Last year, I was sitting at a conference with folks I had “known” for a while online but had just met for the first time in person. In a sense, we were already acquainted—I read their writing, they read mine—and that’s what got me into trouble.
All in our 30s or 40s, as parents of teens down to babies, we were talking about digital technology. Everyone knew where I stand on tech in general and kids in particular: Keep the former away from the latter at all costs. Wherever I go, I’m the flag-waving Luddite. I want screen-free churches and youth ministries without social media and parents without phones in their hands and children with books in their hands—preferably outdoors.
Here was my misstep. On the topic of kids and tech, I volunteered a middle way on which my wife and I had ventured. Since we were unwilling to let our middle schoolers have smartphones, we had agreed to buy them an iPad. Before I’d even explained my reasoning, my newfound friends’ jaws were on the floor.
Are you serious? they asked. Yes, I replied—but now uncertain of myself. They stared at me. I stared back. Suddenly I wondered whether I was in enemy territory.
Any parent is bound to feel inadequate from time to time, fearing judgment from peers. In this case, the judgment wasn’t hidden. These fellow believers had counted me an ally in the fight. Now they saw my true colors. I was a turncoat: I talk a big talk in my writing but, they learned, I fail to walk the walk. Scandal!
To be sure, once the dust settled from their shock, they heard me out and listened with kindness. I explained our circumstances and reasoning: Our kids go to public school. Most of their friends have smartphones, and they have homework assigned and submitted online. We figured a stripped-down tablet—with just a handful of apps and tons of restrictions, fitted for music, homework, and texting their friends—was a reasonable compromise.
In a perfect world, perhaps, they would attend a classical Christian academy without screens, worship at a church without screens, live in a neighborhood devoid of screens, and—well, you get the picture. That’s not their world, nor ours, so we drew some hard lines while meeting our teens in the middle. At their age I “texted” friends via AOL Instant Messenger on a desktop computer. That is more or less how it’s worked out in their case, and my wife and I have been pleasantly surprised by the results.
The point isn’t that this was the “right” decision. I’m not defensive about it (though I admit to some defensiveness when I was put on the spot!), nor do I consider it some abstract ideal for others to follow. I consider it instead the best decision we could come up with in our situation—an attempt at wisdom in the face of particular details unique to us. An attempt, in other words, at prudence: bringing principles to bear on concrete circumstances that require practical judgment. Others may differ; in fact, they do.
This experience taught me a lesson. In the face of the extraordinary challenges presented to parents and Christians by digital technology, it seems to me that we need two things above all.
First, we need courage and boldness in confronting these challenges head on, especially on the part of institutions and leaders from the top down.
Second, and just as important, we need grace. Grace for others, grace for our children, grace for ourselves. We need heaps of grace, grace upon grace, because we live in unprecedented times and most of us, most of the time, are sincerely trying to do what we think is best—or, failing that, what we feel capable of at any given moment.
To be clear, I don’t have in mind the weak tolerance of “live and let live.” We should be willing and eager to have hard conversations about these things. A policy of silence is no help to anyone.
In a recent essay, the Catholic journalist Matthew Walther has written with eloquence and compassion about what he calls “technological poverty.” He means families, single parents, and young children whose every waking moment is utterly dominated by the reign of the screen and who in that sense have been robbed of reality: sunshine and birdsong, gardens and tree-climbing, scuffed knees, unmonitored walks, neighborhood bike rides, tinkering in a garage, getting lost in a novel.
Those of us who have succeeded, at least to some extent, in resisting or escaping this poverty are often at a loss as to how to help others. But it’s arguably the greatest need of our time.
So no, let’s not merely live and let live. Instead, let’s extend generosity to friends, family, and neighbors who come to different decisions than we do. Let’s be tech fallibilists, allowing for the possibility that our own approach might be wrong or, at a minimum, not the universal answer for all people without exception. And even if we have good reason to believe that our policy is best—or better than another’s—that doesn’t release us from the obligation to continue seeing, treating, and speaking of others with charity, warmth, mercy, and grace.
Parental decisions about technology today are reminiscent of other thorny intra-Christian debates. Consider schooling. “Real” Christians, “serious” Christians, Christians who care about their children’s formation, avoid public school by opting for private school. Not to be outdone, other parents come to see that even private school is a half measure. It’s homeschool or bust.
The same kind of dynamic happens with entertainment. What do you let your children watch or listen to? At what age? Why? It turns out there’s always someone more restrictive than you and someone less restrictive than you. You cannot believe the one is so conservative, even as you cannot imagine being so liberal as the other. Thankfully, like Goldilocks, your position is just right.
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My purpose in poking fun at these perspectives is not to expose the one final and correct answer. That would undermine everything I’m trying to say. On the contrary, I want us to see that there is no such thing. There are better and worse answers, there are wise and unwise answers, there are situation-specific answers—but there is no one-size-fits-all answer. And even if there were, the temptation to hypocrisy and self-righteousness is so pronounced that we would need a remedy for our inflated egos and parental insecurities irrespective of our objective rightness.
The same goes for technology. Call it “tech grace”—a refusal to sit on our digital high horse and look down our nose at anyone who differs from us. It doesn’t matter if the temptation is to sit in judgment on those who are less restrictive (“We let our middle schooler have a phone, but they let theirs download Instagram”) or more restrictive (“We don’t have video games, but can you believe the Joneses don’t even have a television in their house?”).
The thing to avoid is judgmentalism, the kind of self-appointed judgement that presumes to sit in the Lord’s place and condemn with authority. To do this without sin is impossible, because it is both hypocritical and self-righteous. In the end, it’s little more than moralizing gossip. As Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matt. 7:1–2, RSV).
There are other kinds of judgment, though. When we exercise a considered judgment, we reach conclusions or form convictions carefully, based on reasons, arguments, and discernment. We may not and must not leave behind this kind of judgment, and I am nothing if not full of tech judgments in this sense: Social media is bad for teens. Smartphones are bad for literacy. Screens are bad for attention.
I take these judgments not only to be true but to be demonstrably true. I regularly make them in print, and I am always happy to share them with people who are open to hearing about them. I’m an evangelist of sorts, and I’m not ashamed to make the case in public.
The trick, then, is to exercise considered judgment without judgmentalism. Happily, this is part and parcel of the Christian life more broadly. I believe, as all Christians do, that the gospel is true and urgent news for all people, whether or not they know it and whether or not they share my convictions. But I don’t believe this because of some merit or goodness in me. I believe it because I have come to see that I am a sinner in need. I therefore want all my fellow sinners to receive this same gift—to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8).
Individually, then, we can and should strike a balance with digital technology. The real burden falls on institutions and those in positions of authority and influence to exercise costly leadership. Their decisions end up defining shared norms and practices within our communities. More than ordinary individuals, leaders can and must take bold actions, defend strong stances, and set firm policies without hypocrisy or condemnation. Far from burdening the weak, this boldness is a gift that facilitates wise habits and offers freedom from compulsions that otherwise might feel undeniable.
Andy Crouch calls his approach to digital devices “tech-wise.” Jay Kim calls it “analog.” Clare Morell calls it “the tech exit.” Whatever we label it, the coalition has to be a big tent. It can’t just be the elite few, the tech-light elect. It has to include as many as will fit—which is to say as many as are seeking to live wisely in a digital age and are willing to sacrifice to do it.
If we’re going to have any success, if we’re going to expand rather than shrink, we’re going to have to live with one another. And the only way to do that is with grace.
Brad East is an associate professor of theology at Abilene Christian University. He is the author of four books, including The Church: A Guide to the People of God and Letters to a Future Saint.
