Simple Living Isn’t Always

The New York Times reports on the failure of technology to save education. Continue Reading »

“There is a limit to the promise of new technology, and that it cannot be a substitute for human values.”–Neil Postman

It may be that our romance with technology has finally run its course. Our expectation that technological advances will contribute to or bring about a supremely humane way of life has suffered blow after blow as technology has overpromised and underdelivered, dehumanizing us and our way of life as often as not.

Case in point: this story about a couple now charged with neglecting their children. It’s a stunning reminder of the dark side of technology. Continue Reading »

Over at the Out of Ur blog (from Leadership Journal), a pastor named Shane Hipps has been taking aim at the technological ecstasy that characterizes many churches these days. In addition to the usual suspects: PowerPoint, video projectors, the light-and-sound show that we call modern worship, Hipps points the finger at the latest craze: multi-site churches. Now, for me, the jury’s still out. I have friends who attended a satellite church and loved every minute of it. But I think it’s dialogue we need to engage in, not just tune out because it’s a Luddite reaction to progress.

Some pastors feel they can’t be relevant without a projector in the ceiling, PowerPoint notes onscreen, and video. As a result, they’re scrambling to do it, hoping to silence the death rattle in their churches. They start by doing what they’re already doing, only technologically. Words on an overhead become PowerPoint slides; pew Bibles give way to verses onscreen; bulletin sermon outlines get electronified too. As a result, many of us show up at church and watch the show.

Hipps has written a book about this stuff (foreword by emerging personality Brian McLaren), and the site proves he’s no technophobe. But he’s taken the philosophy of the late Marshall McLuhan (and at least implicit nods to Neil Postman) and applied some of its questions to the rising tide of technology in the church.

It’s some good stuff, and like I said, I’ve not completely digested it yet. But check it out.