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The Internet has this wonderful ability to connect people over long distances, and with technologies like Skype, to help us visualize the embodied life of another. When my daughter was in England for 5 months, it was a much richer experience talking with her on Skype than by phone.

But of course Skype was a poor substitute for being able to visit her—and no one would argue otherwise. But the Internet is so good at creating virtual realities, that we sometimes mistake them for the real thing. I have to remind myself that what I'm seeing on the screen is not my daughter but a bunch of pixels that are replicating my daughter. It is a mirage. A useful and handy mirage, one I would not abandon. But a mirage nonetheless.

And this suggests that the test of whether any technology is "godly" (that is, tending toward the fullness of God's intention for us) is whether it encourages shared bodily life or undermines it.

Not a few of us find ourselves addicted to email. It is a wonderful thing to be able to connect with so many people so quickly and efficiently. But like many, I often find myself so drawn to my Blackberry and laptop that I fail to be present with the flesh and blood person who is standing before me. I look at them and pretend like I'm listening, but my mind strains to get back to my email. The technology is obviously undermining my ability to be present in an embodied way to the real person in front of me.

We see the same sort of problem with angry emails that are sent because we're afraid of actually talking the issues through face to face. Or viewing pornography rather than engaging in a deeper relationship with one's wife.

On the other hand, email or Skype or Facebook can sustain a relationship so that, when we meet with a loved one face to face, we are able to ground that relationship at even deeper levels. Or we collaborate with others to create software that helps us more easily schedule face-to-face meetings, or to organize fun runs or bike outings, or to make plane reservations to go visit a daughter on another continent.

These are very simple observations, which is why sometimes they are so difficult to attend to. And why we need to be reminded time and again of God's intention for us, and then measure everything we do or say against that intent.

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan put it well in responding to Kelly's piece, when he wrote on his blog: "It has long occurred to me that the web is indeed a Marxist paradise. Pity we are not really full human beings with bodies when we are on it."

It is a pity, but it is not something we have to wallow in. Despite Kelly's apparent Internet boosterism, the Internet is not the key to human fulfillment, but neither is it of the devil. We can work with this technology, as we can with any, so that it fosters engagement with "real, full human beings with bodies."

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. He is author of A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God.

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Previous SoulWork columns are available on our site.

Other Christianity Today articles on technology include:

From the Printing Press to the iPhone | Shane Hipps urges Christians to discern the technology spirits. (May 6, 2009)

Technology and the Gospel | Phyllis Tickle, Brian McLaren, and others weigh in on worship and evangelism in a plugged-in age. (January 9, 2008)

Always in Parables: Rekindling Old Fires | We can resist technology's chilling effects on how we spend time together. (August 5, 2002)

The Wireless Gospel | Sixty-two years ago, Back to the Bible joined the radio revolution; now it is finding new media for its old message. A case study in evangelicals' love affair with communications technology. (February 19, 2001)

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June (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53