Doesn’t question the moral rightness of technology pose a false dichotomy between the message and the medium?

While I for one can see that a church reverting to pre-dital printed bulletins would not necessarily loose any spirituality thereby, I still am inclined to percieve both mediums as conveying the same life changing message. The medium therefore becomes mostly irrelevant or amoral in and of itself. The internet being used for pornography doesn’t make the internet necessarily bad. Pornography is bad, regardless of how it is used.
It seems that asking this question is similar to the question of whether or not modern music is evil or fit to be used in the church for the worship of God. Has rock’n'roll been used for many an evil? Yes! But so have you and I. I believe the God I worship specializes in redeeming what has fallen and using for good what others intend for evil.

Consequently technology in and of itself is incapable of having a positive or negative moral or spiritual effect on a person apart from the intended use.

Does anybody else see it this way? Or am I missing something pretty important here…

I want to clarify my points.

First I have to agree with many that the Internet, just like any technology or any tool can be used for great good . . . or great harm. The same laptop and high speed Internet connection that someone used late at night to download disgusting images of child porn can be used the next day (by someone differently I assume) to do research about the evils of exploitation of women and children in Zimbabwe. . . with a hope of giving money, time and prayer to do something to stop it.

One positive way, I was alluding to, in how technology can be used for reform is exposing oppressed people to freedom (or exposing free people to the evils of oppression . . . which otherwise would have been hidden). Before technology this was done through books, scrolls, secret notes and eye witnesses.

You say, Repressive governments around the world merely suppress the internet as well in their countries. While that is true in part, that is certainly not an absolute. There is no paper-shield that prevents the Chinese from interacting with free people through technology, though they may try.

This photo; http://image72.webshots.com/172/3/79/8/2874379080103598246uznsbT_fs.jpg

is myself and a friend on the top of a building in Islamabad, Pakistan a couple of years ago. We are connected to the Internet via two small note books . . . one a notebook computer and one a small satellite Internet receiver. While Islamabad is relatively free, what is interesting, two days later we were surfing the uncensored WWW from deep within NW Pakistan, in a pro-Taliban region.

While the locals can not afford the technology, which we had . . . virtually every village has satellite dishes for uncensored TV. There they watch CNN . . . but they can also (unfortunately) watch the Playboy channel . . . or worse, Daystar. (rolled eyes here)

I am very familiar with how missionaries must work in “closed” countries as I was one in a Moslem country. While we did not have Internet when I was there . . . I have many friends who still reside in Moslem countries. They do have to take caution (so not to get kicked out) but I’ve also corresponded directly with Moslems, who seemed to feel comfortable in discussing their (not so Muslim) ideas.

The last point . . . good heavens, of course modern (digital) technology had nothing to do with the religious freedoms which we enjoy here. You are most correct to point back to prior historical developments. All that I was saying, if the tools of digital technology had be available to them, and if they chose to use it for good . . . reform could have come at a faster pace and earlier. On the same hand, if the printing press had never been invented, the reform would have come at a slower pace and later in history.

Like the Chinese, or the Taliban, Rome may have wanted to monitor the interactions (via Internet) of the early reform thinkers . . . they could not have had a impenetrable electronic wall.

And this is precisely one of the fears I have for the practice of faith as it intersects with the internet. No fear of damaging your real friendships or drawing the attention of the real powers, therefore no real consequences to the faith at all and no real potential for crisis and impact.

Of course no one who practices any part of his or her faith on the internet (which is … I guess … what we’re doing her) takes nothing of that with them into the real world.

But how does that transition work? Is it good? Bad? both? What on balance?

I hear what you are saying, but I would respectfully disagree. I don’t believe that the internet created the environment of religious freedom that we enjoy today in America. That came from a combination of the Great Awakening, the Enlightenment and the political pragmatism of the 18th century.

Repressive governments around the world merely suppress the internet as well in their countries. This is why missionaries in certain countries have to disguise their terms when emailing reports about what Christ is doing in their country. Some can not even email at all.

No, “religious freedom” is a mindset, a worldview not a function of technology. If the internet had existed back then, those in authority would have been watching it, too.

God bless

My wife and I teach at a Christian school and we’ve noticed that many of our students don’t “have the time” for church activities, and homework, or other important things, but they spend a lot of time on their iphones or the internet or text messaging or playing video games. I just wonder if those things are acting as “time-leeches”.

Once again, I realize that these issues are personal time management problems, but it seems as if these items are being marketed as “time savers”. They don’t seem to be saving time, but in fact aiding in wasting it.

If blogging and e-mails could have been done in true incognito . . . I think the reformation (both with a capital R and the internal reformation of the Catholic Church) would have happened much earlier. People like us, who think differently than the herd, could have “congregated” without the fear of a crowd with pitch forks and torches outside our doors . . . and us being led off to the stake. Critical mass could have happened much earlier in history. But could it have led to a complete fragmentation and isolation of the Church by the 21st century? I don’t think it would have . . . nor will it.

Having said that, it is precisely the interaction at a blog like this one that allows me to hone, reflect, be changed, be challenged, etc. But, can the Internet and other forms of technology be addicting? Certainly, and that is when it changes to the digital analogue of heroin.

Does that make iMonk a pusher? No, not anymore than a pharmacist would be.