Image CreditFor today's entry in the Friday Five interview series, we catch up with Craig Detweiler.
Craig Detweiler directs the Center for Entertainment, Media, and Culture at Pepperdine University. Craig's cultural commentary has appeared on ABC's Nightline, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera, NPR, and in The New York Times. His latest book is iGods. You can connect with him @craigdetweiler on Twitter.
Today we chat with Craig about technology, developing a theology for technology, and digital discipleship.
With iGods, you know that you are hitting most of us where we live—on our phones, tablets, and laptops—is this book intended to wake us up?
I'm trying to wake myself up! I became a bit disturbed by my own dependence, looking down at my phone rather than up at my friends, my family and God's wonderful world. As a professor, I also saw how much students were missing by tracking with their Facebook status rather than the substantive conversations we were having in class. It was remarkable how much more active a media or communication class became after I banished computers and cell phones. iGods taps into the love/hate relationship we all seem to have with our devices.
Marshall McCluhan famously said that the "medium is the message," but I'd guess that most Christians assume a philosophy that says mediums are neutral as long as we achieve "balance." But is this right?
Technology is rarely neutral. When bridges were invented, all kinds of complications arose—more commercial trade as well as more potential attacks. Splitting an atom can result in nuclear power or nuclear bombs. And neither of those outputs is "neutral." My hope is that we will consider the larger and longer term implications of our current technological shifts. Churches must think theologically about the technologies they're embracing. Christians have often been at the forefront of technology, from monks who embraced clocks as a way to regulate work and prayer times, to the incorporation of bells, glass, and architectural innovations in our churches. But I doubt the monks thought the mechanical clock would lead to the industrial era of workers punching the clock or notions of God as a disinterested watchmaker. When we brought pews and organs into the church, we altered worship. Same holds true for our big screen projectors, guitars, and amps. So we must be thoughtful and prayerful about what bring into the sanctuary. Bigger, louder, and faster isn't necessarily better.
Some might advocate a complete withdrawal from technology and yet you would say that reflects a poor theology as well, would you not?
No one escapes the pull of technology and how it enhances our lives. Clothing was a great consolation for Adam and Eve. Same with the hoe or the plow. In building an ark to God's specifications, Noah preserved the biodiversity of creation. We don't think of the fork as technology, because we all embrace it as a great invention. Same with glasses. Who wants to go back to life without penicillin? God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply. Better agriculture, medicine, and education help us fulfill that calling. We're also called to replenish the earth, to steward our resources. Technology can make us better servants of God and each other.
You say we need a "theology" for our technology. What do you mean by that?
Over the centuries, we've thought carefully about theological anthropology—what it means to be created in the image of God, eccesiology—the life of the God's community, the church, soteriology—what salvation means, how it occurs through Christ and the cross, and escatology—where we are headed as God's people. While these core theologies remain quite important, we also find ourselves under-prepared to wrestle with consumption, abundance, and all the opportunities that endless entertainment and technology offer. We are being challenged by the notion that we are meant to be information processors, highly efficient in our thinking, living, and relationships. Technologists have strong notions of where we're headed, how humanity will merge with machines; the Singularity as eschatology. These new ways of being and behaving should drive us back to our essentials, to wrestle anew with who we are, whose we are, how we live in community, and what idols and temptations we need to be delivered from.
If you could counsel church leaders, how would you advise them to approach, in their teaching and personal life example, an adequate theology of technology?
As with entertainment, the temptation seems to be disengagement or overindulgence. How do develop a maturity that welcomes the wonders and gifts of technology without letting our devices drive our decision-making?
I've been rereading Scripture with an eye on technology, wondering how to translate enduring truths into contemporary terms. For example, can we call God the original technologist? Perhaps it is helpful to talk about Genesis in terms of engineering and aesthetics. We know that Jesus was more than a carpenter's son, but do we also realize the Greek word for "carpenter" was tekton? Perhaps the "magic" that we associate with the iPhone isn't so far removed from the original Designer.
I haven't heard enough pastors talking and modeling digital discipleship. If our congregants spend hours each week involved in social media, then how do we follow God and craft a winsome witness via our smart phones? In the 21st century, we all have the capacity to be narrowcasters, with the possibility of becoming broadcasters. That is a remarkable moment to preach and teach within.
We also might find ourselves distinguished by our ongoing belief in the sacredness of the body, the need to relieve physical and psychic pain and suffering via presence—from chicken soup to bedside prayers. I'm confident the Spirit will continue to lead us towards acts of kindness towards our neighbors and into the farthest corners of the Internet.
Daniel Darling is vice-president of communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Activist Faith.
