Technology and Worship

Don: Technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. How does technology affect society, and what is the result with respect to worship and faith?

Technology and its impacts have been with us from the beginning of time. Scripture tells of the first application of technology in history, the sewing of fig leaves to make loincloths:

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. (Genesis 3:7)

There is even a technology upgrade, provided by God (who evidently does not disdain technology), in the same story:

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)

The Babelonians used technology to make bricks and tar to build their Tower; and God helped Noah out with some technological advice:

Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and finish it to a cubit from the top; and set the door of the ark in the side of it; you shall make it with lower, second, and third decks. (Genesis 6:14-16)

Throughout history, the habits of worship and the faith of our fathers have been passed on in stories, songs, poems, and sayings. What the younger generations have learned about worship and faith has come from their elders. This control of information, especially about God, was restricted to the gatekeepers of knowledge. But then came the development of printing, in China in the 12th century, using ceramic and wooden blocks. A printed Bible was the first product of Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type in about 1450. It was a revolution in technology, and it had a major impact on faith and worship. No longer was information controlled by the priests and religious leaders; people could begin to do it for themselves. By the late 1900s and the advent of the World Wide Web, that revolution changed the world.

Many argue that the Web’s impact on society has been greater than the impact of printing. Both technological revolutions, however, have one thing in common: Information was no longer controlled by a few—it is free from control. As a result, information no longer flows from the few to the many but from the many to many more.

In 1996, the first survey of Internet use counted 40 million users. In 2015, 48 percent of the world’s population—3.2 billion people—used the Internet. As of 2017, there are more than 7 billion wireless devices in use—almost one for every human being alive today. By 2020, the number is projected to reach 11.6 billion.

How does this impact on our faith and worship? Data do not support the common misperception that intense use of the Internet increases alienation, isolation, depression, and withdrawal from society. The data show either no effect or increased sociability. Overall, the more sociable a person, the more likely s/he is to use the Internet; and the more s/he uses the Internet, the more intense the relationship with friends and family. This has been shown to hold across most cultures.

The Internet has spawned the me-centered society, or what is called in sociological terms the process of individualization. But that process does not lead to the end of community; rather, it results in a shift in social relationships, including strong personal and cultural ties based on individual interests and values and shared projects. Community is no longer bounded by space, workplace, or family. The one-to-many communication of the mass media communication has been replaced by the one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-one communications of the Internet.

Individualization also does not mean isolation. Instead, it empowers individuals by giving them greater freedom and security and greater leverage of any influence they might possess. This is true of social groups that would otherwise have less opportunity for security, freedom, and influence: Poor people, the peoples of developing countries, and (in some cultures) women.

What does all this have to do with faith and worship? Church is one of the few remaining places where we physically congregate as a community. Others include sports events, concerts, and maybe even movies. A fundamental goal of technology is efficiency. But God is extravagant, so how can technology help?

As of 2017, about a third of all Internet traffic at peak times is consumed by Netflix subscribers, and a quarter by Facebook’s 1.8 billion members. Half of all news is transmitted through Facebook. People aged 18–36 spend on average 17.8 hours a day with media—with the phone, and perhaps with TV, sometimes simultaneously. They are online for 7 hours a day. How does this affect worship? Is it any wonder that young people find church boring? Do the millennials or Generation Z need the physical human touch at all?

Consider this letter to a lady:

The elder to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not only I, but also all who know the truth, for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever: Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.

I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father. Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; for the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.

Though I have many things to write to you, I do not want to do so with paper and ink; but I hope to come to you and speak face to face, so that your joy may be made full.

The children of your chosen sister greet you. (2 John)

The passage suggests several principles for the use of social media:

1. Communication should be rooted in love.
2. Communicate as Jesus would communicate.
3. If 1 and 2 cannot be achieved, don’t communicate at all.

John ends the letter suggesting that face-to-face communication is better than communication technology (paper and ink, in his time). Paul emphasized the physical aspect in extolling the virtue of the “holy kiss.” But holography and haptics promise to make meeting and even kissing via communication technology as (apparently) real as face-to-face meeting and kissing.

Technology is not going away. It cannot be contained. So how will it fit with faith and worship?

David: To live as safely and well as possible here on earth, we need to anticipate advances in technology. But we can only base predictions of what might happen in this world on science and technology, not on faith or spirituality. In my view, technological advance will for sure impact our earthly life, but it should have no bearing on our faith or spirituality.

However, it does impact our faith and spirituality to the extent that our faith—a spiritual artifact—is affected by culture, an earthly construct. The liturgies and hymns of small w worship are cultural constructs and have at best only an indirect connection to the true spirituality of unity with God. So to the extent we continue to allow our spirituality to be based upon and driven by a culture we can predict is going to change radically, we put it at risk.

Religions and their places of worship need to get out of the business of controlling and shaping culture, because they cannot compete with technology in that regard; and they should get back into the business that Jesus was in: Of simply developing individual relationships with God. Technology does not interfere in that business. It is agnostic. Congregation is probably greater online than offline today, through the social media, and I would bet there is far more online inter-denominational and even inter-faith congregation than occurs in physical settings. How many Moslems are sitting in the SDA Oakwood sanctuary today? How many Adventists have gone to the local mosque to worship? But somewhere online, I avow you will find Moslems and Christians in active fellowship (disputatiously, perhaps) with one another right now in Internet forums of one sort or another.

Technology has a good or bad effect depending on how we use it, but it is agnostic to the real business of faith: Love, forgiveness, mercy, and so on. That God is extravagant—that he cares not a whit for efficiency—is suggested by the Parable of the Seed, in which the farmer (God) sows seed (the Word, the Truth) everywhere, even on stony ground that a human farmer would avoid so as not to waste the seed.

Don: Do you see an end to the physical congregation of humans?

David: It is quite conceivable that we will live our lives cocooned in holo-haptic virtual worlds. But our spirituality—our congregation in unity with God—is not of the world and therefore not of its virtual representation, either. Our spiritual quest, powered by questions such as “Why am I here? Why do I exist? What is my purpose? Why do I feel guilty?” will not change whether we inhabit the real or a virtual world.

Robin: Interfaith discussion groups exist. They are a great way to fellowship, but I am not sure that established churches would approve of them.

Michael: Cannot love and compassion and so on be expressed via technology, or must it be face-to-face? Doesn’t technology-enabled anonymity tend to make us show our true selves, be they nasty or nice?

David: Does technology dilute love and compassion, etc.? An online appeal is made for help for a little girl with cancer and overnight there is an online outpouring of love and support and money for her. Is that love and compassion the same as it would be if it were expressed face-to-face? It is much less bother to click the mouse a few times than to get up, get dressed, and make your way across town or across the world to act the Good Samaritan? Is technology-mediated compassion of a different quality from direct face-to-face compassion? The quote from John would suggest that it is.

Robin: Does technology adversely affect our emotional health? We can skype with distant loved ones but is that as good for our (and their) psyche as seeing one another in the flesh? It may be better than nothing, but is not as good as the real thing.

David: If the Prodigal Son had had an iPhone, how differently the story might have unfolded! When he had gambled all his money away, he would have been texting his dad asking for money via Western Union. And what would a loving father have done? He would have acceded to the request, probably. So the outcome might have been that the son was supported in his debauchery until it eventually killed him. This again suggests that technology cannot totally replace the fleshly encounter. It is good enough to transfer money through Western Union but not good enough to deliver the love and forgiveness and redemption experienced by the Prodigal when he went home to meet his father in the flesh. [As an afterthought, I might venture that technology is good enough for sustaining love, but not enough for redemptive love.]

Don: Is fleshly contact merely a learned behavior, therefore optional if there is an alternative? Today’s generations have learned different behaviors.

Michael: Generation Z will have no problem living in a virtual world, and they may see it as genuine; but I am not sure if such a life can ever be truly genuine. I may be alone when I am on the Internet but it is not the same as when I just sit alone in introspection.

David: To introspect, to meditate, is to communicate with oneself, in oneself—or with God, therefore there can be no mediation, technological or otherwise. Through small w worship, we may allow our religions (our our cultures) to try to mediate, but their mediation is subject to interference, noise, and degradation such as to corrupt the messages from God. To me, no cultural artifact has any business in seeking to mediate in the process of Big W Worship (that is, to interfere in any communion between God and the individual.) I believe all humanity shares the same understanding of the fundamental concepts of love, compassion, and so on; and expresses them differently only because of cultural intervention.

Anonymous: God asked Moses to get the Israelites out of Egypt so they could worship him. Why could they not worship him in Egypt? Did the surrounding environment and culture prevent it? Worship in the desert or on the mountain is unconnected to technologies, objects, and rules. It is personal. God is not a geek.

David: In many ways, we appoint the church to serve as our attorney to mediate with God on our behalf. We pray for the intercession of the (church-created) saints. If our lawyer is good, do we need to be good? It doesn’t seem right!

Don: Is it possible to use culture and technology responsibly in worship? Is it even possible to avoid the use of technology in worship? It is so culturally embedded in our worship and faith experience that is seems impractical or impossible to eradicate it. How does this affect the generation that spends 17 hours a day online? To ask them to keep it out of worship would seem to e asking them to embrace something totally counter-cultural, something counter to what they think is real but others think is not.

Anonymous: You can’t get rid of it, and shouldn’t: It is a means by which to get close enough to God to let the individual take over and complete the journey, where the technology leaves off.

Osama: Conversely, can technology separate people from God? Technology is a gift from God, and it has an enormous impact, but it does not necessarily change the mind of the believer—a mind shaped as a child by its parents.

Anonymous: It can be used for good, but Satan is smart enough to turn it to his account also, shaking the faith of believers in God by tempting them with enticing alternative viewpoints, for example. The issue is not so much between the believer and Satan but between God and Satan. We’re just caught in the middle. The technology is both threat and opportunity—it can be maleficent or beneficent, depending on who is using it.

Robin: The same technology that helps us see different worship styles is the same technology that ISIS uses to recruit people to do evil.

Anonymous: God is in control, and will decide on the appropriate time and place for technology. We can’t do that.

Michael: The megachurch would not have been possible before the invention of the microphone. Small congregations were all that could be addressed.

Anonymous: Moses addressed 600,000 people, without a microphone!

David: The megachurch preacher might declare through the microphone that it is not OK to kill people. But a transient voltage spike might cut out the word “not”. That is the problem with any kind of mediation. The only way to hear the authentic voice of God is through introspection, through listening for that inner voice. To listen to the voice of God through any medium is to risk the very soul, in my view. I accept the voice of Jesus as mediated through the Bible, but only because it resonates perfectly with the inner voice, When we read the radical statement: “Turn the other cheek!” it astonishes the intellect yet resonates with the inner voice. You just know it is good and right, even though you may feel incapable of doing it.

I agree that technology may help us in our quest for spirituality, but it should not be taken to represent spirituality or God in any way.

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