for religion in the public square but I think that is actually happening to a limited degree.

Twitter has the opportunity to link the 2 worlds of 'private' and 'public'and so for Christians Twitter actually offers some very interesting creative possibilities.

However, I think that generally, Christians have been so tamed by the private zoo factor already that they do use it creatively enough. There is still too much where Twitter is is still just used as a single channel communication. Pastors tweet God stuff and other Christians just tweet work related stuff. We need to integrate our lives and reintroduce genuine faith and God stuff back into the public square. Twitter offers a rather unique vehicle to do that.

So go tweet.

Technology is not neutral: I (almost) don't care!

Essentially, anyone who knows about technology will tell you technology is not neutral. From which technologies get developed, which make it to market, which succeed and why - there are always bigger issues at stake. Technologies are affected by and in turn affect the socio-economic ecologies they exist within. Although some downplay this tech non-neutrality it is such a truism that anybody who thinks tech is a neutral tool for either good or bad uses is simply mistaken. Defining the good and bad is problem enough let alone saying the way I use it is only good. But from there it gets way more complicated.

For Christians who wish to use technology uncritically I want to shake them up but for those that use the concept of non-neutrality as some kind of talisman I want to scream 'stop it!'. Search the internet and you will find plenty of examples.

The non-neutrality comes to us largely from the philosophical schools and history of technology writings nothing wrong with that - good academic analysis. But what annoys me is that Christians often take this and keep repeating it, just to support an argument usually that in some way some technology is bad. My problem is we as Christians should understand that NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING is neutral. Sex, technology, food, building temples, not building temples, giving money not giving money, burning offerings not burning offerings, it is all non-neutral in our relationship with God.

Technology is not some special case. If you want to say technology is not neutral then go on and make a decent point. Can I say it anymore clearly.

Besides the point that what we put in our mouths has consequences for our health so we can use this example...

Paul in 1 Corinthians 8 New International Version (NIV) [biblegateway.com]

Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. 2 Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 3 But whoever loves God is known by God.[a] 4 So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods,whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”),6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. 7 But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled. 8 But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. 9 Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols? 11 So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge.

or another example

God ordered Solomon to build a temple and even gave him essentially all the plans and when it wasn't rebuilt after the sojourn in Babylon we get Haggai 1.

1 In the second year of King Darius, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jozadak,[a] the high priest: 2 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “These people say, ‘The time has not yet come to rebuild the Lord’s house.’”3 Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” 5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” 7 This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 8 Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored,” says the Lord. 

and yet, and yet as Oz Guinness points out...

 it is sobering to realize the lengths of God's iconoclasm. As the Scriptures show, God is not only against the idolizing of alien gods, God is against His own gifts when idolized. The fate of the tabernacle and the temple are both a warning ... from here 

Technology is not neutral - of course it isn't, but nothing is. It is working out what that means is where the real heavy lifting starts. It is no easy task and over what time frame do you want to consider the impacts. Take the example of the plough, adopted in Mesopotamia in the 5th Century BC. Aside from the fact that the plough was adopted in climates and bio-regions where grains were available and possible to farm (which have improved our health), researchers have found that ...

Women descended from plough-users are less likely to work outside the home, to be elected to parliament or to run businesses than their counterparts in countries at similar levels of development who happen to be descended from hoe-users. The research reinforces the ideas of Ester Boserup, an economist who argued in the 1970s that cultural norms about the economic roles of the sexes can be traced back to traditional farming practices. ... Despite a host of changes over the subsequent centuries—such as industrialisation and higher overall rates of female participation in the workforce—the economists find that variations between countries in the fraction of adult women who work outside the home can be explained rather well by the farming practices of their ancestors. This variation is huge. From the Economist in 2011.

Now that is one heck of a long lived non-neutral decision.... Do you have gender stereotypes - where do they come from?

Summer bonus articles: Drone pilots suffer

According to The Economist Drone Pilots suffer like other soldiers of war.

“People assume these pilots have been desensitised, like they’re playing a video game,” says Nancy Cooke, a professor at Arizona State University who has studied the cognitive effect of remote warfare. “The opposite is true.” Drone pilots experience mental-health problems at the same rate as fighter pilots deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a 2013 study by researchers for the Pentagon.

So why the mental health problems.

Whereas fighter pilots drop a bomb and fly away, drone pilots may spend weeks monitoring a village or convoy, sussing out patterns and getting to know their enemies. This odd intimacy makes the act of killing more personal, particularly as these pilots are forced to witness the fallout. Afterwards, instead of bonding with fellow servicemen at a base, drone warriors go home, where they must keep their daily exploits a secret. Unsurprisingly, the air force has trouble attracting and keeping drone pilots, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an official watchdog. In December 2013 it had only 85% of the number it needed, which puts pressure on serving pilots. Many complain of long hours (nearly 60% say they work more than 50 hours a week), long commutes, open-ended assignments and few opportunities for promotion. Some say they were trained to fly manned aircraft, but were shunted to the “chair force” with empty promises that it would be temporary. A typical air-force stint is three to four years; some drone pilots have been serving for over six.

Even the enemy can become a person when watched close enough.

Rather than the strange belief that killing is costless, and that PTSD is somehow an oddity maybe we should change our worldview to expect that it is generally psychologically a problem for humans. Being made in the image of God has implications.


Ref link. http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21604608-stressful-lives-chair-force-dilbert-war

One thing to change about church: Getting the big picture

I am increasing disconcerted by the level of 'theological' discussion of technology. Take this one on the Internet at the Many Horizons blog. I am sorry to say superficially it sounds okay but almost by simply doing a search and replace I could write a blog on why the car has made us ungodly or why modern housing or whatever you like is ungodly. But what really frustrates me is this:

The primary moral logic of the Internet and mobile technology is the confidence that human relationships can be technologically mediated for personal satisfaction without cost.

Really, that's it. The internet has many functions one of which is this one. But so often the criticism of social media, cell phones etc resorts to its destroying personal face to face relationships. As if in changing the nature of such relationships there is some presumption that this is the totality of Christian life. Curiously, with this blog mostly written, yesterday I cam across this comment quite by accident.

One illustration of technologically induced human isolation: when I go to work in the morning I often meet a neighbour and her ten year old daughter. Every day they walk side by side to the bus stop, each plugged into her own walkman, isolated from each other and the rest of the world. Such is the real world of technology. Ursula Franklin 'The Real World of Technology 1990 p51.

So pre-internet culture also promoted isolation. We are so quick to judge others on their appearance. We no nothing of the quality or intimacy of the relationship between this mother and daughter, yet because they wear their walkmans to the bus stop we are told they are isolated. We don't even know what they are listening to.

So that blog on ungodliness got me thinking, how have we impoverished the Christian life to this miniscule vision. How did we get there and how do we improve the situation?

I have been a member of a number of different churches, attending since I was a kid - spanning 3 denominations, 4 cities  and two countries. Church has many purposes, it is community, it is a time to worship our creator and redeemer and it is also a little time each week to try and wrap our heads around the Message of the Messenger.

But there is one thing that has struck me wherever I have been, there is a fragmentation of the perspective. Because we hear church in small doses and because the plot is so vast - all time and space, it is difficult to develop a road map to Christian life. I have counted a number of church Pastors as personal friends and this is not a criticism of them, in many ways I understand the pressures on them - the pressure to speak every week. So read this with empathy and a critical look at ourselves, how do we as the body re-envision things.

So much of what we do at church is like Australian Aboriginal art. By no means all Aboriginal art, is dot art but it represents a substantial tradition. So think of each Sunday's sermon as a dot.

(c) Noel Doyle. (I own an original painting).

But at this range its not possible to tell what this segment of the painting is all about is it? Well I think it is the same with church - each Sunday another dot. But unless occasionally we stand back and ensure that it is organised then it might as well be painting with a straw.

It might be pretty but its not that helpful. We might accumulate so coherent ideas and then again the framework we build out of the dots might be wrong. Is the picture above a spear?

We tend to focus on either the gifts of the Spirit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited,provoking and envying each other. (Galatians 5)

or on vague applications for each sermon but then each sermon has a different application, so that is not terribly helpful.


What are the big picture issues at stake for Christians. Well of course it is Schaeffer's question How Then Shall We Live. We can create some different layers which have different questions and topics. 

What are the most important big picture directions and priorities for Christians 

at the top layer perhaps the following:

1. witnessing and 'mission'
2. justice
3. caring for the poor
4. creation care
5. peace making
6. living well (making a living, feeding yourself and your family, donating money, volunteering etc).
7. relationships
8. ...

• Which do we prioritise, which deserves our time?
• We can't do them all, do we make one of them our 'thing'?
• What are the consequences for those around us when we push one thing?
• On the other hand, we often need a focus a thing to give us purpose, indeed God, I believe, still calls people for particular jobs, tasks activities.

So then, where from there? Robert Banks in a very nice little book has some interesting discussions.

Banks focuses his discussion below the layer pointed to above. His book is really just aimed at what I called living well bove. He makes the point Christian could fruitfully discuss:

Social pressures

• busyness
• mobility
• debt
• social conformity

Routine life

• commuting
• shopping
• sleeping
• eating and drinking
• dress
• hospitality
• hobbies
• gardening

Work & leisure

• getting having or not having paid work
• re-creation

Central features of modern life

• society everyday beliefs and values - which obviously affect Christians
• communicating and relating (technology mediated and otherwise)
• social rituals
• secular religions (the car, the home, the ....
• materialism and consumerism.

Over time we grope our ways towards workable answers to all these questions that work for us - ones that meet our standards of Christian living and help us live day to day. But it is difficult to travel without some sort of map.

So lets use politics as an example - we tend to steer clear from overt discussions of politics in Church for fear of creating divisions. In the absence of discussion people build their own perspectives based on everything but sound theology sometimes. But we are making two mistakes. The first is not discussing it and the second is we confuse goals and means.

Politics is based on the idea that there can be different goals but even when there is the same goal there are different routes to those goals. So if we can agree that caring for the poor is a critical Christian issue then we can discuss how we do that - different people may support different means but we can at least discuss that it should be a high priority and leaving it aside is a bad idea. So one example for western governments might be the choice between accepting refugees or having a serious aid program - it is a not option to choose neither.

So onto a technological example.

If you decide that creation care is really important to you then that is just the first choice, there will be political (protests) and ethical choices (who to buy from) but that choice alone does not choose your level of technology.

In a pluralistic view of what is a valid expression of Christian faith, there is not a perspective we can promote as the 'Christian society'. Each of us needs to make our own choices while respecting others. But we can only do this if we can start talking about the big picture of what Christian life looks like in the 21st century.

Juggling all of the priorities

So lets return to the imagery. We can now see a little more of the painting. Its not the whole picture we could never expect that, but we can see its a plant now.

So with church, is there a way of moving beyond the weekly dots?