Please No Tweeting - a response - Updates from Ed Ross

I've recently discovered the blog "Social Christ", which "is about helping individuals, churches, and ministries to communicate better and take advantage of the latest trends in social media", and that sounds good to me. Recently they published an article: "Please No Tweeting", and I've got a few things to say in response, so here I go:

My gut reaction is a mixture of surprise, non-surprise, upset and a hint of understanding.

Surprise

In a way, I am surprised because Christians have often been at the forefront of modern information technology:

When the Codex came out, Christians used it to spread the Gospel;
When the printing press was developed, again the Bible was among the original publications;
Some churches are even on the forefront of HD video production;
The Lifespring! Family of podcasts brings God's word to the net connected generation in fun and novel ways.

All over, the church does adopt new technology, so I am slightly surprised that there are examples of technophobia like the ones in the Social Christ article.

Non-surprise

On the other hand, I'm not actually too surprised that there are churches that have such an anti-technology view. Churches are run by people, and many people are not interested in accommodating anything new in their lives, or helping other people use new things either. As the stories in the article go to show, some people just don't get it, or don't want to understand that there can be some benefit from technology related activities.

Upset

I'm slightly upset by the article: it reminds me of the Pharisees of the times of Jesus, who added (life limiting) extra rules around the (life affirming) ones God had laid out.

To my knowledge there is nothing about not using technology at Church in the Bible. Ok:

"I have the right to do anything," you say—but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything"—but not everything is constructive. (1 Corinthians 10:23)

but in the cases in the article, constructive things were happening, so the anti-technology people really didn't have a right to complain. It isn't like reading the Bible on a phone is a sin (as far as I know anyway, and even if it is, Jesus has forgiven me for it anyway!)

Understanding

I kind-of understand where they are coming from though. My wife (who is au fait with technology) gets annoyed at me quite a lot at the moment for the amount of time I tend to spend on the computer rather than with her (to help with this, I've brought my computer into the lounge to write this and still be with her (and she is on her laptop too). I do have some sympathy for these technology un-savvy people: They may just see these new technologies as distractions to "real" life, and not see how they can be used to connect with others and enhance people's "real" lives. Maybe they have had bad experiences in the past, or maybe they are actually struggling with something technology related and they can't come to terms with it so they are hitting out at others instead of addressing their own issues.

Where to go from here?

Whatever way you look at it: technology is becoming more and more a part of the modern church experience.

Just a couple of weeks ago in my Cell Group, I noticed there were people reading the Bible on their mobile phones than on paper;
Pastors such as Mark Driscoll, Mike Pilavachi and Rick Warren are using social networking sites, such as Twitter, which can only lead to encouraging their congregation to do the same;
The Geeks & God podcast (which I am a co-host of), exists to help churches and ministries with their IT needs, and we aren't planning to stop any time soon!

Jesus said:

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15)

The Internet is part of that, so we need to be preaching the gospel to people on the Internet too. People who choose not to understand the new technologies are only slowing down the progress of the gospel they would profess! They might not understand that is what they are doing, so it is up to the technologically "literate" to help them understand what is really going on.

What do you think? Why not post your responses to the article "Please No Tweeting" in their comments section too.

(My wife and I video-chatting to each other from the same room)

over 1 year ago Tim Bushell responded:

My thoughts are that I don't think you should be so surprised about the "Don't Twitter" comment.

Certainly the bible was one of the first books to be printed in large quantities by Gutenberg's machine, but not by the church, who fiercely opposed it. They still hadn't quite got over the fact that the bible had been translated into English. Gutenberg printed the bible for economic reasons: demand was high.

Gallileo - an genuine early adopter of technology - imprisoned by the church for many years as a result. He's just the tip of this particular iceberg.

Perhaps it's not fair to mention Darwin here because Evolution is not really a technology. Having said that, technology is the product of science; and the church does not have a very good history of embracing it: so it's worth mentioning, as it goes to my point.

Here's a more recent, personal anecdote. Nowadays electronic music is widely used in worship - but this was not always so ("Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music" sang Cliff getting right to this issue in the early 70s). In the late 80s I was attending a fairly liberal church in Plymouth (Elim). They sweated a great deal about the purchase of a synthsizer. The compromise was to buy a bulky, out-dated - but new - Hammond organ to placate the traditionalists; along with an electronic piano (real wood, MIDI, weighted keys) and stick a little synth box on the top. Hardly cutting edge at a time when the DX7 had been around for a few years.

This leads me to a list of the more important technologies that are troubling to religion and this is alarming in a modern world that could find itself relient on these advances - mostly coming from the christian right and the Muslim faith: opposition to the pill; opposition to genetics; opposition to nano-tech; opposition to embryonic stem cell research; opposition to AIDS treatment; opposition to cloning; opposition to technology used to search for extra-terrestrial life - these off the top of my head.

And what does the church have to say about CERN (the greatest gadget of them all). As reported by Hawkings, the pope has forbidden "inquiry into the beginning itself", so... opposition to particle accelerators!

The truth is that even the most evangelical churches (or perhaps especially the most evangelical churches) are quite conservative in nature. Clearly you have a more open view about technology, but I don't think this is true for many church leaders who see themselves as moral leaders and feel a great deal of responsibility for people's souls. Any uncertainty about the impact of some new fangled "thing" is probably not the worth risk of back-sliding and eternal damnation.

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