Theology is one of the most important practices of the children of God.
By it we understand who God is, what it means to be his one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, and how to live out that reality. Without theology, we are a people of sacraments without reality, of rituals without significance, of traditions without meaning, of faith without understanding. In the pursuit of such understanding we may occasionally hear scholars explain the influences of certain philosophies or cultural differences that influence theology, and of course most people would say theology cannot occur in a vacuum. It doesn’t take much to convince people that an elderly woman in medieval rural Italy will have a different interpretation and understanding of scripture than a young man in 1950’s Japan. Theologians today are becoming increasingly aware of how history, culture, politics, and even gender influence people’s perception of theology.
In scripture, we’re given great reason to believe that our physical artifacts influence our beliefs, and the things we create are clearly important to God. In Genesis 10, we see that a man-made artifact, the Tower of Babel, was the product of the city, which is the pinnacle representation of a technological society. In Exodus 20, God prohibits the creation of carved images, and later he gives extremely specific commandments about the media–sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and textures–involved in tabernacle and temple worship. In the gospels we see God incarnate deeply affected by his physical environment and fully immersed in the culture into which he was born.
However, one of the influences conspicuously missing from this discussion is the influence of our physical artifacts, our technologies. It’s easy to imagine how such abstract ideas as culture and philosophy could influence our theology. But our technologies? Those belong to the physical realm. Surely our faith can’t be so fragile as to be influenced by something as arbitrary as a man-made artifact. But humans constantly manipulate our environments with little or no understanding of how the changes we make actually manipulate us in return. The physical artifacts that surround us create environments that change the way we perceive such things as faith, knowledge, communication, ourselves, each other, and God. The faster our technologies develop, the clearer it becomes that humans are deeply changed by the environments created by our technologies, and by extension, these technologies also change the theologies we construct. Our technologies hold great influence over how we perceive God.
That’s our true starting point for understanding technology: Jesus. The important part is not in how he used technology or was affected by it, but in the reality of the incarnation. Jesus is the mediator — the one who goes between — yet he is whole, present, and real. However, most of what we have created has served not to bring us further into wholeness but to fragment us spiritually and relationally. Our technology encourages isolation and distance instead of presence, and it creates worlds of unreality instead of drawing us further into our true reality in Jesus. We have mediated ourselves so that we reflect not the incarnation of Christ but the opposite. Much of our technology is at work creating a discarnate world.
“Discarnate” refers to interactions that are defined by a shattering of wholeness, a lack of physical presence, and a turning away from true reality. This seems abstract, but it occurs in every area of life. Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he is present with his sheep, yet our pastors appear to us through screens and pixels, no presence necessary. People say they feel “naked” without their phones, as if they could not be whole without the technology they depend on. Our social media encourages us to vicariously live the lives of others when we find our own lives too mundane or stressful to warrant our full awareness. Our technologies split our attention and affection, we no longer value physical presence in communication, and we often choose the fantasy of a digital environment over the reality of the physical environment.
The danger with discarnate technology is not in how “other” and foreign the technology is but rather in how close to reality it is. Through media we feel like we are a part of the lives of people from whom we are physically distant, but in reality we’re not. For example, I feel like I am more a part of the lives of my niece and nephew when I see pictures and videos of them sent to me on social media or through text or email. But the truth is, they have no experience of my presence during those moments because I am not physically present. I allowed social media to lull me into thinking that I was participating in the lives of others when I was really only observing them. My experience of social media felt so real that it was easy mistake for reality.
Discarnate technology does not just concern our phones, screens, and online profiles. It ultimately concerns our minds, our hearts, and our faith. Marshall McLuhan, one of the scholars we’ll be learning from, said,
“…a discarnate world, like the one we now live in, is a tremendous menace to an incarnate Church, and its theologians haven’t even deemed it worthwhile to examine the fact.”
What about a discarnate world is a menace to the incarnate church? Everything, since we worship Immanuel, “God With Us,” a God who is both trinitarian and incarnate. When the church’s understanding of the incarnation is correct but the church is immersed in discarnate media, can we truly say our theology fully informs our lives? Can the church’s theology be correct while its adaptation of technology is actually heretical? If our physical artifacts say something about us, surely they say something about the one whom we worship. If our technologies are inherently discarnate, then they must be speaking heresy about God.
Why haven’t theologians addressed this threat? Because most Christians are still under the impression that we are above the influence of our physical artifacts. We’re convinced that technology is neutral and what matters is how we use it. McLuhan comments on this tendency by stating,
“I am in the position of Louis Pasteur telling doctors that their greatest enemy is quite invisible, and quite unrecognized by them. Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot.”
Those words are bold, cutting, and exactly what the church needs to hear to understand the technology it uses in the name of Jesus.
May I suggest that it’s our theology itself that leads to this ‘technological idiocy’? Let’s look at Genesis 2:26 (ESV):
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Here is the basis of the Christian theology of humans ruling over creation. Based on this and many other scripture passages, we have developed the idea that humans have been given dominion over the entire physical realm. This idea is emphasized further using verses like Psalm 8:5–6 (ESV):
“Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.”
Perhaps our theology of authority over the earth has been interpreted as humanity rising above the influence of the physical realm. We often think that our technologies are simply ways in which we express our God-given dominion over our environments. And that is the hidden assumption in so much of our theological reflection: that our pursuit of the sacred is somehow immune to the physical world in which it is enacted. This is simply not true.
Jacque Ellul, another scholar we’ll learn from, addressed this misconception:
“Some will try to dissociate the spiritual situation from the material one, despising the material situation, denying that it has any meaning, declaring that it is neutral, and does not concern eternal life, and that we can turn our attention solely to ‘spiritual problems.’ Such people argue that nothing matters but “the interior life”: that is, that to be the “salt” or the “light” is a purely spiritual affirmation, which has no practical consequences. This is exactly what Jesus Christ calls hypocrisy. It means giving up any attempts to live out one’s religion in the world. It turns the living person of Jesus Christ into an abstraction. God became incarnate–it is not for us to undo his work. This dissociation of our life into two spheres–the one “spiritual,” where we can be “perfect,” and the other material and unimportant, where we behave like other people–is one of the reasons why the churches have so little influence on the world. This avoidance of responsibility for our faith is evidently a convenient solution for the intolerable dilemma in which we are placed by the society of our day. All we can say is: this is the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ wills for us, and of that which he came to do.”
Admitting that the physical artifacts around us influence us is not denying the transcendence of God over nature or our God-given roles as caretakers of the creation over which we have been given dominion. Rather, it is confessing the unity of the material and spiritual worlds and confessing that the objects we create have meaning and influence and power not just in how they are used but ultimately in what they are.
Dissociating the spiritual world from the physical world, as Ellul warned against, would lead us to believe that our technologies are neutral and that it’s how we use them that is good or evil. And if we believe our technologies are neutral, we won’t be looking for evidence that says otherwise. This leads us to being technological idiots as we adopt new technologies without truly understanding their influences on us. And, as one media scholar put it, this “adaptation without awareness is suicide.”
Most of the technology the church has adapted in the past hundred years has been unaware. McLuhan said,
“The ordinary evolutionary and developmental attitude towards innovation assumes that there is a technological imperative: ‘If it can be done, it has to be done’; so that the emergence of any new means must be introduced, for the creation of no matter what new ends, regardless of the consequences.”
He went on to say, “I merely suggest that these results come from a typical visual Western mentality as it approaches technological innovation. As soon as a new means of communication arises, we feel driven to adopt it without considering either the aim or the consequences.”
Ellul and McLuhan uncovered what is hidden to the technological idiot: technologies are not neutral. All technology has an agenda that it carries out regardless of human intentions. All technology creates winners and losers, and all technology creates unintended consequences that are larger than the original good it was intended to perform. There is always a cost.
Instead of the question, “Am I using this technology for good or evil?” the church must begin to ask questions like,
What is this technology besides what it says it is?
What technology can’t we live without and what does that say about us?
What technology rearranges our relationships?
What technology redefines our understanding of corporate and individual worship?
In asking such questions and searching for answers, we can come to no other conclusion than that our technologies drastically determine how we perceive each other and God.
The field of study that deals with such questions is called media ecology. Lance Strate, a co-founder of the Media Ecology Association, describes media ecology as,
“the study of media environments, the idea that technology and techniques, modes of information and codes of communication play a leading role in human affairs.”
The main scholars and contributors to media ecology have so much to offer Christians in understanding technology and theology. This field of study should not be equated with theology or be understood as a part of theology. Media ecology and theology are distinct fields of study, but media ecology helps us perceive the technologies and environments that shape our theology and practices. As such, it is crucial to have a solid understanding of media ecology to truly understand what influences our beliefs.
You may be thinking, “I’ve heard terms like literary criticism and communication studies and cultural anthropology before, but why haven’t I heard the term media ecology?” One reason is that it’s a relatively new phrase, and most of the studies done in media ecology are often done under the umbrella of communication studies. One reason this term has been used only in the past half a century is that only recently has the rate of technological change increased rapidly enough to enable us to perceive sociological patterns that were previously too subtle to notice.
Many of the important scholars within media ecology had a deep interest in religion. Some were devoted followers of Jesus from diverse theological traditions. Still, most of them would not consider themselves to be theologians. In fact, Marshall McLuhan, a media scholar and devout Catholic, was asked a question regarding the effects of technology on Christianity, to which he replied, “I would prefer that most questions of that sort be dealt with by theologians, but they do not seem to be interested.” So we turn to scholars in the field of media ecology not because they offer a better understanding of technology and the church than theologians do, but because they offer the only one.
Most media ecologists would make a distinction between their field of study and sociology; however, Daniel B. Clendenin writes about Ellul’s work as a form of sociology in the introduction to Ellul’s book The Presence of the Kingdom. Clendenin explained three ways sociology helps the church:
1. “It forces theology to be relevant by identifying the pertinent questions and strategic factors that shape human life at any given point.”
2. “It also forces theology to remain concrete…”
3. “Sociology helps the church community to examine itself in order to determine the degree to which it functions purely in a sociologically determined fashion without any Christian distinctives. In other words, it helps the church to avoid blatant conformity to the world.”
Sociology isn’t meant to be a secular replacement for the church; as we’ll see, it can be a tremendous help to our theology and practices. These same principles apply to media ecology whether or not one considers it part of sociology.
The words “ecology” and “environment” are used quite often in media studies, and this is because much of our understanding of technology comes from ecology. A simple way to understand media ecology is to picture a remote island with a stable ecosystem. Then imagine a new invasive species is introduced to the island. The ecosystem doesn’t just add in another animal to the food chain and continue on as normal; the entire ecosystem drastically changes. Other species may respond with a population boom or with total extinction. No species is unaffected, and every relationship changes. Now imagine a specific human society in a specific time and place as an ecosystem in equilibrium. Every new technology introduced is an invasive species that radically changes every relationship between humans and other humans, technology, and society. The introduction of a new technology changes everything, and nobody is left unaffected.
Media ecology is the study of these changes and their causes and meanings. Media ecology isn’t a science and media ecologists don’t have a method; they have a story to tell. According to scholar Neil Postman,
“…the purpose of media ecology is to tell stories about the consequences of technology; to tell how media environments create contexts that may change the way we think or organize our social life. Or make us better or worse, or smarter or dumber, or freer or more enslaved… so we are obliged, in the interest of a humane survival, to tell tales about what sort of paradise may be gained, and what sort lost. We will not have been the first to tell such tales. But unless our stories ring true, we may be the last.”
Media ecology is invaluable in its ability to help us tell stories about the consequences of technology within the church. From this perspective we can learn not only what sort of “paradise” we may gain or lose, but what reality we affirm or deny. The goal of this essay is to help church leaders awake to the reality of technological idiocy, understand the dangers of discarnate technology to theology, and begin to create a church environment that affirms the reality of incarnation. As we move toward this goal, we’ll obtain a clearer vision of how our perception of God is shaped and molded by the works of our own hands.