Theology and Technology, a Reading List

One of the issues the Free Methodist Church in Canada's Study Commission on Doctrine is tackling these days is the "theology of technology," which is our way of asking questions like these:  In what ways should the Bible inform and guide our use of technology in the modern world?  What are some of the key theological issues that should colour our perspective on technology?  What theological issues does the ubiquity of electronic communication technologies raise for us?  What ethical issues?  What faith issues?

Since I'm part of the group that has been tasked to do some research along these lines, I'm hoping to use this bloggin space once in a while to air out some ideas, work through some reflections and generally think out loud when it comes to the theology of technology.  For starters , I thought I'd post my current "technology reading list" to give you an idea of some of the work that's already been done in this area, and to suggest trajectories for my own thinking about the issue.  The attached "jacket blurbs" come almost word for word from www.goodreads.com.  The asterisks mark books I've already read.

The Theology of Technology:  An annotated Bibligoraphy

* Jardine, Murray. The Making and Unmaking of Technological Society: How Christianity Can Save Modernity from Itself. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004.
“ The advance of modern technology is certainly ambiguous. It has promised less work and more leisure, but we actually work longer hours than premodern peasants and villagers. Present-day Western societies are facing a moral crisis, argues Murray Jardine, and our inability to make ethical sense of technology is at the root of this crisis. Jardine shows how Christianity fostered an ethic of progress that led to our technological expertise. However, Christians never fully grasped the implications of technological progress and failed to create an ethic that embraced unconditional grace. Jardine advocates a Christianity that fully understands technology, its responsibilities, and its possibilities.”

* Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. Vintage, 1993.
“In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it--with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and truth.”

Waters, Brent. From Human to Posthuman: Christian Theology And Technology in a Postmodern World. Hampshire England: Ashgate, 2006.

"Technology is one of the dominant forces shaping the emerging postmodern world. Indeed the very fabric of daily life is dependent upon various information, communication, and transportation technologies. With anticipated advances in biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robotics, that dependence will increase. Yet this growing dependence is accompanied with a deep ambivalence. For many, technology symbolises the faith of the postmodern world, but it is an ambivalent faith encapsulating both our hopes and fears for the future. This book examines the religious foundations underlying this troubled faith in technology, as well as critically and constructively engaging particular technological developments from a theological perspective."

 

* Stahl, William A. God and the Chip: Religion and the Culture of Technology. Wilfred Laurier Press, 1999.

"Our ancestors saw the material world as alive, and they often personified nature. Today we claim to be realists. But in reality we are not paying attention to the symbols and myths hidden in technology. Beneath much of our talk about computers and the Internet, claims William A. Stahl, is an unacknowledged mysticism, an implicit religion. By not acknowledging this mysticism, we have become critically short of ethical and intellectual resources with which to understand and confront changes brought on by technology."

Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. W. W. Norton, 2010.

"'Is Google making us stupid?'” When Nicholas Carr posed that question in a celebrated Atlantic Monthly cover story, he tapped into a well of anxiety about how the Internet is changing us. He also crystallized one of the most important debates of our time: As we enjoy the Net’s bounties, are we sacrificing our ability to read and think deeply? Now Carr expands his argument into the most compelling exploration of the Internet’s intellectual and cultural consequences yet published. Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history into a rich narrative, The Shallows explains how the Net is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen watcher. A gripping story of human transformation played out against a backdrop of technological upheaval, The Shallows will forever alter the way we think about media and our minds."

Turkle, Sherry. Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books, 2011.
"Consider Facebook—it’s human contact, only easier to engage with and easier to avoid. Developing technology promises closeness. Sometimes it delivers, but much of our modern life leaves us less connected with people and more connected to simulations of them.

"In Alone Together, MIT technology and society professor Sherry Turkle explores the power of our new tools and toys to dramatically alter our social lives. It’s a nuanced exploration of what we are looking for—and sacrificing—in a world of electronic companions and social networking tools, and an argument that, despite the hand-waving of today’s self-described prophets of the future, it will be the next generation who will chart the path between isolation and connectivity."

Parkin Grant, George. Technology and Justice. House of Annasi Press, 1991.

"George Grant—philosopher, conservative, Canadian nationalist, Christian—was one of Canada's most significant thinkers, and the author of Lament for a Nation, Technology and Empire, and English-Speaking Justice. Admirers and critics of the author will welcome these compelling essays about society's traditional values in a technological age."