Technology Is Not Neutral: How Bible Technology Shapes Our Faith

How Bible Technology Shapes Our Faith

Before you skewer me :)

Director of Web Development at Dallas Seminary

http://bible.johndyer.name/

• Technology and Society • Mediums and Messages • Bible and Technology

Good Bad Neutral “It’s just how you use it”

Phone = neutral Call your friend = Good Call in bomb threat = Bad

How many phone numbers do you know by memory?

Phone = morally neutral Phone ≠ effectively neutral

• Know fewer numbers – Effect on the mind • Constantly accessible – Effects on relationships

Cars = neutral Drive to church = Good Drive over a person = Bad

Car ≠ neutral • Blacksmiths • Requires roads & laws • Connects/separates

It’s just how you use it Actually, it’s that we use it Technology is not neutral

Every medium has the capacity to communicate regardless of its content.

I am awesum at PowerPoint

Humble yourself before the Lord and don’t bring attention to yourself.

• Genre – Poetry, Narrative, Apocalypse, etc. • Medium – Talking Donkey – Burning Bush – God in the Flesh

• What does __ extend? • What does __ make obsolete? • What does __ retrieve? • What does __ reverse into?

2000 B.C. to A.D. 2000 in 25 minutes

Oral Written Printed Digitized Adam-1500BC 1500BC-AD1500 AD1500-AD1980 AD1980-present

Oral The community is the device

Written • More consistent • Costly – Communal

Written

Written man 男 woman 女

Written • From 1500B.C. to A.D.1500 – Preaching – Hearing – Memorizing • Images and Icons

Print • Exactness • Mass Distribution • Reference/Footnotes • Chapter and Verse Numbers

Print • Extends: communication, storage • Obsoletes: communal/written knowledge, church authority • Retrieves: access to truth • Reverses Into: individualism

Print • Authority shifted from the Church to the individual • Personal Bible study, individual faith • Faith is logical, not emotional • Think in verses, not books

Print Digital • Photograph • Computer/Internet

Print Digital The boys are hungry

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tinajoebrianwillie/851443071/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramdiboy/3299674549/

• Fast • Passive • Trivial/Entertaining • Story vs. logic

Digital • Information/Scanning • Multi-tasking • Decontextual Language

Digital I worry that the level of interrupt, the sort of overwhelming rapidity of information — and especially of stressful information — is in fact affecting cognition. It is in fact affecting deeper thinking. I still believe that sitting down and reading a book is the best way to really learn something. And I worry that we’re losing that. Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Digital • Increased Access • Cheap/Free • Links to other information

Digital • Bible as information • Bible as search – John 3:16 – Romans 5:8 • Tools can reverse into crutches, stifle learning

• Reject “The mediums change, but the message is the same.” • Read scripture aloud, in community, without PowerPoint • Reduce information, read and memorize large chunks

• Reduce multi-tasking • Create alternate experiences of the Bible • Offer recommendations, not data dumps • Minimize helps

Email: johndyer@gmail.com Code: johndyer.name Theo/Tech: donteatthefruit.com

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Technology Is Not Neutral: How Bible Technology Shapes Our Faith

by John Dyer on Mar 28, 2009

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Technology Is Not Neutral: How Bible Technology Shapes Our Faith — Webinar Transcript