This Christmas was special for our family as we celebrated not only the birth of our Lord, but the birth of our first child. Unfortunately my entire family couldn’t be together, because my sister was visiting my brother in Hawaii. So we hooked up webcams and, when the time zones aligned, we watched each other
Yearly Archive:: 2008
Five Things We the Church Need Know About Technological Change (3 of 5): There is a Powerful Idea Embedded in Every Technology
This is part 3 of a five part series based on Neil Postman’s lecture “Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change” applied to the church. Technology is Always a Trade-Off Technology Creates Winners and Losers 3. There is a Powerful Idea Embedded in Every Technology My friend Trey is an artist and a
D. A. Carson on Technology Culture
In the latest issue of the online journal Themelios, D. A. Carson’s editorial is largely concerned with technology. Here’s a choice quote: Scarcely less important than speed of access is the Internet’s sheer intoxicating addictiveness–or, more broadly, we might be better to think of the intoxicating addictiveness of the entire digital world. Many are those
Five Things We the Church Should Know about Technological Change (2 of 5): Technology Creates Winners and Losers
This post is part 2 of 5 in a series exploring the implications of Neil Postman’s Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change for the Christian community. Technology is Always a Trade-Off 2. Technology Creates Winners and Losers If you are a child of the 80s or early 90s, you might remember commercials with
Facebook and Video Chat predicted 100 years ago! [Recommended Reading]
If you like reading short stories, I’ve got a great one for you. In 1909, E. M. Forster published the short story The Machine Stops which told of a future in which humans live in temperature-controlled underground rooms with no outside human contact, communicating to others exclusively using“cinematophoes” (his prediction of video conferencing). Read The
Five Things We the Church Need to Know About Technological Change: (1 of 5) Technology is Always a Trade-Off
This is part one of a five part series exploring Neil Postman’s lecture “Five Things You Need to Know about Technological Change” as it relates to church life and spirituality. 1. Technology is Always a Trade-Off When I was a youth pastor (that’s me in the orange at GBC), I desperately wanted to get a
Great Quote: Sigmund Freud
Freud had some great observations about how the technology of his day (wired telephones and railroads) were affecting his world. This quote summarizes his feelings: “If there had been no railway to conquer distance, my child would never have left town and I should need no telephone to hear his voice.” I love how Freud
Losers Talk about Winners and Losers in Technology
At the beginning of this clip is a humorously botched illustration about trade-offs with technology. (Disclaimer: Jake and Amir is like a funnier, much more crass version of Jim and Dwight on the The Office. Watch at your own discretion). It goes something like this: Imagine aliens came and offered to give us a technology
Ways of Thinking About Technology
Two recent blog posts, one from Paul and Timothy Bible Conference the other from Justin Buzzard’s Buzzard Blog offer some helpful thoughts about social networking. The conclusions and recommendations are excellent, and I think there is room for developing a model for getting to these kinds of conclusions. (Similarly, there has been a recent discussion
The Newest “Digital Native”
Here is my awesome new son (Benjamin) on his second day in the hospital. This picture is significant, first because my son is awesome, and second because he will grow up in a world where things like iPhones are commonplace. For me, the internet came into full swing in high school. For him, the formation
