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Wednesday, January 29, 2003 |
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I thought I'd mention, in light of my previous two posts, that I'm going to a Wednesday Night Supper at a Church tonight, and so off I go.
4:20:22 PM 
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Quentin Schultze is not exactly wrong in much of what he writes in Habits of the High Tech Heart. There is certainly a danger to human community in unquestioned adoption of high-tech values. From where I stand, I consider my call to be in the area of working toward "redemptive technology". To use a suggestion Schultze offers on p. 72 (in the Chapter Seeking Wisdom in Tradition):
Ultimately, we should hold all our high-tech endeavors to this test: Do they foster the joy and harmony of shalom, or do they sustain alienation, conflict, unhappiness, and injustice? Seeking shalom helps us to see our informational pursuits as part of a responsible vocation, not merely as instrumental tasks or selfish leisure pursuits.
If only this thought had been expanded and more space devoted to what this might look like. I guess this is what I had expected to find at least a little of when I saw the subtitle: Living Virtuously in the Information Age, but the answer which seems to be advanced is to "get offline to find virtue", because you won't find it online, and if you do, it's probably a scam. The very next paragraph after the above quote returns to the theme of how unfit online technologies are for carrying any semblance, any sign, of human community, and it is this "dark view" that I rail against. It's not deception on Schultze's part, it's just not telling the whole story. Maybe that's the only part he wishes to emphasize. There's value in that , I suppose, but it leaves me saying "Yeah, but.... I guess it's up to others (like me?) to do so, and that is what I've been trying to do for the past 12 years, back when I was calling my vision "A Compuserve For the Church".
4:18:01 PM
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Since I picked up Practicing Our Faith, I am now going through two books (the other being Habits of The High Tech Heart) (see Review of Habits of the High Tech Heart) which represent for me two themes which are in dire need of a bridge between the two. Habits , as you have seen if you've read some of my reviews of various chapters, is largely a warning about the darker side of technology, and is practically devoid of any positive examples that the author all too infrequently must concede are possibilities. Each time he seems to be moving in a direction of giving us permission to "try to do some positive things" for the religious tradition online, he seems to retreat back into how unfit cyberspace is to handle anything worth exploring.
Practicing Our Faith is an ecumenical coverage of twelve key Christian practices arrived upon by 12 selected theologians brought together by The Valparasio Project. These Practices form a set of shared values across Christian traditions, and also can be found as core values in other religious traditions as well. As I sit before the authors of Practices and also of Habits, I find myself in the role of reconciler; trying to build a bridge from community-based religious practice to legitimate means of "communicating" some of the values of these practices via Websites, specifically that of Churches. Much of what I see on Church websites seems to be stuck in "informational" mode rather than seeking to give "voice" to the people of that community. Church Websites so often lack the flavor and personality of the community which has "posted" the Website. So many are "brochureware" and very light on "personality".
3:59:16 PM
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