Can Christians Thrive in a World Dominated by Digital Technology?

It’s no secret that digital technology has changed our world. From the advent of the personal computer and the internet to today’s smartphones and social media, we have access to more information, news, and even each other than any other time in human history. People can get instant answers to just about any of their questions, stay informed about events around the world in real-time, and connect long distances with family and friends. 

Technology has not only reshaped our world. It has reshaped everything from our relationships and self-understanding to our ideas of freedom and truth.  

As Neil Postman observed in his 1992 book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology:  

[New technologies] alter those deeply embedded habits of thought which give to a culture its sense of what the world is like—a sense of what is the natural order of things, of what is reasonable, of what is necessary, of what is inevitable, of what is real.  

It redefines freedom, truth, intelligence, fact, wisdom, memory, history—all the words we live by. And it does not pause to tell us. And we do not pause to ask. 

This month’s Lighthouse Voices event, a series co-hosted by the Colson Center and Focus on the Family, will tackle the challenges of living as Christians in our digitally transformed world, and will feature Samuel D. James.  

At the event, James will draw from his latest book, Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age, to share how Christians can engage a world that, thanks to digital tech, has fallen prey to “authenticity,” outrage, shaming, consumption, and meaningless. 

For a sneak peek of the event, here’s Samual James sharing about his book on the Upstream podcast: 

The Internet is an intellectual technology. So, when you have intellectual technology, the power of that intellectual technology to actually commend certain things to your soul is there, whether the result is good or bad. So a jet engine—this is Marshall McLuhan’s famous example in Understanding Media—the jet engine creates a world where you should be able to fly to the East Coast from the West Coast in just a number of hours. It creates the plausibility.  

And the railroad did the same thing. It creates this plausibility of, yeah, you should be able to get to this place even if you live here. You should be able to go here in just a few hours. Nowhere in the book do I say that that’s immoral or a problem, but it is a different kind of world?  

It shapes us in a particular way, and it creates this sense of “this is what life should be like.” And so, the Internet is the same exact way. The Internet is this technology, and especially because it’s an intellectual technology, the kind of world that it makes plausible is tied to our sense of who we are, of who God is, of what truth is, and of the kind of people that we are and the kind of the way the world really is. … 

Honestly, I think that in a technological world where we’re not going to put the computer back in Pandora’s box, we’re not going to get rid of it. I think that’s kind of what the essence of what the Lord is calling us to do is—to understand the effect that these technologies have and then preach the gospel—the real, embodied, physical, love-your-neighbor, go-to-church gospel—to each other in a way that helps each other, see through this fog.  

If you enjoyed this and want to learn more about how to live faithfully in our digital world, please join us September 10 at 7 p.m. Eastern at the Lighthouse Voices to hear more from James about this pressing topic. You can RSVP—either in person or virtually—for free today by visiting the event page here. 

This Breakpoint  was co-authored by Jared Hayden. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.  

Photo Courtesy: © Getty Images/David Gyung

Published Date: September 3, 2024

John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.