I must admit I get nervous when people start telling me that the culture we are living in now is radically different from previous times. At one level nothing has changed. Jesus is still the same, yesterday, today and forever. The human condition remains the same – we are men and women made wonderfully created in the image of God but who are in desperate need of redemption. But because cultures are different from one another and this is something that God takes seriously. The gospel needs recontextualising just like it was in the four gospels and in the book of Acts. So understanding our contemporary context is a vital task of Christian leaders. The changes that are taking place in many societies across the globe due to information technologies are a significant opportunity for the church to engage with. In this short paper I would like to explore two ways that our culture is changing and then leave you some questions that will help you to diagnose the impact these changes are having in your context:
1.Ecological Change
The sociologist Neil Postman in a brilliant address in Colorado at a conference called The New Technologies and the Human Person: Communicating the Faith in the New Millennium, back in 1998 foresaw the trajectory of the information age.
“Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. I can explain this best by an analogy. What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe. After television, America was not America plus television. Television gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry, and so on.”[1]
Postman is arguing that new technologies are like the Pandora’s Box of Greek mythology. Opening the box had more far ranging consequences than anyone had imagined as evil was released and spread across the earth. It is interesting that he is quicker to point out the negatives that new technologies bring than the positives. He can point to television meaning that political debate becomes the 30-second television ad rather than the voluminous speeches enjoyed in the era of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.[2] Postman is right that information technologies bring ecological change- but not all ecological change is bad. The end of the severe city smog of London was one example positive change. So the changes in our cultures brought on by information technologies change the way we relate to one another, our social etiquette, according to Nicholas Carr they may even change the way that our brains operate[3], but these changes will contain both challenges for the church and opportunities for the gospel. The challenge for the church is to work out where to adapt and where to hold fast in this new cultural context. Sadly we have often been confused about the relationship between the gospel and our church cultures. As Missiologist George Hunsberger argues:“We are of the world and not in it. We have become both captured and intimidated by the culture.”[4]
2. Agent of Change
Clay Shirky is an American based commentator on the social and economic effects of the internet. He writes:
“We’re talking about ‘The People Formerly Known as the Audience’,” he says of the many millions of individuals participating in the different forms of social media. The audience he has in mind have not just left their previously passive behaviour in their seats but stormed the stage, the studio, the publishing house, and the grounds of any number of other closely controlled institutions and political structures. A glance at Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, countless blogs or product reviews is proof enough of that.”[5]
Social media has provided the platform that made social revolutions possible. You could point to the influence of facebook on the Arab Spring or Twitter for the increase of citizen reporting or the Ushahidi (the Swahili word for ‘witness’) text messaging network that helped to provide live tracking of the outbreak of violence following the Kenyan elections in 2008.[6] Just as the early church utilized the Roman Road structure of the ancient world to spread the gospel quickly across larges areas. Just as the reformers commandeered the new technology of the printing press to spread the doctrine of the gospel of grace far and wide. So now we in this information age need to seize the opportunity for a redemptive engagement with new technologies.
10 Questions for reflection:
1. How would you describe your personal use of social media? (are you a social media fan or skeptic?)
2. Is social media is making you or your society less sociable or more sociable, why?
3. Read Nicholas Carr’s article, is Google making us stupid?
4. Do you think that Social Media can bring genuine social transformation or is it just a placebo – breeding a new generation of “slacktivists”? (see the video “social media for social change”)
5. Is it possible for a public figure to have private twitter and facebook account?
6. In your experience has the church taken a positive “early adopter” attitude or a more negative, reluctant “luddite” mentality to social media. (watch this video for more information)
7. What are the best examples you have seen of the church using social media well?
8. How can social media help the church to engage in a more global conversation?
9. Why do you think the use of social media has such a polarizing effect on different christian leaders and thinkers?
10. The apostle Paul explained how he became “all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” 1 Corinthians 9:22. What should the contextualisation of the church look like in a digital age?
[1] Neil, P. (1998). Five things we need to know about technological change. In P. De Palma (Ed.), Annual Editions: Computers in Society 10/11 (pp. 3-6). New York: McGraw Hill.
[2] Postman, N., (1998) Amusing ourselves to Death, Penguin
[3] Carr, N., (2010) The Shallows- what the internet is doing to our brains, Atlantic Press
[4] Hunsberger, G. (2000) “Acquiring the posture of a missionary church” in Hunsberger, G. & Van Gelder, C. (ed) (2000) The Church between gospel and culture, Eerdmans, p.292
[5] See the interview with Shirky ““Social production is the great opportunity of our age” at http://www.i-cio.com/features/october-2010/clay-shirky
[6] http://www.forbes.com/global/2008/1208/114.html