The Role of Technology in Our Walk With Christ

MUSIC Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters. As Christians, we need to ask ourselves if technology is shaping our walk with Christ. Jason Thacker says many believers are actually being discipled by the technologies we use.

Well, that's a pretty startling concept. Well, we're pleased to have Jason Thacker with us today to talk about this and his new book, Following Jesus in a Digital Age. He is with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Jason Thacker, welcome to Family Policy Matters.

Thanks for having me, Tracey. All right, so in the introduction to your book, you say, quote, technology is deeply shaping each of us. And then, quote, we are being discipled every day by the technologies we use, whether we realize it or not, end quote.

All right, so talk about this. Do you think it's possible that we as Christians are submitting ourselves to discipleship that we might not even be aware of? Yeah, I think a lot of listeners, when they hear something like that, it seems like a pretty audacious claim to say that technology is discipling us. And that's often because we think of technology, we naturally think of our smartphones or various gadgets and pieces of technology, rather than seeing technology as something much larger than that, in many ways, even kind of a culture in which we inhabit. So it's not just about the specific devices, but kind of the overall culture and kind of patterns and habits that we've developed with technology use in general. And I think that technology is indeed shaping and forming us in particular ways, our understanding of God, our understanding of ourselves and even the world around us. It's shaping and forming us in very particular ways.

It always reminds me of Romans 12, too, where Paul says, Do not be conformed to this world, but to have your mind be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And that type of statement is that we're all being conformed to this world. And I think technology is playing a significant role in how we're being conformed to this world. But as Christians, we need to think wisely about technology, because it is a good gift from God. And we do use them in very particular ways for good and for bad. But sometimes the ways that these technologies are subtly shaping our understanding of truth, or understanding of responsibility, or even our identity as individuals and communities is deeply shaping and forming us and we may not be aware of it.

Right. So when you say technology is a good gift from God, you mean in the same way that any of the other advances are that it can be used for good or evil, right? Yeah, in many ways. So technology is indeed a tool, but it's also a tool that exists as part of a kind of a larger culture. And so we can see many of the advantages and benefits of technology. But some things I think we need to do is to slow down and ask some of those hard questions.

So what are the potential drawbacks? What are the things that technology might be shaping us that are at odds with our faith or are not reminding us to treasure Christ into ultimately, as Christ says in Matthew 22, to love God and love our neighbors ourselves, is technology tends to help us to focus inward, to focus on me, my feed, my post, my everything. But as we read about in John 3-30, we must decrease so that He might increase, that this is God's universe. We're His image bearers.

We're called to love Him and to love our neighbors ourselves. And so the kind of the inward turn of technology, our faith kind of reorients that to be an outward focus, love of God and love of neighbor. Well, let's talk about this book, Following Jesus in a Digital Age. And I really like the way it's set up. It's a smaller book and it's kind of almost like a handbook. Is it designed for that?

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. This book is intentionally written for everyday believers, because we all live in a digital culture. We all live kind of surrounded or inundated by our technology.

That type of exposure, not only to the content, but also these platforms and these devices, it is going to be shaping and forming us in many ways. And so I wrote this book for everyday believers. It's small, it's accessible, it's written to help all of us to kind of reevaluate our walk with Christ, our use of technology, and then what does it look like to follow Jesus in a digital age with wisdom and clarity.

It's simply laid out as well. And you give us four different main topics, pursuing wisdom, pursuing truth, pursuing responsibility, and pursuing identity. And I really want to touch on each of these. But let's start off first with pursuing wisdom in a digital age. How is this different from pursuing wisdom at any other time, say, in the history of our world? That's a really important question to ask, because when we think of technology, most of us think of our gadgets, devices, social media, iPhones, iPads, etc. But reality is is we've always had technology. Some of the most revolutionary pieces of technology in the history of the world were things like the printing press or the shovel on the hoe.

It changed everything about our lives. And similarly, I think we're entering into a time in our digital age today, where we have a lot of tools that are kind of radically altering the way that we see the world around us, that we even understand ourselves. And so part of pursuing wisdom, and what I tried to do in that first chapter, is to not only talk about the ways that technology is discipling us, informing us, but to also be thinking about how do we then pursue wisdom, because what the Bible talks about with technology specifically is not new, per se. A lot of the questions we're asking today in light of technologies are the same age old questions we've always asked, but they're in light of new opportunities.

So while we didn't have Twitter, maybe we were dealing with issues of pride and rebellion and wanting to be seen in a certain light by certain type of people. So while we're not asking new questions, we're asking them really in light of these new opportunities, these kind of expanded horizon of what's possible with technology. And that's really what I tried to do in the first book is, what does it look like to cultivate biblical wisdom of aligning our beliefs and our actions in a way that is honoring God and helping us to pursue wisdom? Because the book doesn't have like a checklist of here's five ways to change your relationship with technology, partially because everybody's unique.

But also, a lot of those checklists is something you feel like you can just check off and move on. Well, the nature of wisdom is that it's not gained overnight, just like our bad habits with technology weren't gained overnight. So it's going to take us a season of pursuing wisdom and discernment and growing in likeness of Christ so that we might be able to utilize these tools and follow him better in our digital age. Great point.

Wisdom in regard to the Bible is not attained overnight, right? And it's the same idea. Exactly.

Okay. Let's talk about the second major theme in your book, pursuing truth in a post-truth age. So what do you mean by post-truth? And why does the digital age make it even more difficult for us to pursue truth than ever? That's one of the big ways that I see technology is shaping and kind of discipling us. And I think for some listeners, when they hear things like misinformation or disinformation, conspiracy theories, or fake news, we kind of immediately think of someone or something often very politically driven. But reality is, is it's much bigger than that.

Is it technology because of the amount of information we're exposed to each day, this kind of being overwhelmed by information is we simply sometimes don't know what to trust. And a lot of times it's not so much that technology is causing that is that technology is aiding that meaning that what once maybe was a false belief or even a conspiracy theory, I could tell to two or three people. Now I have the opportunity to tell it to thousands of people. And even it could even go viral.

And it could be shared with millions of people all around the world. You know, another example is something happens in our culture or even around the world. And we get breaking news on our phones, sometimes without context, which can lead us to have false beliefs or false understandings of the motives or what's actually going on.

We start to fill in those gaps. And so technology in many ways is shaping our pursuit of truth because we don't really often know what to trust. We don't know exactly who to trust and where to turn. And that's where the scriptures give us very clear guidance about what is truth, that God's truth is ultimate, that God is true, he's trustworthy, and that we can follow after him.

But it's going to take being, you know, as James tells us to be slow to speak, slow to anger, and to be quick to listen, and cultivating that heart of wisdom and discernment, I think is really key, especially in our post truth age where truth is more defined by what I want and my desires and my inner realities of my truth, rather than God's truth and how he's designed us in his image. So do you think this difficulty in being able to tell what is true is contributing to what we see as a real mistrust in institutions? And tell me if I'm stretching a bit here, but even an increase in depression and the rising suicide rates that we're seeing, especially among young people? Yeah, I think a lot of these things are connected.

I mean, especially what you mentioned with institutions, many times institutions have failed us if we can't exactly trust because it seems like things are not being as clear and open as they once were. Or there's so much information, so many different people that we feel like it's all well, I just kind of have to navigate this on my own. And some of that pressure of feeling like I have to kind of do battlefield triage and kind of understand what's going on, I have to always be on, I have to always be connected, I have to know, especially for ministry leaders and pastors feeling like they must be able to either comment or know about every single thing, the moment it's happening and have some kind of informed opinion, that can be really debilitating.

It can make us kind of anxious always, it can be very much isolating and make us lonely. And so I think there's a lot of contributing factors there. It's not just technology, some other factors as well. But I do think that's one of the ways that technology is shaping and forming us is to feel like we always have to be on, we always have to know everything, and we always have to be kind of processing this information as it's happening. And so I think part of that cultivating wisdom and discernment is to slow down, to realize our limits, to be humble about what we don't know, but to then seek God's counsel and the way he would call us to live is pursuing truth, but also doing so with grace.

Right. So the third of four major themes in your book is pursuing responsibility in a curated age. Explain what you mean by curated age and why pursuing responsibility these days can be so difficult. One of the things that's interesting about social media is a lot of people assume that the things you see on social media feed is just the information, the people you follow or whatever's going on in the world right now.

In some sense, that's true. But also there's being carefully curated or personalized. This is utilizing technologies, artificial intelligence and algorithms and such where they're shaping the content we see. So maybe just because we see it doesn't mean, you know, my feet may be very different than your feet when even though we have similar beliefs, we don't live in the exact same places, we don't have the exact same interests. So our online experiences are personalized or curated for us. And what that can do is not only focus us inward, we can also get into a habit of not taking responsibility for the things we do see, for the things we do read, the things that we are exposed to, where we start to blame either the algorithm or tech companies or the government to say it's their fault, they need to fix this and not kind of scapegoating some of our own responsibility.

And we do need to have those conversations about the role of government in these conversations and the role of tech companies. But we also need to be able to take responsibility as God's image bearers to say we have a responsibility not only for ourselves but also for our families to guard what we see, to guard our hearts, to pursue truth. And there's that kind of personal responsibility that comes with being an image-bearer and to being a Christian transformed by the Gospels, taking responsibility for the things we see and do and not just kind of blaming other people for those things.

Well, great point. So we're discussing the four major themes in your new book, Following Jesus in a Digital Age. We've talked about pursuing wisdom, pursuing truth and pursuing responsibility.

The final major theme in your book is entitled, Pursuing Identity in a Polarized Age. So tell us why this is important for us to be thinking about. Yeah, I don't think it's a shock to anyone today that we live in very tense and very divided times. And this isn't just on political differences. This is kind of a host of social and cultural issues.

We at times feel like we're more divided than we've ever been. And part of that is that technology has a role to play in that, especially with the rise of social media and digital communities. I can know more about people across the world and, quote, have a deeper relationship with them or know more about them than I may know about my neighbor next door. And so part of that is that we have these very online niche communities where there are a lot of benefits to that. But there are also some drawbacks where we don't have that rich community where we start to define ourselves by particular ideas. And while that can be good, it can also be very damaging to not be able to deal with conflict or not to be able to deal and be exposed to various ideas that we may not agree with.

And how do we navigate that as a community? And that's kind of the beauty of the local church is that we come from all walks of life to come together as the body of Christ. And we can not only be in community with one another, but we can remind one another that we don't have to perform online, and we don't always have to tweet or share posts, we can be reminded of the body of Christ where our true identity lies in Jesus Christ himself.

Well, we're just about out of time for this week. But before we go, Jason Thacker, where can our listeners get a copy of your new book, Following Jesus in a Digital Age, and follow a lot of your other very good work? The easiest way is most major retailers are selling the book right now. You can also go to my website at jasonthacker.com. There's a host of resources as well linked to the books and my podcast and just ways that I hope to help serve the local church, especially ministry leaders who are navigating these big questions that we're facing today in a digital age. Jason Thacker with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Thank you so much for being with us today on Family Policy Matters. Thanks, Tracy.

You've been listening to Family Policy Matters. We hope you enjoyed the program and plan to tune in again next week. To listen to this show online and to learn more about NC Families' work to inform, encourage, and inspire families across North Carolina, go to our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. Thanks again for listening and may God bless you and your family.