Thanks so much, Gary. I appreciate you reading through and offering such a nice compliment. I never know who reads anything I write, and I publish less lately than I used to, but this was fun to do and I am grateful for the opportunity!
Thank you, Joyce! I hope you enjoyed it. This topic is evolving so much, it's difficult to keep up. Writing is often such a way to process my own thoughts on something, so thank you for being audience to my own internal dialogue.
Thanks Carter. I reflect on these themes a lot as a fiction writer - the right words as a reflection of a life well led and immersed in the lives of others rather than the algorithmic, aggregated and marketable words of mimesis. Agree about evangelisation opportunities, but also feel it’s important not to underestimate the erosion of the idea of objectivity associated with postmodern stances, or, the soundbite word-weariness in platitudinous Christianity. We need new tongues of fire, but wonder whether it’s the distracting pace and tech-drivenness of modern living that’s the real cold water. Does this resonate?
Adrian, thanks for the comment, and apologies it's taken me so long to reply. I have a newborn son and am navigating those waters in my small boat with my wife, dog, and toddler as best as I can without succumbing to the sleepless waters.
I don't write fiction, it's daunting, but it seems like modern life has an abundance of material for you to pull from. Excited to read what you create.
What you've shared resonates deeply. I continually seem to find myself at the intersection of being pulled toward newness in an effort to ingest it, understand it, hopeful that there might be ways I can play a part in Christ's redemptive process through it while also feeling called to revert to a more luddite lifestyle where we continue to not use screens around our children, where books with pages fill the home instead of ipads, and where our aim is often more silence and solitude than what's next in our Netflix queue. I constantly feel pulled like on one of those stretchers from medieval torture rooms, limbs tearing. I agree with Rolheiser when he said we're being distracted into oblivion and also that tech-drivenness and the seemingly uncatchable pace of modern life is part of the problem, if not the main one.
However, what do we do with that knowing the next generations are equally, if not more interwoven with technology and will continue to outpace our abilities to understand it? In a recent study I looked at for work (I can't find the source off-hand, but will dig if you'd like) it polled GenZ individuals and had them rank most important moments in their life until that point. Getting an iPhone was ranked higher than getting a driver's license and up closer to graduating high school. Since technology is here to stay, is having lasting emotional, relational, mental, and spiritual impact, and more and more young people are leaving the church, I'm beginning to ask myself how we use it to disciple and develop rather than reach and broadcast? How can we equip ourselves with the right watersuits to venture into those cold waters?
I have joked around with a few people in a way that resonates here where I tell them I'm part of the 'Anti-Tech Tech Club.'
This is all a lengthy response at 11:03pm, but I'm hopeful that it's somewhere of both. Personal discipleship where families and churches are rooted in and embrace spiritual disciplines and lives lived like the desert fathers and mothers, ready to live in the world, but not of it, while remaining empathetic and understanding to the cultural moment, equipped with the knowledge and skills to navigate it. I do see the church and family units needing to play a more critical role though to develop, disciple, and foster a more mature interior life rooted in the way of Jesus, otherwise, what do we have to offer the world should we look just like it?
Wow! Thanks for such a full and generous response, Carter. I remember that newborn time well *shivers* and could barely string a sentence together let alone pen a reflective and insightful article.
Yes, the 'in the world but not of it' tension gets tougher by the day. Totally agree, unless someone's literally called to be a hermit, the sidelines have all gone. It's the radical disparity of tech that gets me. We've placed into our children's hands devices with the means to access wisdom beyond our ancestors' wildest dreams yet at the same time allowed cynical and manipulative market forces to shape their neural development into dependencies, addictions and fragilities that shred attention-span, degrade depth-thinking and are deliberately designed to stoke anxiety, confusion and depression.
I think, amongst others, Substack's proving it doesn't have to be the tech per se. But the 'stickiness' remains a major issue. Who doesn't want to be liked? The early church had an entrepreneurial feel to it that I hope we can rediscover in order to get our heads into the tech trenches of opportunity in order win back all those stolen hearts. Definitely praying for that.
Thank you for this thoughtful post. Several church elders made a similar experiment asking ChatGPT to write sermons or explain the relevance or baptism or communion. The lingering effect was that the words produced felt somehow demonic. In my view ChatGPT is an anti-language, it speaks from a void of non-existence. There is no mind or soul behind it, and its 'speech' is thus not relational, not creative. I wrote a piece on the effects that ChatGPT is having in the education system, and fear that those students who do not perceive a greater,deeper, meaning to their existence, will easily fall for the easy solutions that ChatGPT offers.
Carter, keep up the thoughtful writing!
Thanks so much, Gary. I appreciate you reading through and offering such a nice compliment. I never know who reads anything I write, and I publish less lately than I used to, but this was fun to do and I am grateful for the opportunity!
Thank you!
Thank you, Joyce! I hope you enjoyed it. This topic is evolving so much, it's difficult to keep up. Writing is often such a way to process my own thoughts on something, so thank you for being audience to my own internal dialogue.
Thanks Carter. I reflect on these themes a lot as a fiction writer - the right words as a reflection of a life well led and immersed in the lives of others rather than the algorithmic, aggregated and marketable words of mimesis. Agree about evangelisation opportunities, but also feel it’s important not to underestimate the erosion of the idea of objectivity associated with postmodern stances, or, the soundbite word-weariness in platitudinous Christianity. We need new tongues of fire, but wonder whether it’s the distracting pace and tech-drivenness of modern living that’s the real cold water. Does this resonate?
Adrian, thanks for the comment, and apologies it's taken me so long to reply. I have a newborn son and am navigating those waters in my small boat with my wife, dog, and toddler as best as I can without succumbing to the sleepless waters.
I don't write fiction, it's daunting, but it seems like modern life has an abundance of material for you to pull from. Excited to read what you create.
What you've shared resonates deeply. I continually seem to find myself at the intersection of being pulled toward newness in an effort to ingest it, understand it, hopeful that there might be ways I can play a part in Christ's redemptive process through it while also feeling called to revert to a more luddite lifestyle where we continue to not use screens around our children, where books with pages fill the home instead of ipads, and where our aim is often more silence and solitude than what's next in our Netflix queue. I constantly feel pulled like on one of those stretchers from medieval torture rooms, limbs tearing. I agree with Rolheiser when he said we're being distracted into oblivion and also that tech-drivenness and the seemingly uncatchable pace of modern life is part of the problem, if not the main one.
However, what do we do with that knowing the next generations are equally, if not more interwoven with technology and will continue to outpace our abilities to understand it? In a recent study I looked at for work (I can't find the source off-hand, but will dig if you'd like) it polled GenZ individuals and had them rank most important moments in their life until that point. Getting an iPhone was ranked higher than getting a driver's license and up closer to graduating high school. Since technology is here to stay, is having lasting emotional, relational, mental, and spiritual impact, and more and more young people are leaving the church, I'm beginning to ask myself how we use it to disciple and develop rather than reach and broadcast? How can we equip ourselves with the right watersuits to venture into those cold waters?
I have joked around with a few people in a way that resonates here where I tell them I'm part of the 'Anti-Tech Tech Club.'
This is all a lengthy response at 11:03pm, but I'm hopeful that it's somewhere of both. Personal discipleship where families and churches are rooted in and embrace spiritual disciplines and lives lived like the desert fathers and mothers, ready to live in the world, but not of it, while remaining empathetic and understanding to the cultural moment, equipped with the knowledge and skills to navigate it. I do see the church and family units needing to play a more critical role though to develop, disciple, and foster a more mature interior life rooted in the way of Jesus, otherwise, what do we have to offer the world should we look just like it?
Wow! Thanks for such a full and generous response, Carter. I remember that newborn time well *shivers* and could barely string a sentence together let alone pen a reflective and insightful article.
Yes, the 'in the world but not of it' tension gets tougher by the day. Totally agree, unless someone's literally called to be a hermit, the sidelines have all gone. It's the radical disparity of tech that gets me. We've placed into our children's hands devices with the means to access wisdom beyond our ancestors' wildest dreams yet at the same time allowed cynical and manipulative market forces to shape their neural development into dependencies, addictions and fragilities that shred attention-span, degrade depth-thinking and are deliberately designed to stoke anxiety, confusion and depression.
I think, amongst others, Substack's proving it doesn't have to be the tech per se. But the 'stickiness' remains a major issue. Who doesn't want to be liked? The early church had an entrepreneurial feel to it that I hope we can rediscover in order to get our heads into the tech trenches of opportunity in order win back all those stolen hearts. Definitely praying for that.
Grace upon you and yours
Thank you for this thoughtful post. Several church elders made a similar experiment asking ChatGPT to write sermons or explain the relevance or baptism or communion. The lingering effect was that the words produced felt somehow demonic. In my view ChatGPT is an anti-language, it speaks from a void of non-existence. There is no mind or soul behind it, and its 'speech' is thus not relational, not creative. I wrote a piece on the effects that ChatGPT is having in the education system, and fear that those students who do not perceive a greater,deeper, meaning to their existence, will easily fall for the easy solutions that ChatGPT offers.