SPEAKER_00: It is so good to be back together with you.
SPEAKER_00: Encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have many repeat customers, but this is uh this is fun for me.
SPEAKER_00: So clearly, clearly I made a decent impression to get to come back.
SPEAKER_00: Um and I this is super impressive on a Friday.
SPEAKER_00: I've got you Friday night, Saturday morning.
SPEAKER_00: Um I understand if you're uh a man here.
SPEAKER_00: I've got you tomorrow night.
SPEAKER_00: This whole thing started.
SPEAKER_00: Jason said, Hey, can you come back and do a conference?
SPEAKER_00: Um, do like a Friday night, Saturday morning thing, preach Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: I said, sure, sure, glad to.
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks later, he said, Can you do another conference Saturday night?
SPEAKER_00: It's like, sure, sure.
SPEAKER_00: Call this week.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, hey, I got you for QA between the services.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow we get with that.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm with you a lot this weekend and uh looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_00: I would I wonder what this room would be like if a football game went differently last week.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was watching that with great interest.
SPEAKER_00: Not only do I always love when Alabama loses, but but I turned to my wife and said, well, at least there will be people there to listen next week.
SPEAKER_00: Um uh and also uh encourage uh some some in the crowd, younger folks in the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: Um I you know, I will say, unlike last time, the content um of this obviously um is it would be more age appropriate, but um I am not used to delivering this to a younger audience from purely a uh I guess intellectual perspective.
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to uh my 13-year-old this week, and he, I don't know how we got on the topic, but he was going through um he was going through all his favorite preachers uh uh from our church, which I don't recommend that parents, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how we got on this, but he was he was listening.
SPEAKER_00: We have like four, I think we have uh we have uh four teaching elders at our church, and he was ranking them.
SPEAKER_00: That's bad.
SPEAKER_00: I don't I'm not a saying it's really bad, but anyway, he was going through them and he's ranking them, and he got through them, and then he said, and then he said, um, and then of course I love uh this uh young man who uh grew up in our church and I I got I got to disciple.
SPEAKER_00: He now he's doing RUF at uh University of Tennessee, Mac Holt.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, of course, Mac Holt, you know, he he's my favorite.
SPEAKER_00: He's just going through him.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, anybody else you like?
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I was like, you didn't mention your dad.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought it was because I wasn't on staff at the church anymore, and so he didn't include me.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Ah, you you'd be at the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: I said, really?
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He said, um, he said, Dad, I know it seems like old people like you a lot, but kids don't.
SPEAKER_00: I said, is that right?
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah, you like you use too many words that we don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: Like, we can't understand you.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like adults like you.
SPEAKER_00: You go everywhere and talk to adults, but kids, we can't understand you.
SPEAKER_00: So I see some young folks in the room.
SPEAKER_00: Parents might have to filter some of this content down.
SPEAKER_00: I will say tonight, uh, if you are younger in the room, tonight um will be the most challenging.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow we do get more practical.
SPEAKER_00: And I do think um uh hopefully you can understand me tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, all right, so here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Parents, I'll let you just kind of be the filter here.
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so it is good to be together with your church again.
SPEAKER_00: Last time you invited me to uh uh address the topic of gender, sexuality, no doubt, an important discussion uh for the cultural moment where we find ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And um, yet I want to suggest that the topic you have invited me to speak on this time is arguably uh even more important because this one impacts all of us.
SPEAKER_00: And I do mean all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot overstate the immersive nature of technology and the way in which it is constantly forming, or I'm going to argue, deforming us in ways we do not even notice.
SPEAKER_00: Out of every cultural issue we are facing, technology is, in my humble but correct opinion, the most important.
SPEAKER_00: Um and the problem is that it is inescapable.
SPEAKER_00: We we have crossed a tipping point into a society fully immersed and reliant upon technology, and you must, you simply must have a thorough grasp of technology, both its potential and its perils.
SPEAKER_00: And I would argue that there is no more important um issue of Christian discipleship than your relationship and your family's relationship with technology.
SPEAKER_00: And so you should be very, uh very thankful to attend a church willing to host this conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And and again, I'm honored and humbled to be the one invited in to lead the discussion.
SPEAKER_00: To begin um this evening, I want to start very broadly and offer a Christian uh theology of technology.
SPEAKER_00: The way, the way I'm gonna structure the weekend is uh design, dangers, and dominion.
SPEAKER_00: So tonight we're gonna look at the design of technology.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow morning we're gonna look at the dangers.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get specific into the into the practical uh dangers uh that we're facing, and then we'll end tomorrow morning with dominion, how to recapture and redeem technology by um reclaiming dominion over our technological usage.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but tonight is is is we're gonna start broadly uh theologically with the design.
SPEAKER_00: What is technology?
SPEAKER_00: What are its purposes?
SPEAKER_00: What are its advantages, uh, harms?
SPEAKER_00: What are we to make of technology from the perspective of scripture and the Christian tradition?
SPEAKER_00: By the way, it the irony is not lost on me.
SPEAKER_00: I I I I was in a rush, did not have time to print off my notes at the hotel.
SPEAKER_00: The irony is not lost on me that you are looking at the emblem of technological uh dominion in our culture as I lecture on the dangers of technology.
SPEAKER_00: I apologize that you have to stare at the apple while I speak on this.
SPEAKER_00: But um I know that our impulse is to get practical.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, just tell us the problem and tell us what to do.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but I think in this area in particular, I think the theological work is just as essential as the practical work because part of the problem with technology is how woefully uninformed and uncritical Christians are.
SPEAKER_00: And thus we just kind of go along with our technological society without any pause, without any Christian critique.
SPEAKER_00: So let's start with this Christian evaluation.
SPEAKER_00: Let me first begin with intellectual honesty.
SPEAKER_00: I always like to do this when I'm presenting my content.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to think that all you hear, uh all you hear from me this weekend um is coming only from me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if and when I quote someone, I will of course uh give them credit.
SPEAKER_00: But let me give broader credit to those whose scholarship has influenced and guided me, not only to be honest, but if you wanted to go deeper, uh feel free to do so.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'll I'll start from densest, hardest down to most practical as far as resources.
SPEAKER_00: Um, first and foremost, by far the most important scholarship comes from two 20th century philosophers, a French philosopher named Jacques Oll, uh, specifically his seminal book, uh The Technological Society.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the second is a German philosopher, Martin Heidegger.
SPEAKER_00: Heidegger, uh his seminal work is Being and Time, which certainly delves into technology, but his essay, The Question Concerning Technology, is where his real critique is fleshed out.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Heidegger is a bit controversial as a scholar because he was a uh originally a supporter and member of the Nazi Party and even gave speeches in praise of Hitler.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, originally, he believed that Nazism was going to bring a spiritual revival to German, uh, to Germany and curb what he viewed as a descent into uh technological madness.
SPEAKER_00: So, because of that part of his resume, uh, he is a bit taboo as a scholar, but I actually think his involvement and eventual disillusionment uh and repudiation of Nazi ideology kind of uniquely positions him as a critic because he is a kind of a firsthand witness of the horrors of technology's potential.
SPEAKER_00: Um and most of his important scholarship was written in the shadows of uh World War II's evil.
SPEAKER_00: Um I I suppose I'm only saying all this in case you Google Heidegger and realize that your speaker was quoting a Nazi uh this weekend.
SPEAKER_00: Um it was his response to the horrors that is the good stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but really Alull's the real expert on the subject.
SPEAKER_00: In many ways, all modern Christian thought and critique on technology can be traced back to Alul.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, for example, Neil Postman, um, easier.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so I'm going harder to easier.
SPEAKER_00: Neil Postman, hugely influenced by him.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Postman, unlike Alul, is very accessible.
SPEAKER_00: So you're getting kind of Alull's philosophy and critique in a readable and digestible form, particularly his book, Technopoly.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Postman's Technopy is essentially Alul's Technological Society for dummies like us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Postman's most famous book is Amusing Ourselves to Death.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have heard of that or read that.
SPEAKER_00: And that is a critique of the television medium.
SPEAKER_00: That's what was coming out and emerging when he's when he wrote that.
SPEAKER_00: But I believe it is just as helpful when applied to the internet and emerging AI technology.
SPEAKER_00: And that modern application was actually recently published uh for the 40th anniversary of Amusing Ourselves to Death with a uh newly published book called Scrolling Ourselves to Death.
SPEAKER_00: Um, another contemporary thinker influenced by Alull is Kentucky's own Wendell Berry.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, his books uh dealing with technology are why I am not going to buy a computer, pretty straightforward there.
SPEAKER_00: And um and The Unsettling of America.
SPEAKER_00: However, here's what I would recommend if you want to dive into Wendell Barry.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, just read one of his novels, uh, specifically his most famous book, Jaber Crow, which does take place in Kentucky.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a little biased.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what's brilliant about Wendell Berry.
SPEAKER_00: Um, instead of giving you his critique of technology and doing the philosophical thing, uh, what Barry does is he basically offers you his critique through beautiful storytelling.
SPEAKER_00: He is incredibly brilliant with words.
SPEAKER_00: He's a skilled writer, but he doesn't exploit those gifts uh to create kind of a real page turner novel.
SPEAKER_00: His novels are slow and deep and contemplative, and they're focused less on gripping plot lines and instead on characters and the places they inhabit.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, rather than accommodating our technologically formed minds that that demand this increasing short attention span and addiction to instant gratification and all that, his books force you to slow down and discover a new way of being, uh, which Barry believes is the way God made us to be.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then finally, even more modern and relevant, three great books recently released, very readable, very good.
SPEAKER_00: Alan Noble's You Are Not Your Own, Samuel James, Digital Liturgies, and Jonathan Heights, that you've definitely heard of this one, The Anxious Generation.
SPEAKER_00: Heights, Heights become the guy uh in popular culture speaking to all this.
SPEAKER_00: All right, so I'm done with that.
SPEAKER_00: There's my credit from the onset.
SPEAKER_00: I just didn't want you to, I don't want to falsely position myself as some brilliant expert with novel ideas.
SPEAKER_00: My superpower is using smart people to make me look really smart.
SPEAKER_00: And so there you go.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Beginning broadly, with the question what are we to make of technology according to uh the Christian worldview?
SPEAKER_00: In the most basic sense, technology is the word that we use to describe a central component of what God created humanity to do.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we read in the beginning of the story in Genesis 1.
SPEAKER_00: So God created man in his own image, and the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them.
SPEAKER_00: The last time I was with you, we explored that in depth, the centrality of male and female in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: For this conference, we're going to look less at the design of God's image and more about the telos or the purpose of God's image.
SPEAKER_00: It says, and God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.
SPEAKER_00: So we are created in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means we bear his likeness, not physically, but in the essence of our being.
SPEAKER_00: It means that we share attributes with our creator that no other creature does.
SPEAKER_00: So unlike animals, uh, humans do love and morality and reasoning and conscious decision making and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: And so in this way, we are these living icons, these images of our creator God, but we are not God.
SPEAKER_00: Though he does share attributes with us, theologians call these communicable attributes.
SPEAKER_00: Some divine attributes belong only to him.
SPEAKER_00: These we call incommunicable attributes.
SPEAKER_00: For example, all the omnis, right?
SPEAKER_00: God alone is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.
SPEAKER_00: These incommunicable attributes we do not possess.
SPEAKER_00: God alone possesses them.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the reason I'm saying that is that is very important to note for reasons that we're going to discuss here in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, an important manifestation of God's communicable attributes within image bears is technology.
SPEAKER_00: We have the capacity to create like our creator God, not completely like God who creates ex nihilo out of nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we as stewards of God's creation, which is just teeming with undiscovered potential, we sub-creators of God cultivate order, innovation, progress, and so on.
SPEAKER_00: And a big part of that is technology.
SPEAKER_00: Technology is the practical and tangible ingenuity of image bearers as sub-creators of our creator.
SPEAKER_00: But notice from the passage we are not aimless image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: We are image bearers under a mandate.
SPEAKER_00: Fill the earth and subdue it.
SPEAKER_00: We are accustomed to sinful subduing, which is not dominion but domination.
SPEAKER_00: But in the beginning, the rule and reign of image bearers within God's creation was designed to reflect the rule and reign of God.
SPEAKER_00: So without the fall, without sinfulness, image bearers would have still advanced.
SPEAKER_00: There is this misnomer that if the fall never happened, we would have just kind of froliced about the garden forever.
SPEAKER_00: This is not true.
SPEAKER_00: The human advancement and achievement was always the design.
SPEAKER_00: We would have built built industry and economies and cities and cultures and institutions.
SPEAKER_00: All that we have done only, our advancement would have always glorified God and blessed creation.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, a central part of that human advancement in creation would still have been technology.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, technology, our sub-creating capacities, would have been the means by which our holy dominion over creation would have exponentially advanced.
SPEAKER_00: As Alull repeatedly points out, the aim of technology is always efficiency.
SPEAKER_00: All the way back to humanity's first technology, something like the wheel.
SPEAKER_00: All of these came into being for the purpose of efficiency.
SPEAKER_00: And without the fall, this efficiency was important.
SPEAKER_00: Technology would have increased our singular ambition to glorify God and bless the world, it would have increasingly made that more efficient, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning it would have overcome human limitations to fulfill our God-given mandate.
SPEAKER_00: As limited creatures, there is only so much goodness we can accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: But via technology, via the marvel of image bearers creating efficient technologies, our goodness would have been exponentially multiplied throughout the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here's where it gets complicated.
SPEAKER_00: For those of you familiar with the story, you know what happens next.
SPEAKER_00: Image bearers of God rebel against their God and his mandate upon their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Created to bring glory to God, the sinful mandate is instead obsessed with our own glory.
SPEAKER_00: That's the mandate that we now follow.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to submit to God, we want to be our own God.
SPEAKER_00: So now our technological progress serves this fallen sinful mandate.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the first significant advancement by sinners in Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel.
SPEAKER_00: A massive human achievement via human ingenuity and technology.
SPEAKER_00: But what were they up to?
SPEAKER_00: It says, Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Build a city for ourselves with a tower that we may make a name for ourselves, a city for our selfish, sinful purposes, not God's glory, a tower for our glory, not God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: Again, if we never fell into sin, we would have still built cities full of human ingenuity and advancement, and yes, beautiful architecture and towers, but never, ever, ever would the goal of that advancement be so that we may make a name for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But tragically, that is what sinners are up to now.
SPEAKER_00: Not God's glory, our glory.
SPEAKER_00: I was recently at a uh another conference in Austin, uh, Texas.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, of course, uh Elon Musk has relocated his empire to Austin.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've been there recently, you know this, but there's just this massive, massive uh tower that he's building.
SPEAKER_00: That is is it's home to all of his ingenuity and all of his advancements and all of his technology.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is housed there.
SPEAKER_00: It's just this huge downtown tower.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I was walking around uh Austin, and um, and there was uh there was a um a homeless man on the street, and he stopped me and he said, Hey, he said, have you ever read the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: I said, I've dabbled.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, he pointed at Elon Musk's building and said, That's the new Tower of Babel.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, my man.
SPEAKER_00: Can we talk?
SPEAKER_00: No idea, no idea how insightful that comment was.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to those non-communicable attributes of God.
SPEAKER_00: God is omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient, all-knowing, omnipresent, all-present.
SPEAKER_00: Well, our sinful quest to become our own God now becomes an attempt to seize for ourselves that which belongs to God alone.
SPEAKER_00: No doubt impossible, but that's what we have been trying to achieve for millenniums now via our technology.
SPEAKER_00: And Elon Musk is at the forefront of that divine-like campaign.
SPEAKER_00: What is being developed in his Tower of Babel in Austin, Texas?
SPEAKER_00: The entire enterprise is seeking, vainly seeking, but seeking nonetheless what belongs to God.
SPEAKER_00: Modern technology is giving us an illusion of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence.
SPEAKER_00: We know we are not all-powerful, knowing, and present, nor will we ever be.
SPEAKER_00: But we are living through a technological revolution, bringing humanity closer than ever before to achieving it.
SPEAKER_00: We are not omniscient, but Google and Chat GPT make us feel this way.
SPEAKER_00: We are not omnipresent, but Zoom meetings and FaceTime calls make us feel this way.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: Modern technology is giving us an illusion of divine status, which is what the sinful nature ultimately craves.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the newest breakthrough that we are currently living through is AI, which will try to get us even closer to this illusion of godlike status.
SPEAKER_00: And all of this has disastrous implications as we are going to explore tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: So, in summary, in its original design, technology was the ingenuity and advancement of image bearers who are sub-creators of the creator, perfectly fulfilling the mandate to glorify God and bless creation.
SPEAKER_00: It would have made us incredibly efficient at blessing the world and glorifying God.
SPEAKER_00: After the fall, technology is the ingenuity and advancement of fallen image bearers in service to the sinful mandate to glorify ourselves and bring harm to creation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's at this point where we will be tempted to scapegoat technology and protest human advancement.
SPEAKER_00: But philosophers view technology as morally neutral, meaning its morality or immorality is determined by what ethicists call instrumentally.
SPEAKER_00: If it is used for good, then it is good.
SPEAKER_00: If it is used for evil, then it is evil.
SPEAKER_00: So these lectures are being recorded and will be listened to on a, I'm assuming, some type of mobile device.
SPEAKER_00: I hope accessing this content would qualify as a moral good.
SPEAKER_00: But in many cases, that same device has been used to access the most horrific forms of evil.
SPEAKER_00: And so what this means is that device is determined by the user's usage.
SPEAKER_00: The user determines whether technology is good or evil.
SPEAKER_00: This is what ethicist means by instrumental value.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not that simple, which is a Lull's controversial argument.
SPEAKER_00: And this is controversial, but I agree with it.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps it is the case that our technology is morally neutral, but we are not morally neutral.
SPEAKER_00: If the Christian tradition is correct about its diagnosis of humanity, and obviously I think it is, we are not morally good or even morally neutral, we are morally fallen.
SPEAKER_00: Though capable of good, we tend toward evil.
SPEAKER_00: And Alull would say that therefore our technology as an extension of human agency is certainly capable of good, but will always tend toward evil.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, advancement brings much good to the world, but the whole of human advancement has introduced more evil than good, more destruction than flourishing.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a controversial claim to those who view human achievement and advancement as the singular goal of history, but that goal itself is a fallen goal.
SPEAKER_00: We were not created to advance humanity's glory.
SPEAKER_00: We are created to advance God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: And so technological advancement is not simply always good.
SPEAKER_00: It can be downright disastrous.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the singular goal of technology is efficiency.
SPEAKER_00: That is all it is designed to care about.
SPEAKER_00: It cares not for virtue, only efficiency.
SPEAKER_00: And sinful efficiency is profoundly destructive.
SPEAKER_00: It is a dangerous thing for sinful humanity to become more efficient in their sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Because the greater the efficiency of the technology, the greater its ability to magnify sinful destruction.
SPEAKER_00: For example, sinful humanity has always been prone toward hatred and violence.
SPEAKER_00: This is obvious.
SPEAKER_00: That is fundamental to sinners.
SPEAKER_00: We hate each other and we fight each other.
SPEAKER_00: But what we fail to appreciate is the way in which technology makes that hatred and violence more efficient.
SPEAKER_00: When our weapon technology were only swords and spears, there was only so much destruction we were capable of.
SPEAKER_00: But with the advancement of nuclear technology, the potential for violence has become so efficient that we now have the ability to destroy ourselves in a day's time.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Nuclear advancement brings good things like nuclear energy, but nuclear advancement also brings the potential for exponential destruction.
SPEAKER_00: So, simply put, all of that to say this efficiency is a dangerous thing for sinners to possess.
SPEAKER_00: Einstein said it like this humans invented the nuclear bomb.
SPEAKER_00: Mice would never construct the mouse trap.
SPEAKER_00: But what we need to appreciate, and this is really important, is that this doesn't just apply to the obvious examples like modern weaponry.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I did these lectures in Tucson, Arizona.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know, it's like a year ago, and I used that illustration and got done, and it's like, uh, this is kind of landed flat and went and I was talking to pastors, like the biggest employer in this town is like, I don't know, the weapons people there.
SPEAKER_00: So I offended everybody there.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in if you're developing modern weaponry, um, it's good as a defense, but use it well.
SPEAKER_00: But here's here's here's what we need to appreciate that this doesn't just apply to the obvious example like modern warfare.
SPEAKER_00: This is happening to us all the time in ways that we do not comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: I'll borrow an example from Samuel Jane's book.
SPEAKER_00: Consider the nature of your modern home.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has their own space where they are able to exist in isolation.
SPEAKER_00: Those of you with teenagers know their proclivity to retreat to their room alone with their phones, sequestered from the family community.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that architectural possibility is a result of technology.
SPEAKER_00: There was a time when most homes could only afford one fireplace or wood-burning stove, one centralized heat source to form to warm the family unit.
SPEAKER_00: But in the early 1900s, the technology of central heating and air comes onto the scene, and suddenly a singular energy source can be dispersed throughout the whole entire house.
SPEAKER_00: So heating became more efficient.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing advancement, no doubt.
SPEAKER_00: But that technology literally remade not just the architecture of our houses, but the nature of family life within our houses.
SPEAKER_00: This was the beginning of what we now take for granted that a family can live together, but not actually be together.
SPEAKER_00: Here we are a hundred years after the technology of central heating and air, and a segregated family life is the new norm.
SPEAKER_00: We are no longer family units, we are groups of individuals living under the same roof.
SPEAKER_00: And then what does that do to the breakdown of the family upon which societies rise and fall?
SPEAKER_00: I could go on and on with these taken-for-granted consequences.
SPEAKER_00: Consider the marvel of the airplane.
SPEAKER_00: This morning I woke up in Lexing, Kentucky, and now here I am with you in Birmingham.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing, efficient technology, overcoming human limitations within space and time, and I'm obviously comfortable making use of that technology, I wouldn't be here.
SPEAKER_00: But again, what has the ability to jump on a plane and fly all over the world done to the stability, to the stability of the family, to the rootedness of community, to the sacredness of a place?
SPEAKER_00: Travel is great, but what if our families and our communities flourish best in deep rootedness?
SPEAKER_00: Communities living together undisturbed in generational depth and stability.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe something is lost when we forsook that way of life for modern travel.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: We are always, always being negatively impacted in indiscernible ways by the efficiency of technology.
SPEAKER_00: But there's one more last point to make here that I'll close with that is really, really important to consider for our discussion.
SPEAKER_00: So if I've lost you again, tomorrow's way more practical and all that stuff you like.
SPEAKER_00: Hear this.
SPEAKER_00: Let me frame their warning through the lens of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not just giving you philosophers, I'm giving you the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The essence of the fall is that we refuse to worship and serve God and choose instead to worship and serve the gods of our own making.
SPEAKER_00: This is the nature of idolatry, right?
SPEAKER_00: We cannot help but worship.
SPEAKER_00: It's intrinsic to us as image bearers, and that worship instinct is there to find its fulfillment in the God who is worthy of our worship.
SPEAKER_00: But when God is rejected, what we do is we craft idols to worship.
SPEAKER_00: This I am sure you have heard many times in a church like this.
SPEAKER_00: But the thing about worship that doesn't get as much attention is that it isn't just something you do, it is always doing something to you.
SPEAKER_00: The more you worship Jesus, the more you become like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But tragically, the more we worship our idols, the more we become like our idols.
SPEAKER_00: They have mouths but do not speak, they have eyes but do not see, they have ears but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: Those who make them become like them, and so do all who trust in them.
SPEAKER_00: The psalm perfectly explains what is unfolding all around us, culturally speaking.
SPEAKER_00: The more and more we as a society worship and serve human innovation, ingenuity, and technological advancement, the more we are becoming like the technology that we have created.
SPEAKER_00: The psalm says that the idols of the nation are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
SPEAKER_00: Well, now the idols of our nation are not silver and gold, but cobalt and lithium, these precious minerals craft needed to craft uh not a golden calf to bow down to, but a silicon device in your pocket to stare at.
SPEAKER_00: And what's so interesting and candidly satanically deceptive and alluring about this modern idol is that it seems to overcome what scripture has always mocked about the idols that we craft.
SPEAKER_00: The Psalm says, they have mouths but do not speak.
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures always make fun of our idols.
SPEAKER_00: It says that they have mouths but do not speak, but our idols do speak.
SPEAKER_00: They have eyes but do not see, they have ears, but do not hear, but our AI-powered idols are watching us, are listening to us.
SPEAKER_00: We have crafted interactive idols that so many of us serve all day, every day.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, AI technology is only going to improve the interactive relationship we have with our technological idols.
SPEAKER_00: And because of this, now more than ever, verse 18 is true.
SPEAKER_00: Those who make them become like them, and so do all who trust them.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the thing about worship is that it's not just something you do.
SPEAKER_00: It is at the same time doing something to you.
SPEAKER_00: If you make an idol of money, you become more and more greedy.
SPEAKER_00: If you make an idol of success, you become more and more cutthroat.
SPEAKER_00: If you make an idol of image and beauty, um, you you become increasingly vain.
SPEAKER_00: You get the point.
SPEAKER_00: We will inevitably become like the object of our worship.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I am arguing that one of the greatest idols and addictions of our day is technology.
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, we don't just worship our idols, we become like them.
SPEAKER_00: And so here is what both Alull and Heidegger point out in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: We are no longer independent masters of the machines that we have created.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, the machines now master us.
SPEAKER_00: We create technology in our own image, but the technology then turns around and recreates us in its own image.
SPEAKER_00: Alull's word for this is technique.
SPEAKER_00: He argues that technology has a technique, and that technique is fundamentally inhumane, meaning our technologies function like machines, not image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: This is obvious to us, right?
SPEAKER_00: But what is less obvious is what Alull warns about.
SPEAKER_00: The more we worship and serve technology, the more we become like our technology.
SPEAKER_00: We adopt the technique of our technology.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of fear surrounding AI right now.
SPEAKER_00: And the foundational fear is like the Terminator, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like it's gonna reach this sentient uh tipping point where our inventions are gonna become self-aware and they're gonna take over, kind of this dystopian future where humans are enslaved to machines.
SPEAKER_00: But Jacques Alull, way before the possibility of AI, with prophetic foresight, argued that we have already crossed the tipping point.
SPEAKER_00: We now serve our technology, not the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: We do its bidding, not the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: Technology does not have to be self-aware to be in charge.
SPEAKER_00: It is in charge of our lives as we speak.
SPEAKER_00: For example, technology was created to increase human productivity.
SPEAKER_00: Productivity, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we were told.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna increase human productivity.
SPEAKER_00: Question for everyone Do you feel more productive?
SPEAKER_00: Ironically, the way to now be productive is to avoid technology.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was gonna break the bounds of human productivity.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the technology now controls the user.
SPEAKER_00: In theory, the internet and chat GPT and AI, it's all in theory, it should increase productivity, but instead, we spend hours upon hours on average.
SPEAKER_00: Americans spend seven hours of their days staring at a screen.
SPEAKER_00: And how much of that screen time is productive?
SPEAKER_00: Very little.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it is endless, pointless, trivial, wasteful neglect of our God-entrusted time on this earth.
SPEAKER_00: Your phone is not some AI self-conscious master telling you what to do, but you better believe your phone is still in charge and telling you what to do.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: We have made an idol of human advancement and technology, and we now live our lives slaves to that advancement and technology.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Heidegger's word for this is inframing.
SPEAKER_00: So Alull talks about technique.
SPEAKER_00: Heidegger talks about inframing.
SPEAKER_00: And what he says is that our technology creates a frame of human existence that we don't even notice, but we are all living in it.
SPEAKER_00: And within that frame, humanity is increasingly beginning to function according to the ways of technology.
SPEAKER_00: We are no longer human beings, we are human doers.
SPEAKER_00: We have forgotten how to be, which is the unique function of an image bearer.
SPEAKER_00: And we think only of doing, which is a unique function of what?
SPEAKER_00: Technology.
SPEAKER_00: We begin to view everything.
SPEAKER_00: Through a mechanical lens of efficiency and functionality.
SPEAKER_00: His famous example, which doesn't really apply because there's maybe an engineer in the room, but this is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: We don't behold and enjoy a river for its God-given intrinsic beauty.
SPEAKER_00: That's what human beings do.
SPEAKER_00: They stare at a river and they behold its beauty and they give glory to the creator.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, within the inframing of technology, Heidegger says, we view a river for its potential.
SPEAKER_00: Could we harness its hydropower to support our insatiable demand for energy?
SPEAKER_00: That's a technological perspective of a river.
SPEAKER_00: Now that applies to nobody in this room unless you're an engineer.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll give you a different example with a river.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than beholding the beauty of a river and giving glory to the creator of the river, that's what human beings do.
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
SPEAKER_00: We take a selfie with a river to impress people, exploiting the river for its potential to impress people.
SPEAKER_00: We don't even view each other according to the Imago Dei, to the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: We view each other as inhumane objects for exploitation, sexual exploitation, financial exploitation, power exploitation.
SPEAKER_00: This, according to Heidegger, and this is where it is beneficial that he got wrapped up in the Nazi stuff, this, according to Heidegger, is what made the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps possible.
SPEAKER_00: How could they be so cruel to people?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is they didn't view them as people, they viewed them as objects.
SPEAKER_00: Hitler convinced a society that Jews were like a computer virus, to use our modern language.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe more accurately, they were a virus to the mechanism of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, dispose of the virus.
SPEAKER_00: Just like I recently threw away my mom's outdated laptop that no longer properly functions, and she's been trying to get the geek squad and everything else to try to make this thing work.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work, Mom, I threw it away.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's how a mechanical view of humanity that Hitler was able to use this massive advancement of technological progress to view a people like that.
SPEAKER_00: So Alull focuses more on technology's impact on society.
SPEAKER_00: Heidegger focuses more on his impact on humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Bottom line conclusion, I promise tomorrow is not so heady and philosophical and theological.
SPEAKER_00: Bottom line conclusion, technology is making us less human.
SPEAKER_00: Could have saved us a lot more time if I just said that.
SPEAKER_00: It is stripping away our humanity and remaking us in its own image.
SPEAKER_00: Those who worship idols and trust in idols become like their idols.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, these are unprecedented times.
SPEAKER_00: And its unprecedented harm is exponentially advancing as Alull predicted.
SPEAKER_00: What to do?
SPEAKER_00: That's the Christian evaluation and critique.
SPEAKER_00: What must be the Christian response?
SPEAKER_00: Here we have three options.
SPEAKER_00: We're all freaked out right now, and we could just retreat and get out of here, right?
SPEAKER_00: We could retreat from the technological society of our making.
SPEAKER_00: We could create protesting subcultures of uh technological regress.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Anabaptist, it's a very real Christian tradition that has looked into what is becoming of our world, and the Anabaptist tradition said, We're out.
SPEAKER_00: We're out.
SPEAKER_00: The Amish and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: That's the tradition within Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: We could create protesting subcultures of technological regress and return to the old ways of doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Wendell Berry method, candidly.
SPEAKER_00: He he he is such a critique of all this stuff that he is living this out.
SPEAKER_00: He is right now out on a Kentucky farm, protesting screens, writing books on a typewriter and letters by hand, and he is living off the land.
SPEAKER_00: I know this personally.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to, if there's any Wendell Berry fans in here, um, you can hang, you could, you can set up a meeting with Wendell Berry, and he'd love to get to get to know you and talk to you.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you have to do it.
SPEAKER_00: You have to write him a letter.
SPEAKER_00: And you have to introduce yourself by letter, and he will write you back.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have to write another letter back saying, I'd love to meet.
SPEAKER_00: He'll write you back, sure, love to get together.
SPEAKER_00: You have to write him a letter and say, Here are the dates I'm available.
SPEAKER_00: He will write you.
SPEAKER_00: Can you you aren't inefficient to schedule an appointment via snail mail?
SPEAKER_00: That's how he does it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as much as I respect the Wendellberry method and at times envy it, I don't think it's practically possible nor biblically faithful to retreat from the world where God has us.
SPEAKER_00: It's just not the nature of the world.
SPEAKER_00: I will say that Wendellberry's books are available on Amazon.
SPEAKER_00: He's allowed that.
SPEAKER_00: But on the opposite, on the I love I love the man, but it's a glaring hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_00: On the opposite end of retreat is to simply receive.
SPEAKER_00: With an uncritical alignment, we receive and adopt the ways of our modern world such that there is no discernible difference between Christians and the rest of society.
SPEAKER_00: Without making that conscious choice, this is what most Christians are doing.
SPEAKER_00: The most dangerous idols are often not the ones that get all the attention, like the one you had me come talk about a couple years ago that everybody's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that that stuff is not dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: It is, but the ones that are really dangerous are the ones that go unnoticed.
SPEAKER_00: It's just an assumed way of life for society such that there is very little discernible difference between the followers of Jesus and those following the ways of this world.
SPEAKER_00: That is what has become of technology.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure there's ever been a study done on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was very little difference between the screen time usage of Christians and non-Christians.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there is a difference between the nature of the content of the screen time, but little difference in the quantity of content.
SPEAKER_00: Christians have just uncritically bought into all things technology without hesitation or reservation.
SPEAKER_00: But receiving this technological age is even more disastrous than retreating from it.
SPEAKER_00: If you give me the choice between the way most Christians are living their lives and the Amish are living their lives, give me the Amish every time.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't have to make that choice.
SPEAKER_00: There is another way between retreat and receive.
SPEAKER_00: We can redeem, as this title of this conference suggests.
SPEAKER_00: You are blessed to attend a church that believes that the gospel of Jesus Christ has the resources not just for personal redemption, but indeed social, cultural, community redemption.
SPEAKER_00: That it is the power of God to save us individually and socially, and this is true.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, technology is morally neutral and its value is determined instrumentally.
SPEAKER_00: I believe Christians in this crazy technological society of ours, I believe Christians ought to be the ones who redeem technology by using it the way it was originally designed to bring glory to God and blessing to the world.
SPEAKER_00: That is admittedly a harder path, but it is a path Christians are called to follow.
SPEAKER_00: Not retreat from our technological society, nor receive our technological society.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to be the ones who redeem technology by reclaiming God's intentions for technology.
SPEAKER_00: And I will conclude our time tomorrow morning with practical suggestions and habits that I believe will lead to a redemptive approach to technology in your life and in the life of your family.
SPEAKER_00: So I promise you, all the heady stuff is done.
SPEAKER_00: We will get practical tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight, I just thought it was important to lay this theological foundation of God's good design for technology, our sinful misuse of technology.
SPEAKER_00: If all the philosophical and theological talk isn't your thing, please come back tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Give me another chance.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be better tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: I promise.
SPEAKER_00: I will get practical on the unique dangers of technology.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to explore the three areas that I think you and your children are being impacted the most.
SPEAKER_00: And then we will conclude tomorrow morning with a practical way forward on how to combat them.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Let me uh let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Are we doing what will we what are we doing?
SPEAKER_00: Questions?
unknown: I'll let you pray and I'll come up.
SPEAKER_00: I'll pray.
SPEAKER_00: You come explain.
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Lord, uh, we do pray that you would take all of that and um just pray for grace um and just to digest the content.
SPEAKER_00: Um I recognize um packing a lot of a lot of content into that, but it's it's it's important, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It is important for us to understand what is your design for creation.
SPEAKER_00: It is important to appreciate and critique what we have done to that design, how we have uh failed our uh God-given mandate, how we have failed to glorify you, and how we have brought ruin to creation.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Lord, uh, that um not just tonight, but certainly this weekend, we would leave here hopeful um that um though it might be true that our world, our technological society is going mad and in many ways is losing not just our minds, but our humanity, that it doesn't have to be this way.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be this way for us personally, it doesn't have to be this way for our families, for our children, for our grandchildren.
SPEAKER_00: There is a way to do this well.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray as we gather tomorrow to explore um the unique harms that are manifesting all around us, uh, we would always, always, always keep our eyes fixed on the Redeemer who is able to bring redemption.
SPEAKER_00: That by following you, Jesus, by following the paths of righteousness, we can be this oasis of life, of flourishing, of a community that is protected from the madness that is unfolding all around us.
SPEAKER_00: And we can reach out to our neighbors and to the community around us, and we can say to them, come find life in the gospel and in the kingdom of God that admittedly is upside down from the ways of this world, but that has to be right side up according to your ways.
SPEAKER_00: And so give us hopeful vision and give us grace to take all of this in and um not only digest it intellectually, but internalize it and apply it in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Um, just trust you, Holy Spirit, with all the application and all that work.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you have not abandoned the world to its madness and to its downfall, um, but that you have entered in this world to redeem this world and indeed one day make all things new.
SPEAKER_00: We pine after that day.
SPEAKER_00: Until then, help us be faithful stewards, pointing to the way, which is you, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.