Hilton Head Island, SC – July 22, 2012
The Chapel Without Walls
Acts 17:16-31
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man. – Acts 17:29 (RSV)
To begin, it is imperative that you understand what I am not talking about when I talk about technology. I’m not talking about engineering improvements in cars, planes, appliances, or anything of that sort. Nor am I talking about advancements in medical science through new medications, surgical procedures, orthopedic appliances, or the like. Space exploration is not my concern here. Nor shall I be talking about computers per se, although I will be talking a great deal about computers in various formats. It is not people who work all day long in their employment on computers who concern me. Rather it is ordinary people who spend many hours outside school or employment who are virtually addicted to pushing buttons on a keyboard or icons on a smartphone; that is what this sermon is going to be about.
Secondly, let me give you two caveats about hearing this sermon from this particular preacher. I want to admit very loudly that I am a computerklutz, and have long identified myself as such. But not only am I inept on computers, I am inept in nearly everything technological. If all but the most rudimentary of plumbing problems occur in our house, I make no attempt to fix them; I call the plumber. The same with electrical issues, about which I am even more dangerous. As for using tools to construct anything useful or beautiful, forget it; I am a total dud.
Furthermore, as a matter of full disclosure, you need to know that ten days ago I got my first, and perhaps last, smartphone. The only reason I got it is because it was free, except that I will have to pay $20 more per month to my cell phone company for having it. (There truly is no free lunch.) But I thought I’d like to be able to respond to e-mails when I am not at my home PC, if I can ever figure out how effectively to do that. However, I will make it my business only to learn what I want to learn on my dandy new device, and I will intentionally ignore most of what this little gizmo in my pocket can accomplish. I refuse to become hooked on its many wonders.
Therefore, to reiterate, my homiletic concern here is not with technology in general, but with computer technology in particular. Even there, however, I think computers have had a hugely positive effect on modern society all over the world. Without them, we could not have made the enormous progress which has been made since the 1950s through the growing use of cybernetics. So let us be clear about why I am preaching this sermon: it is a response to the millions or billions of people who are excessively spending far too much time on computerized devices, such as Facebook or cell-phone texting, in an almost quasi-religious pursuit. I am serious about this. It is not a personal complaint which prompts this sermon; it is a genuine apprehension about what is happening to countless numbers of unsuspecting people who have turned their lives over to what amounts to an idol, a false god.
“Oh come on now,” you may be thinking, “how can spending too much time on a computer be idolatrous?” Listen carefully, and I hope to show you how it is happening.
The great English philosopher Francis Bacon wrote this: “There are four classes of idols which beset men’s minds. To these for distinction’s sake I have assigned names, calling the first class Idols of the Tribe, the second Idols of the Cave; the third Idols of the Market-Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theater.” Over-indulgence in internet technology represents all four kinds of idolatry. There is a growing tribe of internet zealots. They relate to one another as the “in-crowd,” the tribe, and to the rest of us as the “out-crowd,” the uninitiated. Their idolatry, which they would never perceive to be idolatry, is of the cave, because it is primitive, in the sense that this is still early in the age of computers, and they feel they have discovered something the rest of us have not yet seen. We see it; we just have not given our lives to it. The idolatry is definitely market-driven, because many people are the first in line to purchase whatever new devices are improvements over the old devices, some of which are but one or two years old. Finally, it is an idolatry of the theater because people use this religion as an art form which they love to share with one another. That is why you get so many e-mail attachments sent to you. People mean to be kind by doing this, because they found the attachment on the internet, and they want you to read it too. Because so many of the same people send so many e-mails to us, we can only deduce that they spend many hours each day pouring over e-mails from others, or Googles which they Google themselves about one thing or another. They are like new converts to a new religion; Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses will never leave you alone, because they feel they have discovered something new and beautiful you also need to experience. So too some Internetians.
You may wonder why people spend so much time using these new technologies. First, the whole process is fascinating; it really is. Secondly, it is often educational, and that is undoubtedly good. But is the time spent a substitute for human interaction? Is it easier and less messy for them to punch keys than to press the flesh or actually to talk to someone? And might becoming a techno-whiz engender feelings of superiority? New converts to new religions create anatomical agonies in various body parts of others who are less zealous. If Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, is as obnoxious as he is portrayed in the movie The Social Network, he is an extraordinarily intelligent genius who has the social skills of a very young teenager. Furthermore, if the portrayal is accurate, he is also very ruthless in his business dealings.
Every day, 400 million tweets are tweeted worldwide. That is not only appalling, but it potentially illustrates enormous narcissism. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian who killed 77 people, may have reached the point where he could not distinguish between the real and the virtual worlds. In March filmmaker Jason Russell went berserk. He ran out into the street, completely naked, after he went on a media blitz, sending out a film on the internet, which was viewed by 70 million people. Maybe with that response he felt like God; who knows?
Some states have passed laws prohibiting talking on cell phones while driving. Others, including South Carolina, have laws which wisely forbid texting while driving. Because the technology exists does not mean all of us are free to use it whenever and wherever we please. There must be legal and self-imposed limits on the usage of these techno-gizmos.
A couple of years ago Lois and I were at a local high school basketball game. After the girls game, the boys played, and the girls team eventually came up into the bleachers, presumably to watch the boys’ game. The girls happened to sit near us. For the rest of the game, instead of watching their fellow schoolmates play, they sat quietly texting one another --- not quietly talking, mind you, but texting. They could far more easily have spoken to one another, but no, they were laboriously typing out messages to one another. Then they would poke one another in the ribs and show the texts displayed on their cell phones. Who can explain it?
What does that indicate to you? To me it suggests a very subtle and apparently innocuous form of idolatry. You may think I am making a mountain out of a molehill, or a pretext out of some cellphone texts, but I am truly serious. To them there was something about the very technology itself which was alluring, and they wanted to participate in it. It may seem like innocent fun, but if that behavior is repeated for many hours a day, is it either innocent or fun? What does it represent when a few thousand hours are devoted to it over a year’s time?
The cover story for Newsweek Magazine last week was called iCRAZY – PANIC. DEPRESSION. PSYCHOSIS. How connection addiction is rewiring our brains. It said that the average teen processes 3700 texts a month: 3700! That is twice as many as in 2007. I guess that means tweets, texts, posts, and e-mails. If you don’t know what some of those are, you are fortunate indeed. Your ignorance is your bliss. Stay ignorant, dear hearts. Here is a quote from the article: “The current incarnation of the Internet – portable, social, accelerated, and all-pervasive – may be making us not just dumber or lonelier but more depressed and anxious, prone to obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit disorders, even outright psychotic.” Is this a news reporter crying wolf, or is the writer onto something? But it is not simply he who makes these claims; it is neuroscientists and research psychologists who say it. It isn’t the technology itself which does this; it is the addictive behavior accompanying the technology which does it. A third of smartphone users go online before getting out of bed each morning. The brains of internet addicts look like those of drug and alcohol addicts. You may pooh-pooh this as the hysteria of an addled preacher, but if you don’t give it serious thought, you are not being serious about our technological crisis. For millions of people, it is nothing short of a major idolatry.
Furthermore, what if some brilliant anarchist who is even smarter than Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerman figures out how to blow cyberspace into smithereens, and all computers everywhere end up in a screeching collapse? Have you ever thought about the results of such a cyber-attack?
There are people for whom doing good socially or politically or even religiously could become idolatrous --- but not many. There are people for whom this presidential campaign has become a false god --- but fortunately very few. How could anyone think either of the candidates is a god? There are people for whom the pursuit of wealth becomes idolatrous --- but not nearly as many as those for whom their virtual involvement in computer technology has become their god --- virtually, in both senses of that word.
The 17th chapter of the Book of Acts is one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible. The first verses in the chapter say that the apostle Paul had been in Thessalonica in northern Greece, preaching the Gospel. Then he went by ship to Athens, where he was to meet Silas and Timothy. Not being one to twiddle his thumbs, Paul went first to the Athenian synagogue, trying to convince the Jews there that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah of God. When he made little progress, he went to the Areopagus, the market place of the Greek metropolis, where Epicurean and Stoic philosophers often proclaimed their thoughts. It was the Athenian equivalent of Hyde Park Corner in London or Bughouse Square in Chicago back in the old days. Luke, who wrote the Book of Acts, informs us, “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new” (Acts 17:21). In light of the theme of this sermon, can you guess where I’m going with this?
Paul, who didn’t just fall off the turnip truck (I suspect he and Mark Zuckerberg would share many personality characteristics) stood up in the heart of the Areopagus (which you can see clearly delineated looking down from the top of the Acropolis, near the Parthenon), and he said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious” (17:22). Butter them up, and then make the sale. “For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god’” (17:23). To people who spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new, they were covering all possible bases to have an altar to an unknown god, because who could be certain every conceivable god could conceivably be known? Then Paul went on to talk about the “unknown god” being the only God there is, the Creator, who sent Jesus into the world and raised him from the dead after he had been crucified. We all are offspring of this God, Paul proclaimed. Then he declared, “Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man” (Acts 17:29). Nor is God like a computer, or a smartphone, or a text message. He is God! He alone is God! As the Muslims would say, “La illaha illallah”: There is no God but God.
If everyone gave as many hours each week to seeking goodness and justice as they spend seeking enlightenment from the internet, what a different world we would have. If they spent a tenth as much time in worship as they spend in pushing keys on a keypad, what a difference their worship would make.
Again, why do so many people spend so much time on-line? Is it a new way to become enlightened? It can be, but there are other ways to seek enlightenment. Is it a new way to learn new things? It can be, but nearly everything on the internet can be found in other sources, especially on old-fashioned paper. No, as Marshall McLuhan said in his book title about television when it first came out, “The medium is the massage.” (By the way, I couldn’t remember how to spell McLuhan, and my computer spellcheck didn’t know the great social scientist, so I Googled MacLuhan, whom I discovered was McLuhan. Technology isn’t all bad. But Google isn’t always trustworthy either, especially if Wikipedia is the sole source Googled.)
Anyway, McLuhan deliberately used a double entendre in his title. The medium (television) was the message, but it also was the massage. It can lull us into a mental dullness, and it may turn our brains to mush. Fortunately, by the Sixties most people got over their idolatry of television, and so they may get over their idolatry from being on-line. But getting over the internet is less likely, because it has become so ubiquitous for so many in so many nations, and it literally can scramble their brains. Whether the masses are becoming idolaters or cerebral zombies, it is evident something bad is happening to millions of unsuspecting victims.
Technology is a very sneaky kind of idol. Whoever would imagine that such a seemingly innocent advancement as cybernetic technology could become a potentially monstrous enemy of the human spirit? “You shall have no other gods before me,” it says in the Ten Commandments. “You shall not make yourself a graven image,” including PCs, iPads, or cellphones.
But inevitably that is the nature of idols. They seem so innocent! What is wrong with trying to make money? Nothing, so long as it does not become the sole motive in life. What is wrong with collecting old cars or coins or silver spoons or whatever? Nothing, so long as it does not become one’s primary reason for living. What is wrong with sex or alcohol or music or books? Nothing, so long as they do not represent the prime purpose of life for anyone. There is no God but God. To become addicted to any thing is to create an idol for oneself.
We are still in the early stages of the Computer Age. But if computers become the central focus of this new epoch, we will have given ourselves to a technology which, by definition, is not and cannot be worthy of our total devotion.
When the people of Athens listened to Paul in the Areopagus, they responded, “We will hear you again on this.” This issue is by no means resolved, Christian people. We need to hear much more about this.