Welcome to my blog...Preaching Bytes! This blog has been created for my Preaching and Technology class at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. Look out blogging world...here I come!
Question: Is technology value neutral?
Answer: The article How the Internet Shapes Religious Life, or the Medium Is Itself the Message claims, "So, too, the Church thinks technology is value neutral, in and of itself neither good nor evil" (J.M. van der Laan, 276). I would wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. Technology is not value neutral. Technology has the ability to function positively or negatively, as do most things in our world today. The church is not exempt from this positive and negative functioning of technology. I have witnessed technology being used in congregations in a very positive way and I have also witnessed it fail miserably. Therefore, churches and church leaders must strive to carefully evaluate their use of technology. We, as a church, would be naive to think that technology in the church is value neutral. All we have to do is turn on the television, surf the internet, or check our email to find that technology impacts us in many ways, both positively and negatively. The same is true for technology in the church. So, please proceed with caution. We must not use technology in the church simply for the sake of using technology. Technology in the church must have a purpose and we, as church leaders, must attempt to use it in a positive way for the sake of God's people.
Cassandra, I appreciate your comment that we "must not use technology for the sake of using technology". As we strive to use it in positive ways for the sake of God's people, I think it is very important to pay attention to context, and evaluate how the community is already using technology, and how they might use it in the future. As Christians, we are always struggling to understand and articulate the work of God in our midst, using our own words, and I believe that technology is yet another, though not the only, way we can do that.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Caitlin. I think that so often I use the rationale in reverse--that we shouldn't do something just because "that's the way it's always been." Staying contextually relevant in a congregation's everyday life is important, but there needs to be a reason to do that, too.
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