TECHNOLOGY AND CHRISTIAN FAITH

Much, perhaps too much, debate in the past centered on the uneasy relationship between science and faith. But today I am seeing more attention paid to the effect new technologies have had on Christian doctrine and practice. For example, due to a “happy accident” recently I came across two articles I had clipped out of back-to-back issues of CT magazine. And I realized that there was a definite pattern uniting the two essays. One was by Daniel G. Hummel titled “When Concordances Broke Context” and the other was “Truth, Love & Social Media” by John Koessler. The first of these articles dealt with the impact of new technology on Christian doctrine while the second explained the dangers to our Christian life and witness posed by another technology.

Marshall McLuhan is best known for his statement “The Medium is the Message.” We tend to think of modern forms of media when we hear this statement, but it also applies to even simple tools including Bible concordances and chain references such as found in the margins of some Bibles. Hummel discusses the history behind such innovations and how their popularity in the 18^th and 19^th century began to shape Christian doctrinal views, especially in America through the publication of The Scofield Reference Bible when coupled with the Bible Reading Method in vogue at the time.

Without going through all the details, Hummel demonstrates how the unique (and some would say borderline heretical) doctrinal ideas of John Darby became disseminated far beyond the confines of his small Exclusive Brethren denomination until they became for a long while the predominant way of thinking in conservative Christian churches in America. And it is still quite popular today in a large number of independent conservative congregations.

There were several glaring problems with Darby's method of Bible reading which were only multiplied when new “technologies” such as exhaustive concordances became readily available for the average reader to utilize. The “literal” method he propounded consisted in following key words throughout the Old and New Testament while assuming, quite erroneously, that the words meant basically the same in all of them, whatever their immediate context happened to be as well as probably referring to the same or similar idea or event. But in addition, Darby insisted on “rightly dividing” certain verses not only in regard to the appropriate dispensation to which they referred (thus, Dispensationalism became the general term by which his theological system become known) but also as to whether there was an “earthly” or “heavenly” meaning to the verse.

To say that such a “scientific” methodology would lead to a strictly literal understanding of the biblical text is far more than a mere exaggeration. But because the method could be quite easily practiced by anyone who had access to a concordance or chain-reference Bible, it caught on like wildfire with the American public who now felt that they could arrive at the truth of Scripture just as easily as trained Bible scholars. It certainly appealed to our native feelings of equality and democracy.

“That way of thinking about the Bible – as a hyperlinked text” might seem appealing, but “What insights that journey would produce...would be entirely dependent on the path one chose to take...it should be less compelling to Christians committed to the unity and coherence of Scripture.” (Hummel)

Now none of the above is to demean the value of an exhaustive concordance for personal Bible study. But it must be coupled with a healthy amount of skepticism regarding how far one can go with it as one's only tool and without adequate training in all that goes into truly informed exegesis of a passage of Scripture.

As Hummel points out, the result of such group or individual Bible studies “could be shaped by the biblical context and narrative, but it was just as often conditioned by readers' personal circumstances and their particular cultural assumptions.” That fact has probably always been true, but the difference came in when one was told, as I have heard from the pulpit, that such a method of Bible study was the “perfect” one.

Moving on to the more modern technologies associated with the rise of social media at the present time, Koessler warns us of the various ways this phenomenon can adversely affect out interactions with fellow believers and our Christian witness to others.

He first points to the similarity between posting something on-line and Paul's practice of writing long letters to various congregations throughout the Roman world. But on the other hand, there are definite differences in the two practices.

In the first place, Paul had visited, and even founded, most of these fledgling groups of believers and knew many of them quite well. By contrast, it is now possible to interact with people around the world with whom one has never personally seen and never will meet. That factor of anonymity alone makes it much more tempting for us to lash out on-line at those with whom we disagree, sometimes in quite unchristian ways. And even if that doesn't happen, it is without a doubt harder to discuss in a reasonable manner a controversial item without doing it face-to-face or having first established a personal relationship with others. Here are some random quotes from Koessler's article:

“Many of our online debates are foolish and stupid. There aim is not to persuade or facilitate understanding so much as to provoke.” It is easy to do so in the comfort of our own house and not having to look at any possible distress we might be causing to the other party.

“When we are hospitable in conversation, even on-line, we take responsibility for the safety and well-being of the welcomed guest.” We would certainly do so if that person was a guest in our house.

“Paul indicates we need to watch our tone. Certainly, there is a place for passion and even anger. But the way we speak the truth is important...2 Timothy 2:24.” And unfortunately, tone is sometimes hard to gauge in a conversation without having recourse to a person's body language to supplement their actual words.

There is a final difference between the situation of the church in Paul's time and in our own time. Then, there was really nowhere for a Christian to go to in town if he or she had a major disagreement with others in the congregation. Thus, it was a necessity to work out differences in understanding within the church body. Today, if one has even a minor point of disagreement with a fellow church member, all he has to do is go a few miles down the street to find another congregation with which to worship.

We had such a person in our own church a few years ago who left in a huff when the church leadership did something he didn't personally agree with, even though we tried to reason with him. We found out this was the third or fourth congregation in town he had left in the last several years.

Such a phenomenon is multiplied with the advent of the Internet. Whether one is worshiping remotely via YouTube or engaging in an on-line debate, it now only takes the flick of a wrist to change churches or block someone. It is in this manner that we can easily confine ourselves to our comfortable information silos and never be challenged by those who have differing opinions. And similarly, it is in that same manner that we will cease to grow spiritually.