Posted 154 days ago
GOD's Kingdom and the Coming Immersive Web
by Jason Fowler
Technology, and particularly the Web, have brought tremendous changes to our world. As each decade rolls on it seems that these changes have greater effect- almost exponentially. The 
pace of change is at blinding speed. In the next ten years, as the virtual, digital realm increasingly comes to bear on our lives, how will our faith and our pursuit of GOD’s kingdom be impacted (augmented or impeded or…)? Can we approach these coming changes with wisdom and prayer for the sake of emerging generations and our own spiritual integrity?
I remember using email for the first time. Back then I didn’t even know what the Web looked like. Our Internet access was slower than mud and only connected online when sending emails. Today I use dozens of social networks and hundreds of tools and services online. I stream feature-length movies to my laptop while downloading music and other files (legally of course). I connect with family, friends, clients and new contacts who are all over the world with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, NING… I write blog posts on the porch and ‘live tweet’ at seminars thanks to WIFI. I video chat with my dad who lives four hours away so he can see my kids, and if I was savvy enough, I could always be connected to everyone at all times with a smartphone at my side. I do this all from a small farm by the mountains in rural Virginia thanks to high speed Internet access. But what are the implications of this hyper-connectedness?
I see the Web much like a great river that is ever-increasingly rising past its determined banks. The landscape is reshaped as it spills over into more aspects of our lives. Some of us are adapting and jumping in, learning to swim like fish. Some of us are watching the raging river flow by as we stand on the shrinking shore. And others of us are riding on top of the rapids, wondering how to get out or find a quiet spot to take a break. Wherever you are in your use of the Web, one thing is certain- the digital realm is only expanding.
In 1999 Tim Berners-Lee, the father and inventor of the World Wide Web, said in his book ‘Weaving the Web’:
bq.“I have a dream for the Web…and it has two parts. In the first part, the Web becomes a much more powerful means of collaboration between people. I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create…In the second part of the dream, collaborations extend to computers. Machines become capable of analyzing all the data on the Web…our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines, leaving humans to provide the inspiration and intuition.” [p.157-158]
This coming immersion of our lives in the Web is partially already here. For most of us we can’t imagine life unplugged. But as the Web matures, deeper and wider dimensions will emerge. The Internet as we know it today (dubbed Web 2.0) has given us all the ability to create and communicate online with incredible speed and reach. We collaborate in the digital realm in ways not possible even a few years ago. Tim Berners-Lee’s dream is beginning to take shape and with Web 3.0 (what is Web 3.0 you ask?) we will truly be living in an all-encompassing grid of communication (a dream come true for some and a nightmare for others). Gutenberg’s printing press doesn’t hold a candle to the revolution we find ourselves in right now. Are you ready? Let’s touch on a few characteristics of this technological flood and how it will continue to change our lives:
- Omnipresent: As we race towards a massive convergence of technologies and media platforms, the Web will expand into all realms of communication and interaction. This great convergence is bringing together the digital realm with: television (now all digital), mobile devices, gaming consoles, telecommunications, domestic appliances, automobiles and other forms of transportation, retail (through tracking technologies like RFID), money, medical records …I could go on. And for many of these developments we are either partially using them already or in the next five to ten years we will probably see them implemented fully in some form.
- Real-Time: As a consequence of always being connected to the Web, information is traveling at the speed of life. News stories break live, not just from CNN, but through social media tools via cell phones. With the rise of mobile devices connected to the Internet (in the billions, I hear) a whole new cultural phenomenon has been born.
- Intelligent: Through coming semantic standards and digital protocols we will see an integrated system of data that is beyond what the Web is today. Also with our use of GPS, geolocation, open IDs, social networking media, and other activities our personal information trail will go where we go. Your digital footprint may not be singularly accessed in one seamless identity now, but that is not a far-fetched possibility for the coming days. You can fear it, resist it or enjoy its benefits. The integration of our day-to-day activities with our digital presence seems inevitable.
As I have been thinking about the possible ways communities of faith can leverage the tools of this revolution – I had to pause. As much as I wanted to lay out twelve ways we could embody GOD’s kingdom of shalom through these technologies- maybe serve the poor with our app-laden smartphones somehow, or create apostolic leadership networks with Facebook or any number of other ways (which I believe we can and could and sometimes should do)- I began thinking maybe a different approach to the digital realm is in order. Instead of asking how we can leverage these tools, is it possible that we should be questioning the level of devotion we have to this digital immersion we’ve created? I’m not advocating we become Luddites (people who reject technology altogether) but maybe, just maybe, we should ask ourselves if Tim Berners-Lee’s dream of a technological Utopia is in competition with the kingdom of GOD.
There are many of you out there who are using technology and the Web to accomplish incredible ways of loving and serving the world- both in the Church and beyond – but is it technology or the power of the Holy Spirit that spreads the kingdom of GOD? Where the Web has entangled our souls, we must realign ourselves. Where these emerging trends beckon us to become faithful citizens of a digital empire, we must decline. Let’s set our hands to work building GOD’s realm of influence-that like the Web is a virtual space of sorts- which one day will make all things new in a way that our inventions never could. Let’s embody His kingdom in purposeful community, in daily rhythms of work and prayer and time together- in radical hospitality and love. And if technology aids us in our endeavors, let it have its place. But again I ask: which kingdom are we devoted to?
In the end it’s not a matter of external actions but of the secret depths of who we are. Are we mastering our tools or are our tools mastering us? Are we humanizing technology or is it dehumanizing us? As progress and technology march on, we as followers of Jesus will have immense opportunities to embrace and profound challenges to overcome. There is no doubt in my mind that some day- if it is not already here- there will be a church service somewhere that calls people to the altar to lay their smartphones and netbooks down in repentance. There will be families hiking together deep into the forest for some analog time and quiet listening to the Creator. There will be a new movement of monasteries that spring up in rural countrysides inviting any who would come for a rest from the digital flood. There will be a Sunday school class that after reading their Bibles together will study Neil Postman and Jacques Ellul.
- As technology and the Web have become more continually present in your life, have you had to rethink your use of it (especially in the context of your Christian faith)?
- In what ways has having access to the Web improved your life? In what ways has it diminished it?
- What digital changes do you see coming that we should be excited about or wary of?
- How can we teach emerging generations to master digital tools without being mastered by those tools?
- Are you looking forward to the next phases of the Web with anticipation, concern, (insert your emotion here)…?
- How are digital technology and the Web changing the Church at large?
- How is it changing the way you live out your Christian faith?
We’d love to hear your thoughts!
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Reader Comments
Magdalena, I can see I’m in good company wrestling with all these issues as well. I like what you said: “We need real people in our lives…we are not meant to be alone, living digitally.”
The problem I think is many of us for one reason or another don’t have deep and heartfelt connections with folks around us so we turn to the digital realm to fill the void.
Another issue, especially for those of us devoted to following JESUS, is the societal trend towards ‘dis-incarnation’. JESUS was GOD incarnate – he localized Himself in space and time and within a particular culture and with specific people- but Modern and Post-Modern culture seems to be calling us not to follow JESUS in being people of incarnation- but to digitize, virtualize, become avatars of a self-made world.
We have many years of heated debate over tractors and horses, Intel implants or old-fashioned un-augmented braincells, etc… but right now I especially mourn how we’ve replaced technology for community in many ways.
I have many more thoughts- but I guess that’s what blogging is for :)
-shalom!
Jason Fowler » 153 days ago » Link
This week, for the first time, I hesitated to post something on my Facebook page. I chose not to post my comment and link. Why? Because I waffled about whether all my “friends” in the “digital social network” would understand the reasoning behind the post.
If I were talking face-to-face, I would not have hesitated a moment to make my point. A point delivered in the context of a relationship. A mallable point, subject to the give and take of conversation. (Remember Conversation 1.0?)
A Facebook post is frozen in time. Isolated from community (and context). Open to misrepresentation.
Looks like I just took my first step on the slippery slope of political correctness!
Daniel Trautmann » 152 days ago » Link
I was about to write something like this at my blog, because it’s on my heart right now. We went from no technology to laptop internet access and digital tv. I haven’t activated the cell phone, which is three years old, and probably a dinosaur. And we won’t be here forever; this is a stop along the way.
But I am part of a church that requires the use of technology for communication. I will be required, once employed again, to have a landline telephone, a cellphone, and a computer with internet. I do not necessarily want these things.
I use the internet primarily for ministry (i.e. the blog and other Christian contacts) and for “writing” to my family. The breakdown is that if one of us has no computer access, the rest lose touch. No one writes paper letters anymore, as if we have forgotten how. And as some may realize, the postal service is moving backwards when it comes to delivery of personal matter. Isolation is the result if we give up entirely on digital technology.
My husband and I were having a useless little argument today about technology. Tractor or workhorses? (We are not on a farm and therefore quite a useless argument.) I vote for horses. He wants a tractor. How far back do I think we need to go?
I am looking for an integrity of Spirit, a place and a way faithful to the tradition before us. I am looking for a community of faith, with human contact and human voices and hands. It’s all well and good to tell my sisters that I am indeed working on a quilt, a blanket on the loom, or the delivery of lambs, but what happens when I need a pair of hands to stretch the quilt on the rack, or to tie on a web, or to hold the ewe while I deliver the newborn? Why do I not have a neighbour to help dig out the old muscari bulbs to make room for tomatoes? Why I am blessed with extra bread after I have baked, and no one to share the blessing?
Digital communities, while supportive and encouraging, cannot be the hands we need to help us through life. Churches and Christian communities cannot be just Sunday morning, hymn sharing clubs. We need real people in our lives, because we are still of the earth. We are not meant to be alone, living digitally.
Magdalena » 153 days ago » Link