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Is Technology Neutral? Grok, AI Deepfakes, and Discipleship · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.
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  Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways
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  Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,
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  Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,
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  Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, everyone. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm Dr.
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  Speaker 2: James Spencer. I'm joined today by Dr. Ashish Varma.
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  Speaker 1: And we are going to be talking about amplification. This
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  Speaker 1: is the last of our series on the forces and
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  Speaker 1: conditions that are really related to the problem of narrowing
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  Speaker 1: we've been talking about. And so amplification really is very
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  Speaker 1: much tied to technology. Marshall McLuhan, one of his four
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  Speaker 1: laws of media, which really do apply into technology, He
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  Speaker 1: argued that technologies or media, they amplify or extend certain
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  Speaker 1: human capacities. So I like to think about this in
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  Speaker 1: one of its simplest forms.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: If you think about eating most of the time, if
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  Speaker 1: you were going to eat, like, let's say, a bowl
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  Speaker 1: of spaghetti.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Number one, we have a bowl.
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  Speaker 1: It's a container. It's a form of technology. But usually
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  Speaker 1: we unless we're three years old, we don't eat spaghetti
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  Speaker 1: with our fingers.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: We don't try to reach in and grab the spaghetti,
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  Speaker 1: pick it up and then just pop it in our mouths.
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  Speaker 1: What we usually do is we use a fork or
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  Speaker 1: depending on your culture, like when my girls and I
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  Speaker 1: go out for pho, I use chopsticks to eat noodles.
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  Speaker 1: But we have some sort of technology that extends our hands,
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  Speaker 1: extends our grip. Right. And we can use to eat
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  Speaker 1: that keeps our hands from getting dirty, keeps our hands
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  Speaker 1: from getting all that food on it. And so it
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  Speaker 1: makes our eating to some degree more efficient. But this
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  Speaker 1: is an extension of a capacity we already have. We
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  Speaker 1: could eat with our fingers. We prefer not to. And
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  Speaker 1: so the fork, the chopsticks, the utensil, whatever it is
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  Speaker 1: that we're using, that then becomes an extension of something
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  Speaker 1: we could do otherwise, but we prefer not to. So
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  Speaker 1: that's just sort of a really simplified case of amplification.
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  Speaker 1: It amplifies something that we already have available to us.
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  Speaker 1: But the technology allows us to do it in, in
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  Speaker 1: this case, a cleaner fashion, let's say. We don't have
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  Speaker 1: to get our hands dirty. So that's the sort of
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  Speaker 1: thing we're going to be talking about. And obviously, there
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  Speaker 1: are a lot of different examples. And I don't know, Ashish,
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  Speaker 1: maybe the best place to start is what technology is
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  Speaker 1: in the first place. And so I have a couple
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  Speaker 1: of thoughts on it, but I'd kind of like to
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  Speaker 1: pass it to you and let you start.
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  Speaker 4: I do think that's the best place to start.
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  Speaker 3: Because I think what's contained in what is technology is
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  Speaker 3: recognizing that it belongs to a system or a narrative,
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  Speaker 3: however you want to put it, in which you're trying
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  Speaker 3: to do something. So you've identified certain goals. You've identified
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  Speaker 3: even certain ethics that belong to those goals, right? One
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  Speaker 3: of those ethics might be we value cleanliness. And there's
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  Speaker 3: a whole history of the rise of cleanliness in American
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  Speaker 3: culture and how that became such a prominent part of
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  Speaker 3: the ways in which we think about organizing. Well, once
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  Speaker 3: you have those ideas in mind of a goal, plus
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  Speaker 3: the ethics of cleanliness, let's say, you start to think
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  Speaker 3: about what it is you can do to make what
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  Speaker 3: you're doing ostensibly easier or ostensibly more efficient. And I
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  Speaker 3: say ostensibly because there's plenty written and plenty of studies
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  Speaker 3: done on how The more technology intrudes upon us, the
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  Speaker 3: more that's expected of us, and it doesn't actually free
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  Speaker 3: up our time. But ostensibly, that's the goal, right? So
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  Speaker 3: when John Deere was plowing the fields in the Midwest,
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  Speaker 3: the root systems were such that the plows that already
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  Speaker 3: existed didn't work. So what do we do about that? Well,
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  Speaker 3: John Deere says, he goes through his experimentation and he
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  Speaker 3: comes upon this steel-tipped plow.
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  Speaker 4: What he was trying to do was plow the fields.
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  Speaker 3: But what he wanted to do ultimately was to be
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  Speaker 3: able to do more faster as well, right? It's not
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  Speaker 3: that he couldn't work the ground, till it, and get
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  Speaker 3: done what he needed to do, but the idea was
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  Speaker 3: bigger and bigger. Well, where you end up with that
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  Speaker 3: is more and more technology that comes out of John
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  Speaker 3: Deere that gets implemented in farms. I mean, now suddenly
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  Speaker 3: you've got these farms that there's no way that a
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  Speaker 3: farmer is going to work the amount of land that
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  Speaker 3: we see farmers working without this machinery. So you've got
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  Speaker 3: those things tied together, but what that does is it
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  Speaker 3: ends up creating a certain dependence in the process too, right?
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  Speaker 3: Imagine the farmer without the technology. That farmer can't survive.
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  Speaker 3: That farmer can't produce the mass amount that he needs
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  Speaker 3: or she needs in order to get crops to market
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  Speaker 3: in order to then pay for the next round of seed,
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  Speaker 3: of technology, of fertilizer, of water, right? So it becomes
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  Speaker 3: an intimate part of the cycle that attaches on.
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  Speaker 4: To what we are.
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  Speaker 3: And I'll put that in contrast to another technology. So
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  Speaker 3: now we are thoroughly embedded in a world in which
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  Speaker 3: we have touchscreens. And we have generations being born in
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  Speaker 3: which they just take for granted the touchscreen. I'll never
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  Speaker 3: forget when my kids were really young and we had
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  Speaker 3: YouTube up on the screen. and they went to that
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  Speaker 3: little triangle play button, and they just tapped the screen.
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  Speaker 4: And I'm like, what are you doing?
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  Speaker 3: And in their minds, the idea of a screen not
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  Speaker 3: being a touchscreen just didn't exist, right? Well, you compare
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  Speaker 3: that to previous generations where we would be inclined to
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  Speaker 3: use a mouse, right? And for us, the touchscreen... seems
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  Speaker 3: superfluous even to the point where i remember back in
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  Speaker 3: i want to say this was the 90s my dad
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  Speaker 3: came home we had this old ibm compatible computer that
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  Speaker 3: ran early version of windows and he came home with
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  Speaker 3: this thing that you put on top of the monitor
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  Speaker 3: and it made that monitor into a touch screen and
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  Speaker 3: he was super excited and i remember looking at him
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  Speaker 3: as a child saying why do we need this said
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  Speaker 3: you don't need the mouse anymore you can just touch
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  Speaker 3: the screen And I said, nobody wants to touch the screen.
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  Speaker 3: I have to reach my finger all the way up
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  Speaker 3: there to.
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  Speaker 4: Touch the screen.
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  Speaker 3: With my mouth, I can sit back and just move.
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  Speaker 4: My hand lightly.
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  Speaker 3: And the truth was that we were both right because
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  Speaker 3: that touchscreen technology did not take off. And it's a story, right,
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  Speaker 3: of technology doesn't serve ultimately the way that we envision life.
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  Speaker 3: So there's an imagination component in there. And then it
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  Speaker 3: doesn't do anything. Now, why did the technology of the
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  Speaker 3: touchscreen eventually take off? Well, eventually Apple comes back into
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  Speaker 3: the game, and this is well over a decade later.
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  Speaker 3: And it incorporates the touch technology, but now it makes
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  Speaker 3: it something desirable, right? The whole marketing premise of Apple
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  Speaker 3: that was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time
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  Speaker 3: when it started to get into the market as we
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  Speaker 3: know it now was revitalized by the idea of make
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  Speaker 3: it look cool. Make us think that we're part of
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  Speaker 3: a trend.
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  Speaker 4: And there's the.
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  Speaker 3: Ethics of it, right? We all had that desire. So
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  Speaker 3: that's how they did their ethics, and their goal was
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  Speaker 3: ultimately to make money, and this was a technology to
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  Speaker 3: serve that purpose. Anyway, the point here is to show
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  Speaker 3: that there are different ways in which technology come about,
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  Speaker 3: but the idea is they're always doing something, and they
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  Speaker 3: always try to conform to a certain internal ethical standard,
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  Speaker 3: whether or not we would think of it externally as ethical.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that. I think... I agree with
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  Speaker 2: all that.
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  Speaker 1: There's an aspect of this, too, that I want to
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  Speaker 1: make sure that we don't lose, which is that technology
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  Speaker 1: is an appropriate response to a fallen condition. So, in
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  Speaker 1: other words, our relationships are broken post-fall, and I think
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  Speaker 1: technology is given as a response to those broken relationships.
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  Speaker 1: I would argue that we see this early on in
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  Speaker 1: Genesis with the fig leaf. You know, the relationships between man, woman,
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  Speaker 1: world creation are broken and they cover themselves because they're ashamed.
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  Speaker 1: Then God comes along and gives them better coverings, more
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  Speaker 1: suited to them out of the skins of animals. These
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  Speaker 1: are early forms of technology that are now necessitated by.
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  Speaker 1: a declining fitness for a context in which the world
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  Speaker 1: is not functioning as it did prior to the fall.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, the human capacity really hasn't changed that much,
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  Speaker 1: but the relational dynamics that allowed human capacity to flourish
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  Speaker 1: in the garden allowed humankind to name all the animals
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  Speaker 1: naked is no longer the capacity that is available.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't work the same way post-fall. And so I
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  Speaker 2: agree with you.
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  Speaker 1: I think that technology has, it's embedded within our stories.
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  Speaker 1: It makes sense within our stories. There is a context
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  Speaker 1: in which it makes sense to use, you know, X
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  Speaker 1: technology as opposed to Y technology, right?
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  Speaker 2: There's a reason.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure I can articulate it, but there's
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  Speaker 1: a reason why people are so fascinated with space travel.
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  Speaker 1: You know, there's a reason that people want to, you know,
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  Speaker 1: some people appreciate that Elon Musk wants to take us
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  Speaker 1: to Mars or create robots that will alleviate us from
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  Speaker 1: our hard labor. Like there's an ethic. that makes that
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  Speaker 1: make sense. I don't know that I understand that fully.
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  Speaker 1: I don't understand why you would want something else doing
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  Speaker 1: all that work for you. But you're right. It's embedded
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  Speaker 1: within these stories. But I also think that technology has
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  Speaker 1: its place post-fall. I don't hear you denying that. I
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  Speaker 1: just want to make sure that that point gets out there,
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  Speaker 1: that there is an appropriate use of technology within a
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  Speaker 1: post-fall world. But that technology that often helps us also
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  Speaker 1: creates that dependency you referenced. And I think that dependency
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  Speaker 1: is the fruit of our desire to make something other
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  Speaker 1: than maybe what God would want us to make of
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  Speaker 1: his creation. And then as such, we start to develop
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  Speaker 1: technologies and push progress, right? Progress should probably be in
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  Speaker 1: air quotes too, that are commensurate with our vision of
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  Speaker 1: what creation should be, not necessarily aligned with what God's
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  Speaker 1: vision of creation should be. And so we've got this
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  Speaker 1: sort of razor's edge on which we balance. Where is
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  Speaker 1: it appropriate for us to utilize technology to amplify what
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  Speaker 1: might be thought of as something like human flourishing versus
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  Speaker 1: when does that so degrade that the technology essentially captures
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  Speaker 1: us and we become a reflection of it as opposed
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  Speaker 1: to having us utilize it to reflect God's glory. I
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  Speaker 1: realize that's really overly conceptual, but let me illustrate it
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  Speaker 1: like this. We're having a, we, we have these conversations
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  Speaker 1: every week. It's mediated by technology and then we record it.
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  Speaker 1: We load it up into another system. It shoots it
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  Speaker 1: out via an RSS feed and other people listen to it.
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  Speaker 1: I would count that as a good thing. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's a good amplification. I enjoy having these conversations. They're
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  Speaker 1: sort of life-giving for me. Yes, we could drive the
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  Speaker 1: four hours that separate us and talk every week, I suppose.
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  Speaker 2: But that's a long trip.
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  Speaker 1: An eight-hour round trip to talk and record something isn't
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  Speaker 1: as efficient as just doing it like this. And so
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  Speaker 1: we've decided collectively that this is actually an okay way
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  Speaker 1: to do this, that we don't need to drive the
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  Speaker 1: eight hours. to get in close proximity to one another
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  Speaker 1: to record or to talk or what have you.
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  Speaker 2: We'll save that for special occasions.
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  Speaker 1: At the same time, where this is sort of life-giving
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  Speaker 1: for us, I think you could go online and find
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  Speaker 1: content that most Christians, if not all Christians, would agree
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  Speaker 1: is not life-giving. And that, you know, we know there's
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  Speaker 1: like an internet pornography problem, for instance. We know that
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  Speaker 1: there are issues with scandal journalism and, you know, just
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous misinformation online. These are amplifications of our baser instincts
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  Speaker 1: that now are unfettered due to technology, where they might
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  Speaker 1: have been localized at one point. Now they are distributable online.
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  Speaker 1: And that becomes deeply problematic. And so you see the
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  Speaker 1: same sorts of technologies being used to amplify something that
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  Speaker 1: I would judge as good and something that I would
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  Speaker 1: say is not so good.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe a distinction here is to discuss the development of
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  Speaker 3: technology from the use of technology. When I've had these
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  Speaker 3: discussions in class, students like to say, well, we think
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  Speaker 3: technology is basically neutral and it's how you use it.
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  Speaker 3: And I tend to push back. I don't like quite
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  Speaker 3: that simplification of it. I do think what they're getting
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  Speaker 3: at on one end is helpful, right? There are uses
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  Speaker 3: of technology. As you pointed out, our use of the
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  Speaker 3: cameras and the mics and the internet and the computers
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  Speaker 3: in order to do this podcast, to have these conversations
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  Speaker 3: that are, agreed, very life-affirming. and enjoyable is a great
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  Speaker 3: use of it. But we also recognize that the development
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  Speaker 3: of these things wasn't so that we could use it
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  Speaker 3: to be affirmed in our lives. The development of these
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  Speaker 3: things is ultimately part of a progression in which the
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  Speaker 3: people who are on top of these enterprises, the technological enterprises,
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  Speaker 3: are seeking to find the next way to make money, right?
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  Speaker 3: So it's part of this larger technique that we can
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  Speaker 3: call capitalism. Capitalism is a technique for making money, but
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  Speaker 3: also for making sure that I make the money that
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  Speaker 3: I want to make without necessarily the concern for how
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  Speaker 3: I go about doing it or for what that might
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  Speaker 3: mean for somebody else. And therein we get that technology
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  Speaker 3: isn't quite so neutral. So if my goal is to
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  Speaker 3: develop a technique in which I can make money at
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  Speaker 3: the expense of other people or to the good of
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  Speaker 3: my set of people, but no real concern for the
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  Speaker 3: other people.
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  Speaker 4: That's not a morally or ethically neutral thing.
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  Speaker 3: However, in the process of that, we certainly can take
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  Speaker 3: this stuff and the people that develop it are more
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  Speaker 3: than happy for us to take it and use it
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  Speaker 3: for other things that are affirming to us. But those uses,
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  Speaker 3: I think, shouldn't be confused with the purposes set forth
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  Speaker 3: that generate why the technique was developed in the first place.
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  Speaker 4: Is that fair?
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  Speaker 2: No, it definitely is.
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  Speaker 1: And I think it's a helpful progression of the argument
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  Speaker 1: because I would agree with you that I think our
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  Speaker 1: problem with the internet, if I could, in technology more generally,
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  Speaker 1: especially in a digital world, I would say it's not
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  Speaker 1: so much about the misinformation, although that's difficult too. It's
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  Speaker 1: a misformation. In other words, these digital platforms aren't neutral.
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  Speaker 1: Their development is not neutral and they are cultivating values
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  Speaker 1: and habits in the Bordeaux sense of habitus, right? A
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  Speaker 1: sense of the way the world actually works. They're cultivating
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  Speaker 1: that sense within us as we use them. And so
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  Speaker 1: we have to, I think, grapple deeply with How does
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  Speaker 1: this technology, how is this technology tempting me to be
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  Speaker 1: let go of something that would make me more human?
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  Speaker 1: This is where I really love Albert Borgman's distinction between
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  Speaker 1: things and devices. In his analogy, a wood-burning stove, he
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  Speaker 1: calls that a thing. Now, obviously, a wood-burning stove could
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  Speaker 1: be classified as a technology, right? And part of what
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  Speaker 1: I like about what he does is he's not anti-tech.
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  Speaker 1: But what he's using is more what we might call
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  Speaker 1: rudimentary technologies, let's say. And he's calling those things, right?
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  Speaker 1: And things don't commodify to the extent that a device commodifies.
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  Speaker 1: And so the illustration he uses is this wood-burning stove.
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  Speaker 1: And he says, just think about all that has to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: go into the wood-burning stove. someone has to go out
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  Speaker 1: and cut the wood, right? And he tells this wonderful,
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  Speaker 1: maybe this is a father and a son who go
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  Speaker 1: out and they cut the wood together and they carry
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  Speaker 1: the wood back in. And then someone has to cook
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  Speaker 1: on the stove, right? So the stove isn't just for heat.
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  Speaker 1: It's also about the meal. It's about cooking on the stove.
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  Speaker 1: And so now as you're in this house, people start
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  Speaker 1: to gather around the wood-burning stove because the heat is
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  Speaker 1: going to be It's going to be warmer closer to
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  Speaker 1: the stove than it is farther away from the stove.
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  Speaker 1: And so you've created this sort of social matrix around
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  Speaker 1: this thing that is providing you with something. It's useful
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  Speaker 1: to you, but it's also underscoring the deep interdependencies we
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  Speaker 1: have with one another, with nature, with all these different
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: aspects versus something like my Google Home thermostat. that uh
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  Speaker 1: you know if my wife and i both have our
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  Speaker 1: app up we'll you know play a little war on
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  Speaker 1: whether we want it cooler or hotter in the house
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: right i mean that's as much interaction as you need
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  Speaker 1: to have with it my family and i do not
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  Speaker 1: huddle around the thermostat trying to get warm the heat
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  Speaker 1: is distributed and this is what borgman calls the commodification
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  Speaker 1: of that heat it it gets easy we can just
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  Speaker 1: get it by turning a dial, pushing a button, and
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  Speaker 1: all of the apparatus that are then used to get
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  Speaker 1: that heat are essentially anonymous to us. We don't know
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  Speaker 1: who's working in the energy plant, what they're doing. I
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: have no clue where the gas really comes from, like
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  Speaker 1: where is that located in my local area. It comes
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  Speaker 1: in through a pipe in my house, and that's about
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  Speaker 1: as aware as I am of it.
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  Speaker 2: And that's what heats my home.
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  Speaker 1: And so it creates a distance between us and others,
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  Speaker 1: as opposed to a thing which creates connection with us
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  Speaker 1: and others. I think that's a really helpful distinction. Not
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  Speaker 1: because I want to go back to Little House on
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  Speaker 1: the Prairie and have wood-burning stoves and, you know, four
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  Speaker 1: strong carriages and those kind of things.
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  Speaker 2: I like my car. I like my heat.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: But I think it gives us a way of thinking
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: through these different technologies that remind us that these are
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: not only useful to us, they're doing something to us.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: They're changing the way we think about the cadence of
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: our daily lives. And they're reshaping us in subtle ways
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: away from one another, as opposed to toward one another. Um,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: This last thing I'll say, like you'd mentioned, you know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the time element, right? Like it has been shown that
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: all this technology that's supposed to be so much more
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: efficient for us hasn't exactly saved us any time. And
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: my guess is that's because we can tear through higher
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: volumes of work incessantly as opposed to doing the same
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: amount of work we used to in a much shorter time.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: That would be more efficient.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: But what we're doing now is we're saying, oh, well,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: if it only takes me, you know, five seconds to
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: write and send an email and I don't have to
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: write that on a, you know, with a quill and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: ink and I don't have to, you know, stamp it and,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you know, go to a post office to mail it.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Look at all this other time. I can do 20
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: emails in that time. We filled up that time plus
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: more through the technology. And that's what I think we
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: probably want to avoid as we think about technology as
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: an example, is that email really did give us an
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: opportunity to spend more time with others.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: It really did.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: We just chose not to spend that more time with others.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: We chose to spend it to be, quote unquote, more productive, right?
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: to dive into the work as opposed to pull away
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: from the work and take what that technology could have
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: given us, a more efficient way to communicate at the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: rate and cadence we were communicating. But we opted not
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: to do that. We opted to fill up the space.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: So just as a sort of an example.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: That's helpful.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: If you don't mind, I want to delve into what
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: exactly is going on, because I think the distinctions you
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: made are worth reflecting on, and I think the way
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: in which you've parsed out the efficiency problem is worth
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: delving into. So maybe I'll take them in reverse order.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Regarding the efficiency problem, that kind of gets back to
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: the goal of the development, right? I mean, even now
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: we see leaders in the AI revolution saying that exact thing.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: This is going to free us up to do all
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: sorts of things. But they know full well that the
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: freeing us up to do other things requires still the
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: capacity to make money. Because money, unfortunately, is the way
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: in which we... It's that storing of energy, right? I
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: can do my job. You can do your job. They
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: can do their job. And we convert all that energy
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: into money, which allows us to then buy the products
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: of someone else's job. or by the products of the
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: farmer's work, right? And that's the commodification. But that is
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: not a neutral process, right? And so now we have
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: a situation in which there's the capacity for some to
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: make more of the money than others, and there's the
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: desire to make more money than others.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: And this isn't a new desire.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: The medieval church talked about avarice as one of the
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: seven deadly sins. And it's this love of money for
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: the sake of accumulating it or this love of wealth
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: for the sake of accumulating it. That hasn't gone away.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: So now when we develop these technologies, it's always with
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: an eye to, can it be fine-tuned in a way
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: in which it's marketable to a mass number of people
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: to convince them to reimagine their lives as worked in
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: and through them so that it becomes inseparable, right?
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: Like the car.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: And now that it's inseparable, can we, build it in
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: a way in which it enables the constant generation of
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: revenue perhaps that's every year we need to make a
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: new car with a slight addition to it that makes
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: it more desirable right maybe it's a fashion industry that
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: says your clothes aren't good enough even though they don't
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: have holes in them we need to get you to
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: buy new clothes right your computer can that used to
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: be able to be something that you opened up and
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: you added new memory to, or you added a new
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: video card to, or you changed out your hard drive.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: We got to make them solid state, everything and sealed
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: so that now you just throw it and you can buy,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: you know, Ram is cheap, but the computer itself is not.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: Now you buy the whole thing, right? And these are the.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Ethics that sort of drive the innovation. But to me,
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: that's very different in the way that you were describing, um,
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: I can't remember the term used, but the non-commodified version,
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: the wood-burning fireplace or oven.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: And I think the thing, the thing, that's what it is,
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: the thing. The way you described it, I think, was
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: helpful in terms of that thing that draws us together.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: I want to look at it also from another angle
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: and say it's not just that it draws us together.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: It's an effort and innovation that's meant to guide us
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: into a sense of enmeshing. Enmeshing with each other, but
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: also enmeshing with the earth. The image that comes to
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: my mind that I know you'll laugh about is the
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: way that Tolkien and his illustrators describe the ways in
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: which the elves build, which looks very different. There's something
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: very organic. There's something built into. It's cooperating with. It's
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: meshing with. It's like a co-laboring. It's recognizing life all
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: around them. And I don't know about the wood-burning oven,
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: perhaps it fits in this or not, but for the
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: sake of this argument, let's say it does, that the
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: purpose of it is to help us to be able
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: to better cook our food, right? Perhaps that's the better
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: way to do it within an environment that has an
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: abundance of wood that we can take from without overtaking
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: and taxing the environment. But that's a very different logic
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: from the logic of more. Which is what I'm understanding
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: these other things. The technological logic of more is there
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: isn't enough. I've never reached the place where I've made
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: enough money. Now, perhaps for the working class who are
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: living paycheck to paycheck, that's because inflation keeps happening and
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: things keep rising in price. But why does inflation keep rising?
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Why is that oil that's in the tank suddenly more expensive?
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: It's because of these other forces that I would argue is.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: It's the logic of more, perhaps the disease of more.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: I must have more. I must have more spending power.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: I must have more commodity. I must have more influence
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: that the money can get me. I must have the
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: ability to dictate the way things ought to go. And
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: that's where technology in the sense of the modern world sits, right?
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: It sits not with the development of how do we
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: live alongside, but rather, how do I get more? Now,
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: within that is the capacity to say, I use this
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: in a different way. I think there is a biblical parallel, right?
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: You mentioned the fig leaf and the animal skins. I
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: think another version is to think about city. The way
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: that city is introduced in the Old Testament and Genesis,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: it's not a positive thing. It's in contrast to this
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: organic reality of the garden of life together, right? Where
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: humanity is with animals, which is with plants, which is
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: with The larger environment, the water running in the midst
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: of everything, this is meant to give you an enmeshed
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: idea of life. And the city is inherently, especially in
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: that setting where you're thinking of a walled-off segment, it's
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: meant to separate you from all that enmeshment. But it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: not as if the Bible takes that polar opposite image
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: and that negative image that it starts with and it
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: just says, down with city, back to garden.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: You now get this image of Zion. And whatever else
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Zion is, it's an image of city reimagined. And that
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: image of city reimagined keeps getting more and more content.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: But by the time you get to passages like, I
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: believe it's Ezekiel 36, somewhere late in Ezekiel, and especially
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: the end of Revelation, but you get hints of it
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: in the Psalms and the Proverbs and in these other places, um,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: You get the image both of a new garden, but
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: also of a new city, and the two are actually
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: two ways of looking at the same image, where it's
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: not a walled-off place.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: It's a life together.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: So I want to say that to affirm that there
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: are ways in which we can begin to take the
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: technology that's designed for one purpose and begin to reimagine it.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: But reimagining might be pretty radical at times. There's some
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: things that, when they're created out of the disease of more, again,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: as the medieval church would call it, then you can't
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: just simply redeem the disease of more. However, you can
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: take it. You can take the camera. You can take
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: the microphones. You can take the computer and the internet.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: And rather than use it for propaganda, purposes that are
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: pretty violent towards people right you mentioned the pornography industry
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: which really is an industry and that says something it's
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: violent it's violent to the people that are in it
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: whether willfully or not it's violent to the people who
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: are placing people in it because it's forming in them
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: the wrong habituses that that reinforce violence, it's violent to
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: the people consuming it. Because it forms within you habituses
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: that shouldn't be there, right? And the ways in which
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: you now begin to look at other people and imagine people,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: or imagine life revolving and pleasure revolving around yourself. That's
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: a use, and we can, in this setting, agree that
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: it's a wicked use. But we can also speak of
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: a positive use of the same technology for something like this.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: But again, that's important to recognize that it You can
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: take some of that stuff. You can't take all of
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: that stuff. And that's the discernment process.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: Is that fair?
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: And I'll throw in.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: So I agree with the avarice and the disease of more.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I want to push it a little bit further back
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and just say, I think so much of that is
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: rooted in our desire to be independent from God. I
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: think that avarice is sort of us saying that I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: need to be secure in and of myself. I need
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: to have power and influence and a lot of those
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: things you mentioned in and of myself. And this is
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: how I get that. It's a means to an end.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: And that end is really, I don't want to be
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: dependent on God. I would like to live life on
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: my own terms. Even if I'm giving God a nice
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: little head nod, like, hey, thanks a lot. I would
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: still really prefer to be able to determine what it
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: is that I do, how it is that I do it,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: and make sure that I am sufficiently safe. in my wealth,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: in my holdings, in my power, in my influence, that
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I have a level of quote-unquote control over my own
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: life that is brought about by these things that I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: can collect through technologies. Now, framed like that, then I
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: think a narrative like David and Goliath can speak to
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: the way.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: We might think about technology. right?
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: So your example of the garden and the city, I
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: think is right. I think the city is framed as
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: a negative initially. It's sort of this walling off from
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: the dangers of a world with which we now no
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: longer have a harmonious relationship with. And so we're trying
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to protect ourselves. So let's build these walls. Let's keep
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: those things out. Let's protect ourselves. That then becomes this
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: sort of image that is has that re-enmeshed vision of
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: the plants and the animals and the people and God
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: all together.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: But initially, it isn't that.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: I think the David and Goliath narrative has something interesting
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to say to that because David in that narrative is
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: given Saul's armor. He's going to go off and fight Goliath.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: David is a shepherd at this time. He's just delivering
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: some cheese to his brothers. And he's going to go
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: off and battle Goliath. He didn't have any armor. He
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: tries Saul's armors on and he says, look, I'm not
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: going to wear this. This hasn't been tested. Within the context,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: what's really going on there, I think, is David is saying, look,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I fought lions and bears as a shepherd and God
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: protected me. I didn't have this stuff on. I don't
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: understand how to use it. I never needed it before.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: So I don't think I'll need it now. Thank you
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: very much. Now, there could have been fitment issues too.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Like Saul's armor doesn't quite fit David.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that's primarily what's happening here. I
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: think primarily what is happening here is David is making
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: a choice in the moment not to say Israelites should
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: never wear armor ever. I think in the moment, what
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: David is saying is, no, I'm just going to trust
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: God on this one. I don't need the weapons of
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: this particular arena to fight this particular enemy.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: God's got me. It's not going to be a problem.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: And it's this radical independence from the technology that is
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: ultimately cultivated on David's willingness to depend on God. And
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: in that moment, that singular choice, doesn't say to us,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: never use technology. What it says is be discerning in
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: your use of technology such that you don't lose dependence
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: on God. And so I think if we sort of
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: reframe that, we can get some interesting angles on, yes,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the disease of more, but then we've got this other
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: notion of independence from God and how technology can kind
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: of sharpen that tendency within us. that I think are
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: really crucial as we're talking about not just, hey, let's
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: throw away big tech and go back, like I said,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: go back to Little House on the Prairie days, right,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: where we're surrounded with things and we have no devices.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I personally would not like that. I don't even like camping, right?
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: So that's not fun for me to think about. But
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the reality is then that what we grapple with in
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: this moment is are we really, to use your word,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: and meshed with God sufficient that we're not dependent on
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: these technologies for safety, security, for life, that we're willing
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to set them aside because we know that as much
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: as the people who produce these technologies might want us
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: to think that this is how the world works, we
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: know this is not how the world works. They don't
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: ever become passive tools. I think they're always sort of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: formative tools structures in our lives that tend to help
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: us forget God.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Go back to Deuteronomy 8.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: You're going to inherit a land where you drink from
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: cisterns that you did not dig. You drink from cisterns
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: you did not dig. You live in houses you didn't build.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: You're going to eat from fields that you didn't plant.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: There's something about what we have around us that cultivates
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: a forgetfulness of what God has given us. And I
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: think that's part of what technology amplifies in us. It
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: gives us a higher capacity to forget God. And as Christians,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: we need to be resisting that capacity, that amplification.
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's good.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: And I want to drive into that. The premise here
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: is that this amplification increases the narrowing. And maybe so
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: far it's not immediately obvious how, but I think maybe
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: an example would help. There's a book, and I forget
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: the title, it's a.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: Work of history.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: It's working through how the Germans especially, but other countries
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: were impacted by the American Civil War in a way
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: in which we don't often think about these things. But
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: the impact was specifically that The Civil War being fought over,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: the question of slavery, and specifically a very ethnically driven
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: slavery towards the objectifying of Black people into indentured servitude, right? Now,
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: one of the primary crops that was coming out of
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: that was the cotton industry, right? The enslaved peoples were
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: having to work these cotton farms, and technology was developed
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: within that, the cotton gin. Now, ostensibly, again, that cotton
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: gin makes life easier. But in reality, what it does
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: is it didn't actually end slavery. It focused slavery. And
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: it focused it in the midst of all these varieties
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: of cotton plants onto a particular kind of cotton plant.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: And the way the texture.
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: That the cotton that's produced from it comes out of it.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: And I don't remember the details of it. It's been
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: a while now.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: They're just different textures. And that self-selected, in some sense,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: how the fields were planted. It didn't help people who
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: were enslaved. It self-selected how we chose which plants were planted.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: And that's vital here, because this is what enters into
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: the conversation how countries like Germany got involved, ancillaries, but
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: still involved in the Civil War.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: Well, because you already have a global market, and one
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: of the Well, in fact, the chief, but also there
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: were others, but the chief producer of cotton in the
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: world at the time was the American South. But now
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: there's a disruption of that supply because of the Civil
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: War that affects places, including Germany, but Germany was one
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: of the people groups that decided that they needed to
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: work through this in order to decrease their dependence.
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: Upon American cotton.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Now, they looked at countries like India that also produced
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: a different kind of cotton with a different plant and
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: therefore a different texture, and they saw that in this
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: particular texture that that cotton would not work with the
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: existing cotton gin. So among other things, Germany had to
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: self-select now to further the narrowing of the species of cotton.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: That were out there.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: In order to make it fit what they were doing,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: or what they needed to replace, because it was far
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: more expensive and far less efficient for them to use
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: that language to go demand more out of the Indian
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: product or the Chinese product. It was far more efficient
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: to them to in some ways replicate what was going
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: on in the American South and that included the narrowing
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: of the species of cotton in order to match the
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: pre-existent technology now that dictated to them what would now survive. Now,
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: there's a lot more to this story. It's a really
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: fascinating book. I can get you the title if you're interested.
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: I've forgotten the title off the top of my head.
• 40:03
  Speaker 4: It's somewhere behind me here.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: But the point I want to make from this is
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: that it's very similar to the ways in which our
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: use of technique within ecclesial context that are very shattered.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: And what I mean by shattered is that we don't
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: have a unified church. We have a lot of different denominations.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: We have a lot of different sub-denominations. We have those
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: denominations that say they're not denominations. And what this has
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: brought about is a need, and this is what drives
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: the modern enterprise of hermeneutics, the idea of how do
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: we understand the text. It's a desire to to be
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: able to say we've once and for all been able
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: to determine the technique by which we properly interpret the text,
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: and this enables us to get the proper doctrine as
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: second-order discourse that we overlay upon the text to help
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: us make sense as a map of the text. But
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: once you have that technique, and once you have that
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: map that comes from that technique, you've now foreclosed on
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: the possibilities of meaning. So it enables the further delving
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: into these divisions. So whereas the church, one would think
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: from looking at scripture, is a declaration of the unified
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: body of Christ, in practice you have an increasingly fractured
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: and even larger wedges being put between them because of
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: the ways that technique amplifies it. Now don't hear me
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: as saying don't study hermeneutics or that hermeneutics are useless,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: but understand that the moment we put these techniques into practice,
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: we've now created very clear lines about what is and
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: what is not allowed. And that's how we now get
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: these dynamics in which we begin to see things that
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: weren't previously heresy as heresy, or we get the very
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: narrow ability to declare heresy. Whereas as we talked previously,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: the early church was very slow to declare heresy.
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: It took even decades to declare heresy.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I, I think to, Piggyback on that notion of narrowing.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: If we think about that in today's digital age and
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: some of the things that we have going on, we're,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and I don't want to take this too far, but
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: the reality is that we have friends on Facebook.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: We have followers.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: We shoot for influence and reach. We hope for, you know,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: tons of likes on our posts or whatever it is.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: As we do that, we're.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Not simply picking up the capital of the world, right,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: to gain influence or to do something or to make money.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're doing that also.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: But I think something we've often missed is that we're
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: also saying in some subtle way, I follow Paul, I
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: follow Apollos, I follow Cephas, I follow Christ, as they
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: did in the beginning.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: Of 1 Corinthians.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Because so much of what we've got now out in
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the world is the flashiest, the most influential, the biggest audience,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the most profound content wins. And that is exactly the
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: sort of tendency Paul is trying to walk back in Corinth.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: And he's trying to say, look, don't don't get fractured
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: around these. Like, I don't think Paul is saying you
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: shouldn't like Apollos is preaching better than you like mine.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: Everybody can have their own personal preference.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: Clearly preaching was more dynamic, obviously.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: But I, I think at the end of the day,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: what Paul is really saying is look, just because you
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: prefer it doesn't mean we're disunified. It, it, we're still
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: together in this because I didn't, I wasn't crucified for you.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Neither was Apollos. Neither was like, nobody else was crucified you,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: but Christ. And so we're all one in him have
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: whatever purpose, personal preference you'd like, but don't show partiality, right?
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Stay united and stop this nonsense of thinking that you
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: can splinter Christianity and around personalities. And I think that,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: and again, it's not like let's demonize the digital age
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: or something like that. That's not what this is. The
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: point is our tendencies pointed that direction and look at
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: where we are now. And I think there's certainly a
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: case to be made that at the very least, some
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: of us have splintered off and decided we're going to
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: be followers of this person as opposed to this person.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Just a quick example, I can remember being at one
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: of my past churches and a group of people, I
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't there when it happened, but a group of people
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: had just left because the elders of the church had
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: made a decision that was in conflict with the teachings
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: of a national pastor with a radio ministry and.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Lots of books.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And this group of people were very much committed to
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: that pastor's teachings. And so when the elders of the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: local congregation made a decision that they perceived to be
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: in conflict with this other pastor's teaching, they left. On
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the face of it, you could sit back and say, yeah,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the local church is never perfect either.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Agreed.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: The problem wasn't that the local church wasn't perfect here.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: The problem was that the local church the body of
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: people who had been called on to discern within the
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: congregation and to lead that congregation forward, their authority was
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: being diminished by someone who'd never set foot in the
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: church in his entire life. It had been trumped by
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: abstract content that had been put out and was not
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: wrestling with any of the local dynamics that the elders
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: were actually dealing with. this group had chosen someone they'd
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: probably never met. And if they had met him only
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: in passing, I don't think they were close friends or confidants, right?
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: But they opted for him over these people who had
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: been in the trenches of the ministry of the local church.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I think that's sort of a species of what we
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: often see when we talk about this splintering and that
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: lack of unification. So it's just another example of the
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: way that our tendencies tend to be magnified As we
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: interact with technology and the narrowing that can occur because
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: we stop thinking, how is it that we can remain
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: unified within this setting? And we begin to think, who's
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: the best person for me to follow? And those are
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: two slightly different questions.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: They may be related. I don't want to like polarize those.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, there's something to
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: be said of how do I maintain unity? How do
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: we maintain unity as Christians within this really diversified context
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: in which we have all the content in the world,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: including this podcast, to listen to?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: How do we remain unified?
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: And to some degree, I think it's the responsibility of
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: the people who are putting the content out to make
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: sure that they're pushing people back to the local church
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: to whatever extent that they can. Like, don't be the
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: replacement for the, you know, the things that are going
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: on in your local congregation. But I also think it's
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: on the people who are listening to sit back and say,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: I'm taking this as an input because I'm interested and
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I like it. But at the end of the day,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I'm still going to participate locally in ways that may
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: be informed by the content I'm listening to, but not
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: in ways that allow the content I'm listening to to trump.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: What's going on in the local congregation. I hope that's clear.
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: I think it was. Can I try to drive that
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: a little further?
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, please.
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: Pull together these threads. The silly statement that we have
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: that's actually quite true and meaningful, all roads lead to Rome.
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: And we can join that with when in Rome, do
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: as the Romans. Seem like two separate statements, but I
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: think actually are deeply intricately related because what we mean
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: by that is that when Rome conquered, Rome made sure
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: the infrastructure was built to make sure that it was
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: the center. And the ways in which Romans saw proper
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: acting within that theater is what it means then to say,
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: when in Rome, do as the Romans, right? It's an
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: absorbing into itself or an encircling of the rest of
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: the peoples of the earth and the creatures of the
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: earth and the lands of the earth around themselves, right?
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: that's a technique but in then the development of technologies
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: to make that happen whether they be military technologies economic
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: technologies mechanical technologies to build roads and to build ships
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: and things like that and the same sort of thing
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: we can think of in the modern world right the
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: the act of.
• 49:37
  Speaker 4: Global colonialism.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: Entailed the development of technologies to make that possible, some
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: of which already existed to battle amongst themselves already in
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: the European landscape. But it entails the development of more
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: technologies to account for the new landscapes that are being
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: drawn into this, but that then therefore means the building
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: of infrastructure and the building of an economic technique to
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: make all these things possible. All that is precursors to
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: to thinking about how the United States then began to
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: take over the center of that, which then bends the infrastructures,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: the flights of travel, accordingly, to the U.S., that now
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: made that effect apparent to Germany by the time you
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: get to the cotton gin instance, that they have to adapt.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: And what had already been narrowed from them now entailed
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: the development of technology that narrowed things further, which meant
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: that the Germans then further narrowed things by working from
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: within these landscapes, right? Which carries within it, undoubtedly, the
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: development of further technologies that further solidify the narrowing. And
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: I think the way that that relates specifically to what
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: you're talking about is you mentioned social media. Social media
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: lives within a situation or an enterprise in which the
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: goal here is ultimately to further the capital for the
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: investors in, say, Facebook and the owner of Facebook, which
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: is why it becomes somewhat morally neutral for them to
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: consider it important when untruths are spread through Facebook via
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: their algorithm. There's been a lot of debate over that
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: and what is the untruth and what is not the untruth.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: There's no need to get into that just now, but
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: that becomes a conversation because that is a morally insignificant
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: issue to the larger agenda of what a social.
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: Media company is.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: But now when you take the sorts of narrowing that's
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: already going through the technique in biblical and theological scholarship
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: that further pronounces the differences between ecclesial traditions, that further
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: pronounces a wedge between ecclesial traditions, and now you add
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: to that this other technology that's morally unconcerned with the
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: way the wedge is get driven so long as you
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: get people more and more interested in the technology to
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: follow the algorithm, to consume more material that drives them
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: further into the bifurcation, further into the divisions. That works
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: alongside as a follow-up technology. It's a Rhodes of sort, right?
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: It's the infrastructure, the building of Rhodes that solidifies what
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: might otherwise have been a helpful, even if over-pronounced conversation
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: in hermeneutics. So now you get the vitriol in it.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: And what you end up with is a community in
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: the church that unfortunately doesn't look like the church that
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: we see advocated for in the New Testament, even if
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: not perfectly present in the New Testament, advocated for in
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: the New Testament.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. I just wrote a piece.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: So right now, XAI, which is Grok, essentially, it's the
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: company that owns Grok, is suing Minnesota because Minnesota put
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: a law in place pretty recently, actually. I think it
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: was supposed to go in effect the 1st of August.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure right as I sit here now whether
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: that actually went into effect. The lawsuit was intended, I think,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: to get a judge to put a hold on the
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: implementation of the law. But the law essentially was this.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: It was going to hold platforms, apps, the producers of technology,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: the holders of technology, Liable for giving users the ability
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: to nudify images of real people. Oh, wow.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: And so this has been going on.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: As I look more into it, you find out that
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: people were using Grok's quote unquote spicy mode to create
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: these sorts of images already. There have been many, many
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: of these sorts of images created, including many of children.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: There's actually a class action lawsuit against Grok because these
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: kids have been images of these children have been created.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: And once they're created, of course, they can spread around
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: the Internet as much as they'd like. Part of my
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: conclusion in the article was.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Why did we need any of this? Yeah. I the lawsuit,
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: the basis of the lawsuit was freedom of speech.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Right? They're arguing that the law infringes on the right
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: of people to speak freely and have free expression. My
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: comment in the article was just because the government has
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: committed to allowing freedom of speech doesn't mean that any
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: given technology platform has to maximize that speech. It doesn't
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: have to maximize that expression. And so there's a, a
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: question that needs to be asked. Why do we need this?
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: What purpose is it really serving? You know, do we
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: really need to drop our marketing costs by 80 to 90%
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: because we can produce AI generated images to such an
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: extent that we're handing deviant people a tool that they
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: can use to create sexualized images of children?
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: I'm okay paying more.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: I just find it to be sort of an interesting
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: test case to what we're talking about is that what
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: we've tended to do is we've tended to assume the technology.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Really needs to be there.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: And then live with whatever negative consequences come out of
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: it and buffer them, create laws and policies that are
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: trying to stop some of these things All while real
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: people are being injured along the way. I have zero
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: idea why you would ever need a spicy mode. It
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: seems unnecessary. Other platforms, as I did the research, they
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: wouldn't allow these things to happen. You'd have to really
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: work to pass their safeguards to get something, anything like
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: this created.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Grok's spicy mode. pretty much allowed it.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: And so as we think about this sort of narrowing, right,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: what I see happening is something that Mark Lewis describes
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: in his description of addiction. And he basically says this,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: an addict's world always gets smaller because they're starting to
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: jettison the people who are saying, whoa, whoa, timeout, you
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: don't need that next fix. They're jettisoning the people who
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: are saying, I'm not going to give you money so
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: that you can just go buy drugs. And they're globbing
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: on to the people who can get them that next
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: fix or who will give them that much more money.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: And it eventually narrows down so it's just them and
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: their addiction. And I see that tendency in us as
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: we're using these technologies. I see us letting other people
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: be injured. So in the name of progress, in the
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: name of rights, in the name of free speech, And
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: I just sort of sit back and wonder, given everything
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: we've said in the episode, right, that I'm not anti-technology,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: that I don't think we should get rid of all
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: this stuff.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: But it also seems very, very.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Clear to me that we're extremely willing, and I use
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: these in the article, we're extremely willing to allow technology
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: companies to let oxen that have gored before just roam
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: around our cities. We're very happy to let tech companies
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: build platforms without a parapet around the roof, right? And
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: those are illusions of these Old Testament laws that were
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: intended to protect people, not retard advancement, right? Not to
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: stop progress, but to protect people within the community. The
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: parapets aren't working. The goring oxes are sort of roaming
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: about the countryside. And you just sit back and you say,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: how is this not foreseen as something that was going
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: to happen? It's not a possibility. It's not even a probability.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: It's a certainty that once you give everyday users with
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: absolutely no vetting the ability to make sexualized images of
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: real people, that they are going to produce these things
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: of real people and of children.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: What are we doing? And what are we living with?
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: And how is it that this has gotten so out
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: of control that while there will be outrage and I
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: am animated about this issue, I don't see anything stopping
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: the train. This is where I think Christians need to
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: recognize that we're frogs.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: Being boiled in the pot of water.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: And that We really have to be smarter about the
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: way we interact with technology, the way we're formed by technology.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: And we need to recognize that there are just some
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: things that the progress is not worth it. It just
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: isn't worth it. But we've become so accustomed to that
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: sort of progress. You know, we've had the internet now for,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it started coming in. I can remember
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: booking my honeymoon. And, uh, you know, the late nineties
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: on the internet, right?
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Dial up modem.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: So we've had this for a while and we've just
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: sort of lived with the downside of ordinary everyday people.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: This isn't the first instance. Grok is not the first
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: company that's had this sort of thing happen. There's a
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: whole documentary on, uh, I believe it was, I think
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: it was on Netflix on, um, the pornography sites allowing
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: videos to be uploaded of consensual sex acts, but non-consensual uploads.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: And so these women.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Are out there on the internet, you know, these videos
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: are out there of these women who are having sex
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: and they can't get them taken down. Like we're living
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: with that. it's not all about sex, right? That's just
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: sort of the sensational parts that tend to sort of
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: get our hackles up. It's like that in almost every instance.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: And I just don't think we've thought through enough. How
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: do we reign this thing in? And I think part
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: of that is because we become too dependent on it already.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: That would be my concern is that we've become too
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: dependent on it already.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: So, um, I don't know.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: I don't have a whole lot of point to that,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: I guess. I'll throw a link to my article in
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: the show notes. But that is my concern, is that
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: we've become too dependent on the technology already and that
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: we've just bought into a notion of progress at any
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: cost that is not commensurate with what we believe in
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: our convictions.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what you're saying underscores that. To say
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: that technology is neutral is to miss the point.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: 100%.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: Technology belongs to a system or to a story and
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: is designed for a reason. And what we really need
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: to do is interrogate that story, that system. And I
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: think that's what you're getting at by saying, why do
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: we need this?
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: That's right. And we have to carry that through.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, why do we need this? Why is it that
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: the people who develop it need this? Why is it
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: that they're so concerned with a certain notion of freedom
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: of speech to make sure that this technology exists? What
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: is it that they're gaining? And we should interrogate within that.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: I know you weren't meaning it this way. You're using
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: the term more generally, but when we call these things
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: progress and we call what we're moving towards progress, progressing
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: towards what?
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: Why?
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: And that inherently is not a neutral statement to say
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: we're progressing. You're making a declaration. You're saying something about creation,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: simply put, that this is a notion of maturity and
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: creation that we are building towards.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: And that's what Christians should push against. And I don't
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: mean this in the sense of, I think very little
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: pushing against stops the stuff from happening. And new normalcies
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: come out of each one of these things.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: And I'm not looking here at results-based discussions.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: I'm not looking at this as it's a failure if
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: eventually this just becomes normative. No, if you don't struggle,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: that's the failure. We don't ultimately have control over the
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: structures and the architects of a so-called progress and what
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: they mean by progress. But there's no saltiness. There's no
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: it's the lamp hidden under the bushel if it's just
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: simply don't interrogate and just simply accept.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: And I think that's what's at stake. And the ramifications
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: for it are that instead of raging against the right
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: questions and right issues and right structures, we find ourselves
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: just infighting because that technology further has amplified our divisions
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: and made of those divisions more than they should have
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: been or needed to be.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: Agreed. And I agree with your, you were reading me
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: right on progress.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: Um, I think it was Chesterton that talks about progress
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: or maybe it was CS Lewis, right? The person who's
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: going to advance down the path. Uh, sometimes the person
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: who's making the most progress down the path is perhaps
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: the one who turns around because he realizes he's going
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: the wrong way. And so progress is always relative to
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: a standard. We have to understand what the destination is
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: to really understand whether we're getting closer to it or not.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: And I think oftentimes what we're missing in our Christian
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: imagination is, are we getting closer to that standard or not?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: I think technology can be a part of that. I
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: think it can be a part of living into the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: pattern that is Jesus Christ. But I also think it
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: can deeply skew our understanding of what it means to
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: be human, to live in God's creation, to love God
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: and to love one another's. And that's what we're really
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: ultimately trying to avoid. I go back to this a lot.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: We talked about it when we talked about biblical manhood
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: as well. Our technology use should emerge from discipleship.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: It just should.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: And I know that's like sort of ambiguous and maybe
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: a little pithy, but at the end of the day,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: it's a way of saying we don't retrofit our Christianity
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: to technology. We, we, allow our use of technology to
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: be driven by our underlying commitments to God, to his word,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: to one another, to creation. That's how we think about technology.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Those are the starting points. Those aren't negotiables.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: And so as we.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: Learn to live under the authority of Christ, ultimately we'll
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: have to think through how we use technology and we'll
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: get that wrong.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: But that's what we should be doing.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: We should be thinking through what does it mean to
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: live under Christ's authority as we use this technology? What
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: does it mean to live under Christ's authority? And does
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: that allow me to use this technology? Right? How are
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: these technologies pushing against Christ's authority and how should I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: be resisting them? All of those sort of questions, I think,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: is what I mean when I say our use of
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: technology should emerge from discipleship. Our understanding of technology should
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: emerge from discipleship. Um, I oddly think, I mean, we're,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: we're way over time. We're, we're getting into close to
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: an hour 10. So I'm going to close this off,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: but I think we just sort of scratched the surface
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: on this issue of technology and, uh, we'll probably circle
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: back to it. I think this is just such a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: crucial topic and it's one that, um, I think both
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: you and I have come at from completely different ways, honestly. Um,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: you know, your emphasis on Tolkien and nature and creation
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: and all those kinds of good things really have deep
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: things to say about technology. And, uh, me just from
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: coming out of online education and thinking through a lot
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: of this digital technology that we're interacting with. Um, I
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: think there's, there'll be rich conversations, but, uh, this one's
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: been great. Really appreciated the interaction Ashish and, um, hope
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: everybody enjoyed it. Um, we'll sign off till next time and, uh,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: episode of thinking Christian.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: Take care.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got
• 1:07:45
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