Saturday, December 15, 2007

What Do Cell Phones Have to Do with Incarnation?

Ken Myers wrote an article for the Dallas Morning News; here is his overarching thesis:
With few exceptions, religious people have not given enough thoughtful attention to the social and cultural consequences of emerging technologies. When technical devices are used for obviously immoral purposes (e.g., pornography on the Internet), Christians express concern. But church leaders and theologians give far too little attention to the subtle ways in which technologies reshape our lives and thereby re-configure our moral understanding of the world.
More particularly, Myers applies this principle to cell phones:
I'd like to suggest that Christian people in particular give some attention to cell phone etiquette. A thoughtful set of manners regarding cell phones could be a small but significant way of reducing the sum total of dehumanizing behavior in American culture. Such manners could demonstrate the high value Christians place on embodiment, expressed in our doctrines of Creation, Incarnation, and Resurrection.
Read the whole thing. Here are the closing lines:
Encouraged by a theology of human dignity, embodiment, and the value of presence, Christians have the resources to make some small but notable difference in this cyborg culture. Resistance is not futile.
HT: Christian Mind