New and Upcoming Books on Technology, Media, and Faith

In: Books and Texts

Commitment:
  • Words: 652
  • Sentences: 22
  • Grade level: 14.0-17.2
  • Read time: ~3.3 min @ 200WPM

24 Feb 2010

For the past few years, there has been growing interest in thinking about technology and media through a Christian lens. From the churches who are hiring an increasing number of technically-oriented staff to the parents who sits across a digital divide form his child to the business people making technology decisions that will impact customers, employees, and the environment, we all need help thinking well about technology.

Below are some recent and upcoming books on technology that I thought would be helpful to point out. I have not yet read the recent works, but I have read a few of the manuscripts of the forthcoming books. (Note: many are affiliate links to Amazon)

Recent Works

  1. Reboot: Refreshing Your Faith in a High-tech World (Peggy Kendall) – I’ll be posting a review of this book next month, but I thought I’d mention it ahead of time for those that want to check it out.
  2. Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain (William M. Struthers) – Pornography itself is an important subject, but most Christian works focus on the moral aspects rather than the technological itself. Struthers is a neurologist and a believer, and I hope his work is beneficial for the church in helping to understand that the damage pornography does is serious. (See Rhett Smith for more on pornography and adolescents).

Forthcoming Books

Read the rest of this entry »

Presentation: Technology in the Kingdom, Society, and Your Life

In: Tools for Tech Thinking

Commitment:
  • Words: 151
  • Sentences: 6
  • Grade level: 13.4-16.7
  • Read time: ~0.8 min @ 200WPM

21 Feb 2010

Two weeks ago, I gave a breakout session for the Electronic Gospel conference put on by Dallas Theological Seminary and headlined by Shane Hipps.

You can order the audio of the keynotes and breakout sessions (including Scott McClellan of Collide magazine and Bill Buchanan from Irving Bible Church) from the Center for Christian Leadership resource center, but I’m posting my slides here since I haven’t posted a talk in a while.

Here’s what’s in it:

  • 00:00-07:41 – Introduction of me and the topic
  • 07:42-22:38 – Technology in the Biblical Story (with a 5 minute audience discussion)
  • 22:39-36:50 – Technology in Society, theory from Postman, McLuhan, Ellul, etc.
  • 36:51-53:21 – Technology in Your Life

Read the rest of this entry »

Responding to Constant Images of Mass Suffering: Haiti, Technology, and Repentance

In: Our Technological World| Spiritual Formation

Commitment:
  • Words: 772
  • Sentences: 34
  • Grade level: 11.1-13.8
  • Read time: ~3.9 min @ 200WPM

17 Feb 2010

Haiti and Suffering

Link goes to DTS's Hait Disaster Relief FundSince the horrible earthquake in Haiti, it has been encouraging to see the incredible outpouring of support and mobilization using all available resources and technology. The devastation there is so terrible it is impossible to fathom, and it confirms the faith of Haitian Christians as nothing less than miraculous.

These events also bring up one of the difficulties we face in the media age – our inability as humans to deal with suffering on a worldwide scale. It is hard enough to face the horror of our loved ones dying, but no human can withstand multiplying that emotion 250,000 times.

Media ecologists talk about the difficulty this way. In an oral culture, people form a tightly knit community physically and emotional connected to every event that happens within their tribe. In a print culture, individuals are disconnected by the medium of print which allows us to gain knowledge of suffering while alone decoding the characters on a page. Today, in a visual/digital culture, we are re-connected to those around us via the speed of Internet and we are re-engaged emotionally through the power of images. Yet we are also disconnected because the suffering we see is of those unknown to us and with whom we are not physically present. (for another take, see Tim Challies)

The natural response to being bombarded emotionally (through images) and continuously (through electronic speed) with the totality of human suffering is to simply become numb to it. Certainly, many of us give our money, time, and prayers to help those who are in pain, but without being there we cannot fully engage. I can read about what friends like Rhett Smith, Lars Rood, Tim Schmoyer, and others feel on the ground, but I cannot absorb their experience through web pages and YouTube videos. I admire their courage and resolve, but I feel helpless at the same time.

Haiti and Repentance

Thankfully, I believe there is another response other than becoming numb and cynical or languishing in helplessness. First, we can involve ourselves in such pain by “looking after orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27). Giving money is not the same as being there, but it is better than doing nothing and it does answer Jesus’ call, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat” (Matt 25:35). Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter and Forgiveness, Jetpacks and Change

In: Our Technological World

Commitment:
  • Words: 271
  • Sentences: 14
  • Grade level: 8.4-11.6
  • Read time: ~1.4 min @ 200WPM

11 Feb 2010

In case you missed them, I’d like to point you to a few articles I wrote for Collide Magazine over the past few months.

I Will Remember Your Tweets No More

In this article, I looked at what it means to forgive in a world where our computers remember everything we do. Should we just blow people off who annoy us? Probably not. But should we remove all record of wrong from our hard drives either?

For Christians, this means that the Internet’s ability to help us remember rightly is a chance to practice a theologically-informed, true kind of forgiveness. Rather than downplay an incident or cut people off every time they annoy us, we have the chance to look at the past with Google-like accuracy and choose to stop holding those wrongs against those who harmed us. Instead of constantly blocking, de-following, and un-friending, we can choose to see people and their wrong through the blood of Christ.

It’s 2010, Where’s My Jetpack?

In an article that’s quite a bit lighter than the previous one, I attempt to look into the future and imagine what it would really be like when and if we ever get our jetpacks by applying Neil Postman’s Five Things We Need To Know About Technological Change.

What new technology are you considering adding to your life, your family, or your church? It might not be as cool as the mythical jetpack, but it will likely bring some change to your life and the life of those around you. It might be helpful to run your new stuff through these five questions.

Hope you enjoy them!

Billy Graham on Technology as a Pointer to Christ

In: Quotes

Commitment:
  • Words: 192
  • Sentences: 9
  • Grade level: 12.0-14.8
  • Read time: ~1.0 min @ 200WPM

27 Jan 2010

Billy Graham is an amazing communicator, and his 1998 TED talk on technology and faith (embedded below) is no exception. In it he is witty, articulate, and convicting.

His basic message is simple: technology brings amazing benefits to humanity, but it’s failure to alleviate the brokenness of the human heart ultimately point us to our need for a Savior.

What I appreciate most about his talk is that Graham did not give it to a church audience who would immediately agree with him. Instead in his audiences are some of the greatest technological minds ever gathered, many of whom are no friends of religion. It’s a classic example of how a speaker can appeal to an audience’s sensibilities, gain a sense of trust, and then finally address the person of Jesus Christ. Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s Your Favorite Online Person You’ve Never Met?

In: Our Technological World

Commitment:
  • Words: 697
  • Sentences: 40
  • Grade level: 6.6-9.3
  • Read time: ~3.5 min @ 200WPM

20 Jan 2010

Have you ever had the chance to meet someone in person that you’ve only met online?

If you have, you know that strange feeling of trying to match a person’s picture to the body in front of you. It’s exciting as if you’re meeting a celebrity, and yet terrifying at the same time. Will we be best friends? What if we don’t really hit it off, and we disagree on everything when we actually talk? What if I can’t be my online self or they don’t seem to be theirs?

Most of the time, though, it’s a total blast to share a meal together and spend some quality time in real life with people you only know online. Here’s what happened for me last year:

2009: John & Rhett

I'm the least good looking white guy

In early 2009, I met John Saddington and Rhett Smith in person for the first time. I had corresponded online with John for several years (2005?) and Rhett and I had twittered a bit, but this was the first time we all were able to meet in person (one of Rhett’s goals). Read the rest of this entry »

About this blog

John DyerI'm John Dyer a web developer working on sites like Best Commentaries, Bible Web App, Dallas Seminary. I'm also a seminary graduate and teacher at Irving Bible Church.

This blog is about the the role of technology in the redemptive movement from the Garden to the City. I believe technology is an amazing testament to the creativity embedded in the imago dei, but instead of assuming technology is always a neutral tool, I believe it - like culture in general - profoundly influences us.

Upcoming Posts

  • The Cornwall Alliance: Technological Theory at Work
  • How Coffee Helped Me Understand Technology and Theology
  • Learning from Buber: I-Thou and I-It
  • Prepackaged Communion and Albert Borgmann’s Device Paradigm
  • Technology is Kinda Like Money
  • What Can Hard Drives Teach Us about Forgiveness?
  • Approaching Technology like We Approach Money
  • Aristotle’s Ethics and the Goal of Online Relationships
  • Speed and Suffering
  • Technology Metaphors in Literature

Asides

Our brains are designed to more easily be stimulated than satisfied
Fascinating look at the science of the brain’s response to seeking and rewards: http://www.slate.com/id/2224932/ (1)

Roman Catholic Church Expresses Concern Regarding Social Technologies
The head of the British Roman Catholic church says,

“I think there’s a worry that an excessive use, or an almost exclusive use of text and emails means that as a society we’re losing some of the ability to build interpersonal communication that’s necessary for living together and building a community.”
(0)

Internet Fatigue
CNN has a report on the phenomenon of internet fatigue. I wish they would have spent more time on giving suggestions for how to understand why this happens and how to avoid it. (0)

Articles and Tools on Texting
The NYTimes has a new article on the effects of texting on youth which include anxiety, sleep deprivation, and hand injuries. Interestingly, as Andy Crouch points out, the article also mentions that teens send many texts to their parents, meaning that teens are now connected to their parents more often during the day – a time when teenagers of the past were developing independence. LG has also created a new site to help parents decode text messages. (0)

Course Syllabus: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era
A humorous, but enlightening syllabus for a class on writing in the “postprint” era. Writing for nonreaders in the postprint era: “Students will examine why former generations carried around heavy clumps of bound paper and why they chose to read instead of watching TV or playing Guitar Hero.” (0)

Language Shapes Our Worldview
A psychology professor at Stanford University found that in languages with gender, the gender assigned to an objects tends to shape the way a speaker views that’s object. For example, in Spanish, “bridge” is masculine so Spanish speakers describe bridges as “strong” and “dangerous,” while German speakers for whom bridge is feminine tend to describe bridges as “fragile” and “beautiful.” Perhaps our own understanding of words like redemption, wrath, and adoption are also shaped by unseen factors. (0)

Survey Says Facebook Users Get Lower Grades
A study from educational researches at the Ohio State University found that students who regularly used facebook only study 1-5 hours per week and had GPAs in the 3.0-3.5 range, while non-facebook users study around 11-15 hours per week with GPAs in the 3.5-4.0 range. I wonder how church education compares? (0)

Risk-Reducing Technologies Increase Risk-Taking
The Pope and a Harvard scientist make an interesting argument that AIDS is increasing in Africa precisely because of condom distribution. More... (0)