Faith and Technology: What is the point of technology?

Here in North America, it really seems that we have this desire to have the newest and the latest thing in technology.  When the iPhone was introduced, it seemed like many people rushed out to get it.  Same thing with the iPad.  Now there are TVs with internet capability, and I find myself wanting to go out and get one. 

In part, I think that this is the way that God made us.  I really don't believe that the world would have simply remained static had Adam and Eve not fallen into sin.  Since God is a creative God, and He told His creation to continue that creativeness, I believe that we humans would have continued to be creative when it came to this world.  Would that mean that we would have the same things?  Perhaps not.  But I do believe that we would have continued to demonstrate that creativeness.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post.  What is the point of technology?  Is technology simply a continuation of the creativeness that God has put in us?  Or, now that we live in a fallen, sinful world, is the point of technology to overcome our need for God?  For example, do we continue to seek advances in medicine because we want to overcome death and illness, in a way, overcoming our need for God?  If so, we're not doing so hot at that.  Or, is technological advancement both a reflection of the creativeness that God has put in us, but a trait that is, sadly, tainted by sin and therefore, in some ways, both self-serving and a demonstration of our creativeness?

How we answer these kind of questions has a great deal of impact on faith matters.  If technology is an outflow of our God-given creativeness, then we will tend to focus on the benefits, even though they are tainted by our sinfulness.  If technology is a way to declare that we have no need of God, then suddenly nothing is off-limits.  I would be greatly interested to know how many people think about this.

Faith and Technology: So what exactly is "Technology"?

In one of my posts last week, I mentioned the invention of the printing press, and how it was a technological innovation that had some far-reaching impacts in our world.  Yet, if you were to compare some of the technological innovations today with the invention of the printing press, you'd probably have a handful of geeks laughing at you.  After all, in today's world, books are old school.  If you don't get your publications via computer or some other electronic version, you seem to be way behind.

Which brings me to an interesting question.  What exactly constitutes our idea of technology?  If a beekeeper designs a new kind of box in which bees make more honey, has that person had a technological innovation?  Or maybe I should ask it in this way.  Do we only associate technology with electricity in our day and age?  If something is invented that increases our abilities to accomplish something, but it doesn't involve electricity, is that really considered a technological innovation?

I realize that, in some circles, asking that kind of question may be along the lines of questioning if the Bible really is the Word of God.  It may seem rather blasphemous.  After all, many of us have now lived in a world with electricity and electronics so long that life without them seems foreign.  It's hard to believe that so many of these things have only come out in the last generation or so.  To think of a room lit only by candles and not by the latest LED, powersaving lightbulbs seems so Middle Ages. 

I would suggest that how we define technology will have some fairly significant impact on our faith life, as well.  If we consider that the development of better ways of understanding communication is a technological innovation, that will impact our belief in the Holy Spirit and His working through God's Word.  If we consider the invention of the printing press as a technological innovation, we probably find the thought of everyone having access to God's Word as a good thing.  If we think that technology and technological innovation goes beyond mere electronic gizmos, it will inevitably have an impact on our faith life in some form or another.

I would actually be interested to know if, first of all, you have ever given any thought as to what constitutes technology, and then, secondly, have you wondered how technology impacts your faith life?  Remember, it can have either good or bad impact upon you, and I am curious to see how you think about such things.

Faith and Technology: The Good With The Bad

Yesterday, I pointed out how Martin Luther made use of the new technology of the printing press in order to let people know more about God, about the Bible, and how to teach the basics of the faith in people's houses.  He wrote a great many essays, letters, and treatises on matters of faith, as well as small books (called catechisms) which were widely distributed to households throughout Germany, and are still widely used in Lutheran congregations still today.

Making use of a new technology to do something like sharing the message of good news through Jesus is a good thing.  In Luther's day, people could now read the Bible on their own rather than just hearing small portions of it every so often.  They could have small booklets to help learn more about their faith, and the important parts of that faith to teach their children.  All good uses of technology.

However, this same technology could also be used for less than desirable purposes.  If you wander into most bookstores these days, not only will you find sections like the kids section and the Christian section, but you can also find those shelves with books that may, on occasion, need to be wrapped in plastic to keep prying eyes from looking.  The same technology that could be used for good can also be used for less than desirable purposes.

Is this the fault of the technology?  No.  In and of itself, the technology is not good or bad.  Books are neither inherently good or bad.  However, the use of the technology can be bent to purposes that may not necessarily be for good.  That will be a theme that you may notice as we go through this series on faith and technology.

In a way, this also relates to our Christian faith.  One of the things that God reveals about us as humans is that we have a sinful nature.  All of us have it, and it leads us to do things that are not necessarily for the good of ourselves and others.  When we add technology to that sinful nature, we see that the opportunity to bend that same technology to sinful uses is a possibility, and one that crops up very frequently.

This means that we recognize the potential for good in technology, but we also don't fool ourselves to its potential to be put to bad or evil uses.  Books that grow us in our faith or that show us better ways of living together in peace are good.  Books that focus on sinful actions and activities, and make these seem common or acceptable, are not good.  Both make use of the technology, and that means that we must also use wisdom when it comes to the use of technology and matters of our faith.

Faith and Technology: A Time of Revolution

For this post, I'm actually thinking back about 500 years.  The printing press had been invented, and some people were just starting to realize the impact that it could have on society.  In particular, a man by the name of Martin Luther, who happened to be a monk, seemed to realize that this new technology had some far-reaching impact when it came to the Christian faith.

Let me say quickly that I'm not here to reacquaint you with the time of the Reformation.  Many, many books have been written about that time and its impact on the world.  Instead, I want to focus on how technology suddenly impacted the Christian faith. 

Martin Luther wrote a great many things.  Some were short letters, others were books that explained parts of the Bible.  Still others were letters to a great many people, explaining what the Bible said about their life, their faith, and how they lived.  Many of these have been compiled into books, and you can probably find a few of them at any local library near you.

Here is where a technological innovation had an impact on faith.  It became much easier to create books.  Rather than having to painstakingly write out each character if you wanted to reproduce a book, the printing press made this much easier.  You could arrange the letters, dip it in ink, and suddenly you had a whole page printed out.  Even better, you could make multiple copies of the same page in a much shorter time than writing out that same page over and over again.

Martin Luther used this technological innovation to his advantage.  Describing just one instance, he had traveled across Germany and noticed that many children and parents did not know the basics of the Christian faith.  So he went to work to create a small booklet on the basics, which has come to be known as Luther's Small Catechism.  Easily reproduced, a copy could be given to each household so that every family could learn the basics of the faith.

This was a daring use of technological innovation, even back in the early 1500s.  Luther published a great number of works through the printing press.  He made use of it to ensure that families could know the basics of their faith.  He also translated the whole Bible into German and then began to pass them out to the people of Germany.  Now the people no longer had to rely only upon the word of their local priest or pastor, but could actually read God's Word at home!

In our day and age, trying to imagine a time with very few books is practically impossible.  We have bookstores all over the place, and books are pretty cheap, too.  Just imagine, though, if the only time you ever heard the Bible was when you attended worship at your local church, and really, the only person who could read was the priest/pastor.  Even though we hardly think of the development of the printing press as a technological innovation, it was one that has truly had a tremendous impact upon the Christian faith.

Faith and Technology: My 200th Post

Today marks a great day for me.  I started this blog up about 10 or 11 months ago, with the goal of trying to blog about 5-6 times a week.  For the most part, I've been able to do that, though there have been trips and vacations and other such things that have gotten in the way on occasion.  So here it is today: my 200th post.

What is amazing to me is how technology has made things like this possible.  I still remember back to my early days in college, when I first received a free AOL disc in the mail and was invited to join the online community.  I remember the sound of my computer dialing up its modem to reach into this thing called the "internet".  I remember having the ability to talk to people in chat rooms and in IMs, and how cool I thought it was at the time.

Technology certainly has made many things more possible than they were before.  I almost shudder at times to think about where things will be in 10 years or 20 years.  The one truth concerning technology is that it is always changing.  So it seems that we must be ready to change as our gadgets and gizmos change almost at the speed of light.

There has been one really good thing about this explosion of technology that I have observed.  It is that we are able to be in touch with our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus that much easier.  I have websites that I go to in order to look up bible verses with specific words in them.  I have sites that I go to in order to read up on some of the latest thoughts of theologians.  Just a few minutes ago, I downloaded and prepared our worship service's music for tonight, and will have someone pushing play on the computer to deliver the organ music that we will be singing to.  Technology makes it possible to do so many different things that can serve our Lord Jesus and our faith life.

I am thankful for technology.  Yes, I realize that it has its downsides, and we will talk about those in some of the upcoming posts.  As with all things, when technology is put to good use in the right hands, it can be a tremendous blessing.  When in the wrong hands, and with the wrong intents, it can cause severe damage to our society.

My hope is that I always seek to make the good, positive use of technology as it continues to advance forward.

Faith and Technology: A Series

It's that time of year when TV commercials and internet ads are showing us all the new glitzy packages that we can buy for each other for Christmas.  Smart phones, smart TVs, new computers, electric cars, and all sorts of other kind of things are out there for our commercial consumption.  All you have to do is shell out the money, and the most up to date technology can be yours.

In a sense, recent Christmas seasons have seemed to be all about technology.  Who needs Jesus when you can watch commercials with a kid buying stock on an iPhone?  Or who needs to go to worship when you can download the most recent movies right onto your TV?  Why pray when you can text?  Technology seems to slowly but surely taking over the Christmas season.

Can technology and our faith life coexist?  Does technological advancement mean that faith becomes an outdated thing to be cast aside as irrelevant and inconsequential?  If you regularly read this blog, you probably know that I will say that it is possible for the two to be compatible.  So we'll take time this Advent and Christmas season to look a little bit at faith and technology, and how they work together, as well as the many dangers that technology introduces.  Please feel free to chime in, especially since some of the topics will probably be somewhat controversial.

Are Angels Benevolent and Peaceful?

Throughout this week, I've been taking a look at some of the typical thoughts we humans tend to have about angels, and am comparing them to what the Bible reveals to us about angels.  Hopefully by this point, you've started to see that the image of angels that we have created tends to be quite different from what the Bible tells us angels are like.

So today I want to tackle the next one.  We have this idea that angels are invisibly watching out for us, turning away danger, and making sure that we don't stub our toes or walk into doors, or things of that sort.  We tend to think that angels are looking out for our good, and therefore, they would never do anything mean, or act in a way that would confuse us as to their good intentions.

Let's face it, it is nice to think that we have these invisible beings watching over us and protecting us from life's little accidents.  We'd like to think that they have our good in mind at all times, and that their definition of good matches up with what we think is good.  However, when we look at what the Bible tells us about angels, we may have these thoughts shaken up a bit.

In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, in Genesis, we have two angels that are sent to get Lot and his family out of the city before its destruction.  They basically tell Lot that he needs to get out because they are about to destroy the city because of its wickedness.  (If you question the city's wickedness, you can read the story in Genesis 19.)  Of course, the results are fairly well-known, as Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by fire from heaven.

In the book of Exodus, we have God telling Moses to have the people of Israel slaughter a sheep and to paint its blood over their doorposts.  That way, the angel of death would "pass over" their houses, and in all the rest, anyone who was the firstborn would be put to death.  This sounds all great and nice if you are an Israelite, but sounds rather strange to us if we don't happen to have lamb's blood on our doors.

We have several other stories like this in the Bible.  In fact, it is rare that we hear of an angel behaving in a way that we humans would call "nice and gentle".  I've mentioned in a previous post that the word angel is merely the word for messenger, in both Hebrew and Greek.  Usually, when God sends His messengers, He is sending them to warn people to give up their bad ways (sinful ways) and turn back to God.  The idea of that is that there is a consequence should the people not change, and it is usually the angel(s) who carry it out.

Maybe that's something we should keep in mind when we think about angels.  If one just happens to show up and give us a message from God, it likely means that either we or the people around us have a need to change.  If we fail to heed God's message, then we shouldn't expect that the angel (who, by the way, does only what God tells it to do) to simply act benevolently on our behalf.  We should expect that it will do what God has told it to do, and so we should take heart any message that we might hear.

Those Cute Little Angels

You see them in kid's programs.  Kids dressed up with cardboard wings, white robes, and some kind of golden halo sitting on top of their head.  You see them in some movies, perhaps acting strange and quirky, but overall pretty friendly and nice.  We hear talk of guardian angels, who stand by night and day to protect us from harm and danger, and maybe even to guide us at certain times in life.

Overall, our picture of angels are of these cute angels who may or may not appear, and who rarely show themselves, but direct us when needed and turn harm and danger away from us.  But is this really the picture of angels that the Bible paints for us?

Almost without fail, when we have a record of an angel appearing to deliver his message, the initial reaction of the person to whom he is appearing is that of fear.  That is why the first response of an angel typically is "Do not be afraid."  Now, I have to admit that the Bible doesn't tell us that this is because of their appearance, or if they just suddenly appear out of nowhere, or anything like that.  However, from the many times when we see angels appearing and having to tell people not to be afraid, it seems that there is just something frightening and awesome about their appearance.

On top of that, we're also told that angels can have different appearances.  If you read through Isaiah 6, you come across these angels called seraphim.  These are literally angels of fire.  They have six wings and fly around the throne of God.  I don't know about you, but if an angel appeared to me and looked like it was burning and had six wings, I'd be pretty frightened.

The one thing that we know about angels is that they are spiritual creatures, which means that, when they show themselves, they are doing something that doesn't completely fit with what God created them to be.  So it would make sense that they would appear somewhat strange to us.  And then, that they are sent by God, and are His holy messengers, brings us another level of fear.  These are, after all, beings who are perfect, and who live in God's presence.  They know God face to face, unlike us.

So enjoy the shows with these pictures of cute angels.  But just remember that the reality is probably a lot more frightening that we could ever imagine.

An Angel with a Message

Yesterday, I introduced this brief look into angels.  Angels played a rather significant role in announcing the conception and birth of Jesus, and are familiar figures this time of year.  So many children's programs have angels walking around with their little white wings, white robes, and golden halos, and over the years, so much has been made about angels.  But how much of that is accurate from the Bible?  That's what we're looking at.

Yesterday, I shared that the word angel is the word for "messenger" in both Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible.  In some instances, this word is used to describe a visitor who brings a message from God.  When we read through the story of Jesus in Luke chapters 1 and 2, we see several angelic beings who bring very specific messages to God's people.  In an Old Testament story, in Judges chapter 6, we have Gideon having an encounter with an angel, who brings a message specifically for him. 

That is the thing with angels: they appear when a message needs to be delivered from God to His people.  We find this with the resurrection of Jesus, where the angels are found at the tomb to let the women know that Jesus had risen from the dead.  In fact, in almost every occasion where an angel makes an appearance in the Bible, some kind of message is being sent from God to the person to whom the angel appears.

As a last thought, over the years I have heard stories of angels appearing to people and doing things in their lives.  While I will acknowledge that God can send His angels to do things other than deliver messages (and for that reason will not tell someone flat out that angels don't do that), I also try to stress that when angels appear, they usually are fairly frightening, and usually have a message to deliver.  While God can choose to work outside of those criteria, it would seem rather unusual for Him to do so.  So my word of caution is usually along the lines of: it may be what it seems to be, but remember that God has given us something that is more sure than visions of angels, and that is the word which tells us of what God wants and desires of us and for us in the Bible.

Angel-ic Thoughts

Wings.  Halos.  Smiling faces that shine.  Mysterious beings that reach out to stop danger in its tracks as it approaches you.  Biblical characters that don't seem to make too many personal appearances.  These are just a few of the thoughts that I know are out there concerning angels.

So what exactly are these beings called "angels"?  Well, maybe a few quick facts about them are in order.

1. The word "angel" finds its root in the Greek word angelos.  This word simply means messenger.  There is a corresponding word in Hebrew, and it also means messenger.  
2. Angels exist to do God's bidding, not that of mere humans.  For example, prior to the conquest of one of the cities of the holy promised land, Joshua sees one of these angels, who is dressed in battle gear.  Joshua drops down and asks him whose side he is on.  The angel's answer is that he is on no side, but is sent to do the Lord's bidding.
3. Angels seem to have frightening appearances.  Almost every time we come across an angel in the Bible, practically the first words out of their mouths are something like, "Do not be afraid."  
4. Angels tend to bring messages from God to specific people.  We have angels talking to people like Joshua, Mary, Joseph, Zechariah, and shepherds in a field.  In each of these instances, the angel has a specific message for the person/people and instructions from the Lord.

Are any of these new to you?  Have you given a lot of consideration to what angels are and what they do?  Since angels play an important role in the announcement of Jesus, and in His birth, we'll take a look at angels throughout this week.  Be ready to have some of your thoughts on angels challenged by what the Bible really says about them.

Candles: An Advent Tradition

Lots of people like candles.  These days, you can get candles of all shapes, sizes, and scents.  While in the past candles were used for light, these days candles are used for so many other reasons than to provide light.  In the time before electricity, the only real means of lighting a house after the sun had set was to use candles.

Candles have also played a fairly major role in the Christian church.  Many of the large cathedrals and churches in Europe were built prior to electric light, and so candles were used to light the sanctuary when people would gather for worship.  You could always know when a time of worship was being observed by the light filtering through the windows, cast from the many candles throughout the building.

As the church celebrates the season of Advent, we also make use of candles.  A traditional part of the season of Advent is the Advent wreath, in which four candles are placed around the outside, with a fifth candle at the middle of the wreath.  Three of the outer candles are purple, and one is pink.  The center candle is white.  While there are many explanations as to what the four candles symbolize, as well as their colors, the matter of importance for us is that the prepare us for the time when we light the central candle.

Why is the central candle so important?  In the Advent wreath, this candle is known as the Christ candle.  It is lit on the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus.  The other four candles are all in preparation for the time when we light the white central candle.  Just like the season of Advent is a time of seeing God's preparations for the birth of Jesus, the four other candles prepare us for our yearly celebration of Jesus' birth, which began His journey to the cross and the open tomb.

Starting the first week, one purple candle is lit.  The second week, an additional purple candle is lit.  On the third week, the two purple candles are lit along with the pink candle.  The fourth week, all four exterior candles are lit.  And then, on that holy day of Christmas, the entire wreath is lit up as the Christ candle shines its light, symbolic of Jesus, who is the light of the world.

If you don't already mark the season of Advent with an Advent wreath, maybe it's time to start seeing how God prepares us for our yearly celebration of Jesus' birth.  I encourage you to either buy an Advent wreath, or make your own.