Faith and technology: Who is in control?

The world today is very different from the one that we were in even 10 years ago. Teenagers nowadays share their passwords as a show of affection ... yes, really. We're a generation that has seen immense (particularly technological) change — and have adapted to it pretty seamlessly. We're good at that. We own cell phones, computers; we're on social media; we've joined the digital revolution without really giving it a second thought.

Because when something is as ubiquitous as media and technology, we usually don’t even think about it. It’s like oxygen; we don’t tend to think about how we breathe, about the biological or physiological processes that are going on; we just do it. And for many of us — I’d be so bold as to say all of us — this is the same with media and technology.

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What will we think of next?: Here’s a collection of some of the great uses of technology over the last couple of years. Send us your suggestions for other great inventions via Twitter @washpostbiz and we’ll add them here.

• When we watch TV, we aren’t necessarily tuned in to what’s happening as we watch this show or that movie.

• We’re a culture where we “like” somebody’s link or picture or comment on Facebook if it takes our fancy.

• We post things online about our lives, and sometimes about other people’s lives, without thinking about the ramifications or the consequences.

• When we see, hear, or read an ad or even the news, we often just receive it.

We don’t tend to actively think about how something impacts us, or how we interact with it. And we don’t tend to think about how our faith might impact on the role these things play in our lives.

At The District Church, we're going through a series called Mustard Seeds . The background is from Matthew 17:20, where Jesus says, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will be so; and nothing will be impossible for you." We want to talk through what it looks like for us to have faith to move mountains (and it's not a lot!) in our everyday lives.

Yesterday, I talked about the impact of faith on technology, and framed it with the question, "Who is in control?" Technology is all around us, enabling us to do more, to see more, to experience more. The world of media and technology that we inhabit is not in essence good or evil. These things can be used for good or for harm.

• We can send e-mails that build up, or we can send e-mails that gossip and tear down.

• We can be manipulated by the way a news channel spins its reports, or we can seek the truth and point others to it.

• We can allow advertisers to tell us what we’re missing and how their product will make things all better, or we can laugh at the lie that is being told and remember that what we’re all missing, what we all need at root, is a Savior to rescue us from the disease of sin and selfishness.

Sherry Turkle in her book “Alone Together” has this interesting story to tell, and I think it may resonate with many of us:

“I check my e-mail first thing in the morning and before going to bed at night. I have come to learn that informing myself about new professional problems and demands is not a good way to start or end my day, but my practice unhappily continues. I admitted my ongoing irritation with myself to a friend, a woman in her seventies who has meditated on a biblical reading every morning since she was in her teens. She confessed that it is ever more difficult to begin her spiritual exercises before she checks her email; the discipline to defer opening her inbox is now part of her devotional gesture.”