Introduction

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

Abraham Lincoln¹

Listen to Greg read this section:

The thin dirt road stretched out before us appearing and disappearing along the narrow ridges of the northern Mexican desert. The ten of us were traveling in a rented van behind the big red Ford truck of Barbara and Calvin Scott, missionaries that I have been working with for many years. We lunged up and down these narrow ridges into dried out gullies that would become impassible if we were caught in a storm during the rainy season. We had turned south from Cananea, a mining town about 20 kilometers from the Arizona-Sonora border and were on our way to the pueblo of Bacanuchi.

It was the spring of 2005 but the coolness of the season burned off quickly in the morning. The thermometer was reaching 85 degrees Fahrenheit or rather 29 degrees Celsius for the nine Canadians on board (I still think in Fahrenheit). We had been told that this community had never had an evangelical witness with the exception of a Christmas program held there five months earlier. We were going into a community that had not been evangelized before and yet it was only about three hours south of the US-Mexican border.

The eight Canadian students and one teacher were all from Heritage Christian Online School . These students were all from different parts of British Columbia and came to our Christian school every day via the internet. We had only met the students in person the week before and here we were ready to dramatize the gospel message in a village two thousand miles from home.

We were in remote Sonora. The houses were mostly made from adobe thatch bricks with the exception of a few concrete brick buildings. The people were a darker mixture of native Indian-Latin decent. The older villagers still wore some of the traditional native clothing while the younger villagers and children had a more western look with clothing from the racks of Wal-Mart across the border.

Our presentation, given outside in the town square across from the local school, went very well for the two hundred or so locals who attended. Many responded, in the closing moments of the presentation, and prayed to receive Christ as their Savior. Most of the villagers would consider themselves good Catholics but the priest only made it into town every three to six months. They hungered for a deeper understanding of Jesus and the gospel.

After the presentation we lingered for some time visiting with our new friends. I joined a conversation or rather an attempt at conversing between three of our Canadian girls and three girls of similar age from Bacanuchi. Our broken Spanish made communication somewhat challenging but we were able to convey our ideas. I attempted to communicate that these students all went to school over the internet via their computers every day. The three girls just nodded. It was obvious to me that I wasn’t communicating very well because they just nodded and smiled. Whenever I tell someone back home that we have hundreds of students participating every day in Christian education via the internet, I receive many “oohs” and “ahs,” but these three were unimpressed. I attempted again to convey the idea that these students went to school over the internet. Did the girls even know what the internet was? I wondered. Again, they smiled and nodded.

After another failed attempt for a response, they looked at me in an odd way; the way someone looks when they wonder if you really know what you are talking about. They pointed to their one room school building, painted green and probably the fanciest structure in town, and there on the opposite corner was a small satellite dish. They explained that they too go to school via the internet. Every day they attend classes at the high school in Cananea via their remote satellite connection over the internet. They had been using this technology for the last two years and were happy that we have the same opportunity in Canada.

We are in a Digital World and everything has changed, from the little schoolroom in the Sonoran desert to the huge metropolises around the world.

Where are all the Prophets?

Why is it, particularly in my branch of Christianity, that the prophets are all talking about such immediate issues? Where are the Josephs who dreamed 14 years into the future and saved both those around him (the Egyptians) and his own people (the Israelites)? When was the last time the Church had a Daniel who, through his deep wisdom and study of the scriptures, could see the time of dramatic cultural, political and spiritual change for his own people? Where are the Augustines² who had the clarity of thought and wisdom to guide the young Roman Church through its darkest hours of the barbarian invasions in the 5 th Century?

The last time the Church was hearing a clarion call of the prophets was in the Y2K crisis. You remember those paper tigers. Back in 1999 the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) had a weekly Y2K³ bug report that kept us up to date as to how things were progressing toward preparations for the infamous “bug.” At the end of every report the journalist would save a good five minutes to talk about what the flaming evangelical doomsayers were saying. They would have a nice chuckle as they pondered who the antichrist was; some were now saying it was Bill Gates , or when the rapture was going to take place. It was embarrassing. It made me want to revive the Old Testament practice of stoning false prophets or, at least, send them some really nasty computer virus.

I am not suggesting that this book is in any way a prophetic statement for the church and the future. If anything I am focusing on the enormous changes due to these new technologies in our present world. What I am trying to do in these pages is to start asking the right questions. If our world is changing, a notion we seem to have to prove to some, then how does this affect the way we live our Christian faith? Does it affect how we disciple? Does it affect how we raise our kids so that they will stay true to the faith? Should we be equipping our upcoming church leaders in ways that will prepare them for the changing cultural environment or is it good enough just to teach them how to use PowerPoint? Should we escape and head for the hills or should we engage and login?

This is not Digital for Dummies

This book is not about how to set up a website or the need to get a digital projector in the church so we can use PowerPoint for our songs instead of those annoying overhead transparencies. I am also not writing about discipleship techniques over the internet.

Chatting with a friend about what I was writing brought an interesting reaction. She commented, “I know that there is something to what you are saying but I am about ‘real’ relationships. I would rather see someone face to face.” She misunderstood. She thought I was talking about using technology as the primary means of discipleship. Though I do this in a very significant way, being the principal of an online Christian school, this is not what I am trying to write about.

Yes, aspects of discipleship can be done through internet technologies similar to writing and sending a letter via the postman, or in the case of the Apostle Paul, via a messenger. I am sure if Paul had the technology of the telephone he would have been their biggest long distance customer. But, if you notice the title of this book, it is not about how to use technology to disciple, rather, it is about how to disciple in a world that uses technology. If something is powerful enough to change my life then it is important to know how to walk in and through it just as Jesus would walk in and through it. The useful WWJD bracelets need to be plastered all over our computer.

Is a Digital World Good or Bad?

I will do all that I can to resist the temptation toward making any ethical judgment on these new fang-dangled technologies. It is easy to do. The unknown is a scary place. When one thinks of the danger and the amazing miracles that are wrapped up in these little electronic bits, one has to wonder, “Have we gone too far or has God been waiting for us to get here?”

The late Neil Postman has done a masterful job in his book, Technopoly, by helping us see the hidden dangers of trusting in technology. He writes in the book’s introduction:

“…most people believe technology is a staunch friend. There are two reasons for this. First, technology is a friend. It makes life easier, cleaner and longer. Can anyone ask more of a friend? Second, because of its lengthy, intimate and inevitable relationship with culture, technology does not invite a close examination of its own consequences. It is the kind of friend that asks for trust and obedience, which most people are inclined to give because its gifts are truly bountiful. But, of course, there is a dark side to this friend. Its gifts are not without a heavy cost. Stated in the most dramatic terms, the accusation can be made that the uncontrolled growth of technology destroys the vital sources of our humanity. It creates a culture without a moral foundation. It undermines certain mental processes and social relations that make human life worth living. Technology, in sum, is both friend and enemy.” ⁴

Looking at the changes in our Digital World from a Christian perspective raises some interesting ideas.

First, isn’t this capacity to harness God’s creation evidence of our loving Creator and the complexity of His Universe? Absolutely, but this doesn’t necessarily justify the way we use it. I had an old friend try to make this argument years ago when he pleaded, “I think it is OK to smoke marijuana because God put the THC in the plants for us to find.” No doubt that THC has amazing medicinal uses but so far we’ve used it to get very, very stoned. Yet, when we see the incredible forces of electricity harnessed to do all that our modern culture uses it for, it is hard not to praise the Creator of such wonderment.

Secondly, we cannot forget that man has fallen and has strayed far from God. One only has to look to the recent history of the last century to see how we can turn these miraculous powers to evil. The nuclear age was born from the bed of World Wars! We consoled ourselves in the Cold War with the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction⁵ or aptly shortened to the acronym MAD. These global dangers were here because at the core of who we are, we have fallen from the noble creatures God made us to be.⁶

Finally, as Christians we are a bit aloof to the culture. I don’t mean that we are to be indifferent but rather that we are truly not a part of this world. We have been called by God to live a new life that comes from a new and different world. Jesus indicated in His famous prayer of John 17 that “these are in the world… not of the world”.⁷ In a sense, we are foreigners and aliens⁸ to this old world and its culture. Therefore we are called to live apart from it or not to be affected by it. So, as we observe this world, we have a sense of detachment. Again, I am not calling for indifference. I think we need to fight with the best of them for a better world for our fellow man.

I have been and will be the first to carry the placard declaring “abortion is evil” and “same sex marriage is an abomination,” but I do these things for my fellow man, not for the Christian or the Gospel’s sake. I believe abortion is the taking of a human life which is sacred and I will stand up for that human. I believe homosexuality to be an abhorrent behavior that people choose, and for their good, I will resist this behavior. Again, I am aloof, not trying to persuade the Christian, but trying to persuade my fellow American or Canadian. So too, with the Digital World, it is the world we find ourselves in. It is the place where we are called to sojourn and carry on the commission of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am neither opposed to it nor for it. I am just here in it.

As stated before, when you read the following pages, my goal is to raise multiple questions. Andrew Shearman, from our Church’s pulpit, aptly put it years ago: “Christians today are answering questions nobody is asking.” I will take this thought a bit further: “Christians today are answering questions that have no relevance to the changes our culture is undergoing.” Or, “Christians today are answering questions that should have been asked fifty years ago.” We are working on problems in our society that began thirty to fifty years ago at the theoretical level. If we had been on our toes in the fifties and the sixties, perhaps we could have diverted such problems as abortion and same-sex marriages. If we had not abdicated key cultural positions, perhaps we could have been more of an influence on the tumultuous upheaval in our culture that has thrust us headlong into a postmodern tailspin.

If we will start asking the right questions, perhaps we will start finding the right answers - the Jesus inspired answers. We can then begin preparing our churches, our leaders, our educators, our parents and especially, our children. I believe we will then have a place at the table in this new Digital World!

This book is intended to jump-start this process. I do not anticipate many answers coming out of what I am writing, mostly questions. I will give, in nearly all of the chapters, some of the history related to each topic. My purpose is to give context to phenomenon that we are witnessing today. I have always believed that the roadmap to the future is in the past.

Section One, Understanding the Concepts, unveils God’s digital signature in creation and how our technology can now decipher this Digital World. Discover the commission, context and curriculum of discipleship from primitive, Amazonian Indians, reality TV and sci-fi aliens.

Section Two, The Four Digital Transformations, reveals the blessings and curses of the new Digital World. In Communication Revolution see how we are experiencing a “Gutenberg -ian” moment of destiny that will eclipse the Reformation . In Globalization , from the pages of Genesis to the technological “flattening” of our world, see the tsunami-like cultural shifts. Informationalism unveils the vast alterations to society because the world’s information is being placed at our fingertips. In Biotechnology see the implications of genetic manipulation, stem cell research, cloning and the merger of computers to our very selves.

Section Three, The Digital Future, shows all four of these transformations moving at an exponential rate. The book closes with two visions of the future: The Enhanced Future where technology continues to bless and enhance our human experience or The Deprived Future where our digital culture cascades into discrimination and servitude, devaluing and undermining our very existence. Will it be grim or bright? Will it be day or night? What will be their ethical challenges?

What would Jesus do in 2056?