Review - SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World (Part 2 of 2)

I suggest you start with Part 1.

I should make clear that I have mixed feelings about SimChurch. I think a biblical case can be made that it is not possible to have an online/virtual church, and perhaps I or someone else will do a rigorous job on that someday.  If he's right that these things are growing, it will become more necessary. I'd like to think I made a start by pointing out how it is impossible (or at least very problematic) to meet certain scriptural marks of a particular church, particularly the sacraments.

Review - SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World (Part 1 of 2)

SimChurch: Being the Church in the Virtual World asks very good questions but (in my mind) comes to the wrong conclusions.

To summarize Estes, he claims that virtual worlds (such as Second Life or World of Warcraft) are real places where people increasingly live, work, play, and interact. As such, they are also a space where the Church needs to go to evangelize and disciple. This includes planting virtual churches. As opposed to more broadcast methods of ministry (think televangelism or podcasts), Estes claims that the richness of interaction afforded by current technology lets us do (at least nearly) everything a local church needs to do. In some cases, he claims we need to develop new ways of "doing church" that are better suited to this new medium that may even be better than real-world churches. In the process, he touches on topics such as presence and community, the mediated nature of technological connections (e.g., via avatars), "lifeblogging," online worship, church authority, online sin & accountability, and virtual communion and baptism. He is honest in pointing out the problems, such as with communion and baptism, but remains very optimistic about doing virtual church and how it can be a significant part of the Church Universal. 

John Dyer's From the Garden To The City

John Dyer, a technology and theology blogger has a book out: From the Garden to the City
. He's releasing chapters on his website: http://www.fromthegardentothecity.com/ if enough people help promote it through social media. He's gotten some good endorsements and I've found many insightful posts on his blog. I have not read the book myself, but I encourage you to go promote it to help open some of the chapters.

Review: Wayward Technology

I found Wayward Technology by Ernst Braun in the campus library section I mentioned previously. I've slowly read it and recommend it for anyone thinking about the nature of technology. It's rather difficult to review as it is so wide-ranging. Braun looks at technology from a sociological perspective, showing how technology and its innovation have always been central to the development of society. He defines technology as "the creation and use of artifacts for practical purposes." According to him, technology is pursued and desired for it's ability to grant independence/self-sufficiency and power/self-determination. However, it can also tend to remove creativity and judgment and impose control on us in various ways. He believes we experience a tension when working with technology between our dependence on technology and a fear of submission to it.

Review: The Pencil

The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance by Henry Petroski is just what it says: a history of how the pencil came to be what it is today. When you think of technology, the pencil is hardly the first item that comes to mind. They're cheap, bought by the dozen (or gross), are given away for advertising, are of no consequence if lost, and are hardly thought of. But consider for a minute: how would you make a pencil?

Tim Challies - Book and Conversation

Here's an interesting blog conversation with Tim Challies who has a new book coming out, The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion, regarding how we should think carefully about technology.

Review: Devices of the Soul

Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines by Steve Talbott is one of the books I found in the library during my browsing. I find he makes many similar points to The Soul in Cyberspace, though he does not work from a Christian foundation. I'd summarize the main point of this book as: we must be cautious of our habits and attitudes of our souls in the use of technology, lest we become accustomed to conforming to them rather than being human.

I'll focus on one way he works this out is related to disabilities. One may have some disability, but that may push you to have a different perspective on the world and indeed grow in ways others do not. Chapters 4 and 5 on this issue are really thought provoking. He shares an instance of a man who was blinded as a child, yet went on to be a major leader in the French Resistance in World War II.

My thought while reading these sections was on suffering. How do Christians view suffering? Do we run from it, like most Americans, that seek ever more comfort and security? Or do we understand that it is something that comes and that God uses it for our good (Romans 8:28)?

I suppose if I were disabled in some way, such as losing a limb, I would want the best technology available to replace the functionality I had. But, all things work together for good as scripture says. Perhaps the decision to get a prosthetic is not one we should make automatically, but thoughtfully. Is this change in life for my good? Undoubtedly. Is it more for my good if I do not use some technology to replace that functionality, but rather learn to function in different ways or be limited in one way and grow in another?

Though not written from a distinctly Christian viewpoint (the author states he was raised in a Christian home, but he makes no statement on his current beliefs), this is a thought provoking book about technology and how our beliefs should shape our view of it.

Review: The Soul in Cyberspace

I read The Soul in Cyberspace a while back and it still makes me think about how we use Internet technology.

A major point of this book is that much of the information technology we employ now (more even than back in 1999 when it was written) disembodies us and decontextualizes information. And, this is bad. Bad for deep understanding and bad for community (among other things).

Definition from Responsible Technology

In a recent post, I started working through a definition of technology. I dug out the book that has been most significant to my thinking about technology and found a definition there. See what you think:

Technology is a distinct human cultural activity in which human beings exercise freedom and responsibility in response to God by forming and transforming the natural creation, with the aid of tools and procedures, for practical ends and purposes.
-Monsma, Stephen V. (ed.) Responsible Technology, 1986, p. 19

Keep in mind that this is a "normative" definition - what technology ought to be.

My main complaint is the part about "forming and transforming the natural creation." This phrase sounds like it was made by a mechanical or civil engineer, referring to buildings, structures, and machines, not thinking of the myriad digital creations we have today. We can take a very wide view of "natural creation" (and I do) to include electromagnetic waves, bits in a computer, maybe even logic structures and that would make the definition still fit. Still, I'd like to find a better phrase to capture this idea.  Perhaps replace it with "...harnessing and directing the materials and forces of the natural creation..."

I considered trying to include something about design and/or creativity, but I think other parts of the definition cover this.

So, I'm left with:

Technology is a distinct human cultural activity in which human beings exercise freedom and responsibility in response to God by harnessing and directing the materials and forces of the natural creation, with the aid of tools and procedures, for practical ends and purposes.

What do you think? What improvements should we make to this?