Just a few thoughts on my tech related frustrations, with some biblical backing.
Refining my frustrations …#
For a number of years now, I have been more than deeply dissatisfied with many of the patterns of tech use that have become normalised in our day. Initially, the source of this dissatisfaction was difficult to place. Everywhere I looked I seemed to observe an encroachment of technology into the private life, the character of which was completely failing to agree with my intuition.
Cordoning off once free online spacing behind sign-up processes; immediate and whole-hearted deference to Google and ChatGPT, instant upload of biometric data in return for mundance conveniences; relentless conversion of living rooms into camera-infested spaces; mass phone use in church…
I am certainly frustrated at corporations and their reckless invasion of everyone’s lives. The amount of contempt I have for Big Tech is… significant. But Big Tech aside, I am particularly frustrated by the voluntary surrending of control that seems present in most of the tech related habits I observe.
Consider the following scriptures:
Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make man [mankind] in our image, after our likeness… "
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them [man]. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and SUBDUE it … "
If man has been made in the image of God, then The Almighty Creator has placed something of Himself inside each of each human life, male and female (in case the use of “man” made that unclear). That deposit comes, necessarily, with a value to each life so incomprehensible that I will immediately stop trying to explain it. That same deposit also comes with a command to SUBDUE the earth. To have dominion. To create. To reflect our Creator. This is the correct order of things.
The history of technology is in one sense a story of humanity subduing the earth. While we have learnt to fly, eradicate countless diseases (whilst making some of our own…) and drastically increase life expectancy, the story of technology is not free from corruption. Technology has and is also being used to control thought, to control speech, to abuse and manipulate the mind, to destroy the infrastructure required for meaningful private life and personal agency, and to convince people to welcome such change. These corrupt objectives point not to the subduing the earth to the flourishing of man, but to subduing of man to the flourishing of multi-billion corporations and their CEOs.
If this is a disruption of Genesis 1, then it is a fundamental disruption to God's order.
Anything that subdues man is an affront to the image of God which all humans bear. Modern technology often permits complete strangers, predators even, to gain intimate access to precious hearts and minds, creating a vantage point from which the redirecting of these precious hearts and minds can be remotely executed. The allure of convenience-tech and the illusion of a scarcity of options is embedding this vantage point in a great number of people.
To those who make these abusive technologies, the average person is seen as anything but a precious image bearer of God. The average person is seen as no more than a data point—and hopefully a lucrative one. Again, this is an affront to the image of God which all bear.
To accept this kind of technology—and those behind it—into the home and the mind (and into children’s minds) is to forget the inexpressible value imparted to all humans directly from God Himself. And for one to allow their “subduing muscles” (forgive me) to atrophy in the endless pursuit of convenience is for that person to forget their call.
Just as God called the first man to SUBDUE the earth, he calls all who follow after to do likewise.
Reject all which dulls your image bearing.
Selected scriptures#
The following scriptures are submitted with no further explanation.
Let the reader understand.
Genesis 1:26-28
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
1 Corinthians 6:12
“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.
2 Corinthians 2:11
… so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.
Galatians 5:22-24
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
1 Timothy 6:10
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils…
James 1:27
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.