John Dyer lives in Irving, TX with his beautiful wife and awesome new son. He works at Dallas Seminary as the director of web development (meaning “main code guy”) where he also earned a theology degree. He is actively involved in several open source web projects, builds ministry resources such as www.bestcommentaries.com, and blogs about technology and faith atwww.donteatthefruit.com.
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- Just for fun: John’s full name is John Charles Dickey Dyer
- One of the worst things you can do is imagine that technology is neutral.
- There’s to camps… tech lovers and tech haters.
- Both sides use the word “change”
- Tech lovers say it will “change” for good.
- Tech haters say it will “change” for the worse.
- It’s hard to balance our use of technology.
- Humans make tools…. our tools make us.
- What we create has influence back on us.
- We become the things that we behold.
- Psalm 1 … if we sit with those who are righteous we become righteous.
- We tend to believe that about many things, but not about our use of technology.
- Technology is an extension of humanity.
- Technology can be an amputation of humanity.
Evolution of New Technology
- Excitement – “YES! I got a shovel!”
- Difficulty – After you use it, you get blisters
- Transformation – You get stronger as a result of using it.
What kind of tool do you want to become?
- Tech Crunch publishers 1,881,152 words per year… more than the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare, Moby Dick, etc. combined.
- We don’t read blogs like we read books, we scan.
- Content doesn’t matter… we’ve cultivated the skill of scanning text on the screen… much different than reading it in a book.
- Content doesn’t matter, technology does.
Technology often has unintended effects. Most of us don’t think a lot about those effects. We just use what we’re told to use… whatever comes along and what’s new. Do we really need it?
Ages of Technology
- Oral – community memorizes common information.
- Print – logical individuals. (aka… The Bible is true. The Bible says God exists. Therefore, God exists). Many of our beliefs rest on rationale before faith.
- Image – emotional story tellers. We are surrounded by images… we tend to think of how to emotionally convey things with story, instead of logic. That’s the technology we use today.
- Machine – tireless producers. We became what we beheld… machines worked hard, we should work hard.
- Computer – data gatherers.
- Interwebs – loosely re-connected community?
There’s a world of disconnection and reconnection that happens with technology. If someone bothers us, we can block or unfriend them. We have switches.
What the Scripture says about Technology
- The story moves from the garden to the city.
- Who made the stuff in the city?
- Our human creativity is written into the story.
- What we create plays into the story.
- The First Technology in the Bible: clothing (Genesis, Adam & Eve).
- Rebels against God – expresses Imago Dei
- God’s Imago Dei is reflected in our creativty.
- Redeems the effects of the Fall – Foreshadows His return.
- Cain and the City – Cain builds a city, a place that’s alternate from the garden. (Gen 4)
- All the people who made tools and art came from Cain’s city.
- Jesus and the Cross – Jesus was a carpenter. From his job we get the word “technology.” The very tool He worked with was the tool He died on.
- God and the new City – God recreates everything and redeems it.
- God redeems human works.
- We offer redemption through what we create but it can’t compare to what God will give us.
New Testament
- Paul constantly expressed his desire to be with people. (2 Tim 1:4)
- John didn’t want to use technology, but he did! (2 John 1:12)
- They used technology when they couldn’t be present with people.
Technology should help us stay connected when we can’t be face-to-face with people. Being face-to-face matters. Community sometimes sucks. Being face to face means you have to have a commitment to people you don’t decide to be with. Online community is a different kind of community.
Using Technology without Technology Using You
- Deny the premise. You can’t use technology without it affecting you.
- Experiment with Technology. Do something different. (Ill: Don’t take a Bible to church, just sit and listen… experience it differently.)
- What do I want to cultivate? What do you want to get? What does it require for me to be “good” at it? Is that something you want?
- Work both through and against technology. Jesus came as a Jew… he fully absorbed the culture to be with them. At the same time, He worked against them, He condemned things they do. We have to be incarnate like Jesus was… meaning we work through and against our technological culture.
- Use technology as a means, not an end. We use a car as a means to get to an end. Or, we get a crazy awesome car… and use it so owning it is the end, the goal.
- Create for a new world. All we create, all we do should be for eternity… for something that’s lasting.
- Become a tool. Influence others for the glory of God. Be a tool He can use.
