McLuhan, Ong, Ellul, and the other scholars we’ve heard from have shown us how deeply affected we are by the physical artifacts that surround us.
They’ve shown us how our technologies aren’t neutral but actually promote ideas of their own by the sense ratios and social effects they enact. Often, those ideas are inherently opposed to the nature of the God we worship. Now, if this were a theological premise that was inherently opposed to the nature of God, we would call it a heresy, reject it, and create something positive as a declaration of truth and orthodoxy against it. This is how many of our creeds came into existence — as a confession of truth in the face of heresy.
The concepts of orthodoxy and heresy are usually applied to the realm of our thoughts but are never considered as ways to view the physical realm. However, the physical objects we create and are surrounded by truly impose their own agendas on the people who use them, and those ideologies are often at odds with what we would consider orthodox Christianity. If the ideas promoted by our technologies are opposed to doctrines such as the incarnation, why don’t we call it what it is — heresy? Remember, there are no new heresies, only old ones in new disguises, so it will be helpful to study old heresies with technology in mind, especially Trinitarian and Christological heresies. In doing so we can consider if our technologies encourage us to reflect the incarnation or if they do not. We can consider if they encourage the unity we see reflected in the trinity or not. For example, in a conversation about churches using social media, media ecologist Dr. Read Schuchardt said,
“You cannot use a discarnational medium to draw people to an incarnational God.”
If we seriously consider this example, we must wrestle with the thought that the church is not only in a place of technological idiocy but also in a place of technological heresy.
Perhaps it is difficult for us to bring heresy into the physical realm because doing so would require us to make difficult choices. It would require us to act differently from the rest of the world. It’s also difficult because we cannot make blanket statements and proclaim all technology as anathema. As all of the media scholars we just studied would agree, we cannot jump to make judgment calls about technology. We can only seek to understand it. Of course, there must be a time in which we make decisions about the technologies we will and will not accept, but that cannot come before deep, prayerful study. So perhaps the idea of orthodoxy and heresy in regards to physical artifacts is helpful not as a rule by which to make decisions but as a start to asking questions that take us beyond the content into the medium, the true message.
Even if we do carefully study these technologies, they will not automatically tell us what to do. In order to make decisions about technology, we first have to know what it is that we actually want. We must decide what kind of people we want to be, what kind of lives we want to live, and ultimately, what it is that we truly value. Recall the three intertwined principles we’ve brought up a few different times in this essay: wholeness, presence, and reality.
Wholeness, as opposed to fragmentation: As we read earlier, McLuhan believed that each medium is an extension of man and that the more extensions man has, the more fragmented he is. Ellul agrees when he says that “it is impossible to fragment man’s personality without weakening it.” How can we define wholeness in terms of technology? Can wholeness be understood by our hearts, minds, and bodies resting in the same reality?
Presence, as opposed to isolation: This isn’t just referring to our physical presence, although that is an important part of it. This is also referring to our mental and emotional presence. Does our technology cause us to be holistically present in the lives of the people around us? Does it encourage spending time engaged with other people? If it encourages solitude, is it a healthy solitude or a dangerous isolation? Does our technology block us from being emotionally present?
Reality, as opposed to fantasy: Much of our technology makes it easy to create modes of existence that aren’t grounded in reality. Remember, technology is not dangerous because of its foreign nature but because it creates experiences and even entire worlds that are deceptively close to reality. Does our technology ground us further in the reality of our present, physical lives or does it encourage the creation of alternate modes of experiencing the world? Does our technology encourage true, face-to-face relationships with other people or does it mediate our interactions through a screen? Does it encourage healing or escapism when our physical reality is a painful place?
Unless the church addresses these issues within its own theology, it will never be able to help the world heal from fragmentation, isolation, and abstraction. We cannot fully be the presence of Christ in the world, the true church, if we ourselves collectively and individually are fragmented, isolated, and operating in a world that isn’t real. If we don’t seek understanding of the technology we use in our churches, we risk distorting the good news of Jesus with technology that denies the incarnation.
These questions we need to ask have complicated, nuanced, and difficult answers. They are questions whose value is in the conversation they bring up and not necessarily in our ability to answer them concretely. These are the questions we must ask about our phones, our computers, our cars, our clothing, our architecture, of every piece of technology we use. But first and foremost they must be asked about the technology in our churches, not for the sake of the promotion of an institution, but for the sake of the gospel. We must seek a deeper understanding of how our physical artifacts shape us and our beliefs so that we can better love God and our neighbors, so we can be wholly present in the reality in which God has placed us.
Media ecology can also be helpful to the church in surprising ways and timely ways. One of those areas is cross-cultural ministry and missions, as it brings to light the foundation of cultural differences in language and other technologies. Another way media ecology can help is in the area of interracial relationships within the church. One media ecologist explains that the visual arts within the church introduced a focus on race into theology that hadn’t existed before. When stories were told out loud, nobody cared too much what color Jesus’ skin was, but when paintings and other artwork showed up, Jesus became white and the devil was often portrayed as having dark skin. This representation of racism isn’t possible without the visual artwork in the church, and doubtless this affected people’s theological views about ethnicity. Perhaps the church can turn to media ecology for help understanding how different ethnic groups have different sense ratios that may make integrating churches difficult. If this field of study can help us understand the fragmentation and isolation in our theology and practices, perhaps it can also assist us in our pursuit of racial and ethnic reconciliation within the church.
These are just a few examples of ways that media ecology can serve the church. Just in these examples, it’s obvious that we need a much better understanding of technology if we are going to face these issues with anything more than technological idiocy and heresy. As we make decisions about the technologies we accept or reject, we must remember these words of Jacques Ellul:
“If these means are to be really ordered in the light of this eschatological event, they must cease to be limitless in their demands, and subject to no authority higher than themselves. They must be judged, accepted, or rejected. It is not their intrinsic virtue, their quality as means, that counts; it is their eschatological content, their faculty of being integrated under the lordship of Jesus Christ. They are not good or bad, they are called to enter into the Kingdom of Love, and they are able either to enter it or not.”
May we as the church choose to adopt only technologies that are able to enter the kingdom of love as we pursue God in wholeness, presence, and reality.