However, the the 10 commandments do have 2 commands which are unique among all other ethical systems. The first is the rejection of the pantheon of Canaanite, Egyptian, and Sumerian gods in religions and the demand for exclusive monotheistic devotion to Yahweh which we find in the first commandment:

1. You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

The second commandment is also profoundly different than anything found in ancient documents when it forbids the creation of any graven images.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image … You shall not bow down to them or serve them… (Exodus 20:4-5)

Technology scholar Niel Postman (who was himself of Jewish origin) wrote,

“It is a strange injunction to include as part of any ethical system [instructions on how they were to symbolize, or not symbolize, their experience] unless its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture.” (Amusing Ourselves to Death, p. 9. Emphasis in the original.)

The Israelites might have argued that the technological means they used to approach God didn’t matter as long as they were devoted to him and him alone. But God begged to differ, because he knew that the instruments we use for worship always reinforce certain beliefs.

In the case of Israel, if they had used images to represent Yahweh then it might have appeared that he was like every other God. Instead, by forbidding images of himself, God was reinforcing his identity as wholly other. He is not an idol among idols or an image among images – He is the one, true God.

This means that the second commandment is a technological reinforcement of the first. The medium – or lack thereof in this case – was the message.

A friend recently asked if I’d seen any churches using location and check-in tools like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Facebook with their ministries. The Google Trend image above shows they are quickly gaining popularly, but personally, I haven’t come across many ministry oriented uses for them.

So far, check in technology seems to be focused on only two things (1) creating a games like collecting badges and points to keep users coming back, (2) creating business opportunities to buy and sell good. Neither of these are really related to the core mission of the church, so right now their use is limited to a few basic functions

1. Coupons – Foursquare makes it pretty easy for companies or churches to claim their business location and then add specials for people who check in there. My own church offers a 10% discount for the mayor of its coffee shop (which all good mega churches have), and I’ve seen several other places that do the same. Personally, I don’t like the idea of only giving things to mayors since it just seems too competitive. But a coupon for every 5-10 checkins is a fun idea that frees you from carrying around a punch card.
2. Checkin watcher – There are also API options for displaying checkins to your location on your website. A church, for example, could use http://turnsocial.com/ to display who recently checked into a location. Of course, there are all kinds of privacy problems to address in doing this, but I could see it being fun for certain events.

Beyond those basic ideas, what I would love to see in the future is the ability to add a layer of “meaning” to check-ins. Rather than just saying “I went to this location,” I want to be able to tag check-ins similar to how #hashtags are used on twitter. Here are some examples:

1. #evangelism – If checkins were tagged with something like evangelism, then it would be easy to make a mapping mashup that could show off where people were sharing their faith with others. More broadly, any kind of ministry could be tagged and it seems like it would be really fun to see that on a map. Again, there are huge privacy concerns, but it would sure be cool to see cities light up on YoungLife nights or little flickers where homeless ministry was going on.
2. #ebenezer – In the Old Testament, when God did something, people of faith would often build an altar (or Ebenezer) to commemorate the physical place where God acted in their lives. God is of course omnipresent, but the saints of old still distinguished between regular places and what they considered to be holy ground. I’ve been wondering if checkin technology could approximate this somehow. Personally, I would love to be able to digitally mark the place where my wife and I were when we found out that God had answered our prayers to have a child, and then share that marker with others as a testament to his faithfulness to us.

These ideas could already happen using twitter’s newish location tools and the simple hash tags, but it would be cool to see a dedicated “Ebenezer” app someday, too.

So how about you? Have you seen ministries using location technology for something particularly meaningful?

Conference slides

MediaElement.js

I’m also releasing the first draft of a little code library that helps developers implement HTML5 <video>. You can click the image below to check it out.

The point of this exercise is that for all the tradeoffs and downsides to technology, we are still called to be makers and creators, and I always want to be a part of that.

• Only Disconnect – Author Gary Shteyngart writes eloquently about his technological transformation, “With each post, each tap of the screen, each drag and click, I am becoming a different person — solitary where I was once gregarious; a content provider where I at least once imagined myself an artist; nervous and constantly updated where I once knew the world through sleepy, half-shut eyes; detail-oriented and productive where I once saw life float by like a gorgeously made documentary film. And, increasingly, irrevocably, I am a stranger to books, to the long-form text, to the pleasures of leaving myself and inhabiting the free-floating consciousness of another.”
• Grades don’t drop for college Facebook fiends – Another study wondering whether Facebook usage affects students’ performance in college. My guess would be that in the early days of Facebook, it did make a difference, but over time as students are introduce to social media at a younger age, they use it more natively and it therefore has less off an effect on them – just as it has been with all prior new media.
• Amazon’s Former Chief Scientist on Influence, Twitter’s Fake Audience, and iPad Sex Appeal – “Why do people tweet? What is the driver of them spending time doing this? I think it’s because they think they have people giving them attention, and they do everything to play with that attention. The reason Twitter works so well is that they don’t have a feedback-loop, where people can realize just how little attention they’re getting. I’m not saying the system was set up that way deliberately, but it’s a very well setup system. People can fool themselves into believing that others are listening, which is not easy in real life. When you’re talking to other people on the street and nobody is listening, after a while you sort of have to stop talking. Not so on Twitter.”
• Apple’s new ads highlight FaceTime’s emotional connection – I really like the four new Apple iPhone 4 FaceTime commercials. And I find them to be a perfect example of how effective marketing doesn’t advertise “features,” but attempts to create an emotional connection to the experience of using the device. After watching the commercials, it almost feels like it would be better to experience those events over FaceTime than in person.

Some have been complaining that the new ball is causing problems and that a newer, better ball needs to be developed. Others have been frustrated by some key missed calls by the referees and say that what we really need is new laser-sighted goal-line technology. There are dozens of news stories about FIFA considering “in-game technology” to deal with various problems that fans have noticed.

What is Technicism?

What is interesting about all of this is that it appears to follow the pattern of something Stephen V. Monsma calls “technicism” which is the unending pursuit of more and more complex technologies designed to make human life better, But when those devices cause problems, the solution is always additional technologies that solve the problems caused by the previous technology, and then even more technology to deal with the problems of that technology, and so on.

For example, when it rains the material on a soccer ball is affected, and so there are calls for a more water resistant ball. Someone goes and invents a new material, but then players complain that the new material changes the way the ball spins and curves through the air. So another ball is developed. We then complain about the Gen3 ball, ever certain that there will be a technological solution that will finally get it right.

The deeper trouble is that each time we make a change, hoping that technology will solve a problem, we also introduce changes to the game that we later lament. In tennis, Paul Kedrosky observes a similar pattern happening and conclude that, “Modern technology has created a tennis monoculture.” One can find similar discussions in baseball, basketball, and so on.

Avoiding Technicism

The point of course is not to demonize technology or act as though it never actually does any good (after all, we wouldn’t have “buzzer shots” without buzzers), but to point out two important things.

First is that human life doesn’t work like a machine. Our technology supposedly does everything right all the time, but we feeble, fleshly creatures do not. Sadly, players go offsides. Referees miss calls. Perfect games are broken, and the wrong team sometimes win. But that’s all part of what makes games wonderfully human, and why it is we care more about what happens in a “real” games than the simulated ones on our PlayStations. The more automation and technology we add to a game, the less of it’s “gameness” we retain.

The second point is that while we like to believe that new technology only brings benefits, we have to recognize that new technology also brings change, and sometimes that change removes the very thing we value. Then the hope that technology can solve all problems (technicism) trickles down into other areas of our lives, we run the risk of perpetually adding technology in such a way that we lose our humanness. Just as the game stops being the game with too much technology, so also humanity ceases being human.

So this weekend, enjoy the game and enjoy being human.

Kindle and iPad Books Take Longer to Read than Print – A study by Jakob Nielsen found that readers tended to read more slowly on iPads (6.2%) and Kindles (10.7%) than printed books. This seems about right to me since it will probably take some time for long-time readers to transition to a new medium.

iPhone 4 Creator talks about Materials – Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design, talks about how important it is to touch and work with materials rather than just model them in computers. The is the chief difference between the formal senses of the terms technology (practical) and science (theoretical).

iPhone 4 and the Art of Self Photography – Interesting post from TUAW on the shift from photography being about capturing the world to capturing the self. The iPhone 4 makes this explicit with it’s front facing camera.

How the Web is Affecting Social Relationships – According to this study, most people self-report that in 2020 they see the Internet having a positive impact on their family and relationships.

We can define technology as a distinct human cultural activity in which human beings exercise freedom and responsibility in response to God by forming and transforming the natural creation, with the aid of tools and procedures, for practical ends and purposes. (Monsma, Stephen V. (ed.) Responsible Technology, 1986, p. 19)

According to the authors, there are five parts of the definition:

• A distinct human cultural activity in which human – technology is not just the physical objects (tools and gadgets) nor is it merely technical know-how; it is a part of human culture making.
• exercise freedom and responsibility in response to God – use of technology is always accountable to God and in relationship to him and his creation.
• by forming and transforming the natural creation – this distinguishes technology from other cultural activities such as marriage, singing songs, or creating art.
• with the aid of tools and procedures – while technology is not just tools, it certainly does not exist without tools, and those tools have a set of procedures that defines their proper use.
• for practical ends and purposes – there is always a goal in our use of technology and therefore in technology itself and each individual tool.

The one facet that I would like to add to this definition is the place of communication media. The mediums we use to communication (e.g. books and mobile phones) do not necessarily “form and transform the natural creation,” but they do fit the other four elements of the definition.

Any additions or subtractions you would make? Have you come across better/worse definitions of technology?

Every day we are bombarded with images of the horrific damage the BP oil spill is doing to the Gulf Coast region. When we see these pictures, we love to express our hatred of BP and demand that they pay for what they’ve done. We’re so mad that we get mad when the President doesn’t get mad enough. For the next decade or so, we’ll be demanding justice be served for BP’s sins.

And yet, I think our views about the oil and gas industry are not unlike what Jack Nicholson’s character expresses in the movie A Few Good Men. If only the government hearing on BP could have gone like this:

The CEO of BP should have just said:

You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall — you need me on that wall … I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather that you just said “thank you” and went on your way.

Corporate Sin

If we’ve ever complained about rising gas prices or the cost of air travel, we are participating in the world that drives companies like BP to cut costs. We want them to. We need them to. We don’t really want to know what BP is doing as long as it keeps our vehicles fueled and our computers powered. Not unlike Al Gore, who talks about the environment from the comfort of his personal jet, we love to talk about BP’s problems while consuming the product they provide at every opportunity.

In reality, more oil is spilled every year in Nigeria than what BP has spilled into the Gulf. We just don’t care because it doesn’t affect us. The BP oil spill, then, is not just about the individual sins of a single, evil corporation bent on squeezing every last dollar out of the earth’s core. It is also about the corporate sin of humanity bent toward selfishness at every turn.

Though BP as a corporation should certainly accept responsibility for what they’ve done, it seems to me that we – as humanity incorporate – also ought to acknowledge our participation in the system.

Source: Macrumors

At this week’s D8 conference, Steve Jobs made an interesting comment regarding the coming shift from PCs to tablet computing.

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that’s what you needed on the farms. But cars eventually became more prevalent is people moved to cities. PCs will be like trucks…they are still going to be around, but there is a transformation coming, and it will make some people uneasy. Is it the iPad? Who knows? Will it be next year or five years from now? (macrumors)

Interestingly, it seems that the truck made agrarian life obsolete, but in doing so it also made itself less needed. The truck allowed people to make the transition from rural to urban life, but that shift also meant they no longer needed their trucks (except in Texas of course, where we all need trucks.)

In the long term I’m guessing that Jobs will be right that full-fledged computers will eventually give way to more tablets and mobile devices. It seems that “computing devices” are separating into devices which create content (full-size computers) and devices which consume content (tablets, phones, etc.). Trucks and computers make stuff, cars and tablets consume stuff. Trucks and computers make cars and tablets possible, but they also oversee their own decline in usage.

As we make this slow and steady transition, it’s worth remembering our Biblical call to be what Andy Crouch calls “culture makers” and not just “culture consumers.”

Crouch also warns us not to be mere “culture criticizers” who fail to actually make anything. This mirrors Jobs’ email exchange with a Gizmodo blogger in which he asked, “By the way, what have you done that’s so great?” Indeed.

If you’re not familiar with Carr, he created quite a stir back in 2007 when he asked the question “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” in an article in the Atlantic. Since then he’s spent a good deal of time collecting research into how using the Internet – from twitter to blogs to wikipedia to video – changes the way our brain works.

Mental Adaptation

The major premise of Carr’s work is that brain adapts to repetitive actions just like a muscle. If you go jogging frequently, your leg muscles lengthen and elongate. If you lift heavy weight over and over, your muscles get bigger and more dense.

Theoretically, when you do certain mental tasks (reading, memorizing, etc.) your mind also adapts. If you read a lot of books, your ability to grasp large concepts tends to improve as does your vocabulary. If you read a lot of tweets, your ability to consume lots and lots of small sentences increases.

But each new task brings with it a set of trade offs. Just as marathon runners can’t bench 300 pounds, and dead lifters can’t run marathons, literature professors don’t tend to enjoy reading 1000s of tweets, and twitter junkies don’t have usually have Dostoevsky next to their iPhone.

How to Our Brains Adapt to Internet Links?

As he considers the trade-offs of various reading technology, Carr contends that reading text with a lot of links embedded changes how we process information and the results are mostly bad:

Links are wonderful conveniences, as we all know (from clicking on them compulsively day in and day out). But they’re also distractions. Sometimes, they’re big distractions – we click on a link, then another, then another, and pretty soon we’ve forgotten what we’d started out to do or to read. Other times, they’re tiny distractions, little textual gnats buzzing around your head. Even if you don’t click on a link, your eyes notice it, and your frontal cortex has to fire up a bunch of neurons to decide whether to click or not. You may not notice the little extra cognitive load placed on your brain, but it’s there and it matters. People who read hypertext comprehend and learn less, studies show, than those who read the same material in printed form. The more links in a piece of writing, the bigger the hit on comprehension.

Wow, not too positive, eh?

However, I would think that the same thing could be said of footnotes²⁸ and endnotes²⁹ in print. Although academics seem to do just fine wading through seas of superscripted numbers, when I read dense academic works with lots of footnotes, I constantly wonder, “Should I check the note or continue?”

What about Bible Verses?

Do the chapter and verse numbers in the Bible add a similar “cognitive load” to our reading of the Scriptures?

I haven’t seen any cognitive studies on Bible reading with and without verse numbers, but history suggests that they have made a difference. Today, the Bible is almost unrecognizable without chapters and verse numbers, but it wasn’t until the 1550s that Robert Estienne standardized verse numbers for his Greek lexicon. That means that from Moses (1500 B.C.) to Luther (A.D. 1500), believers had no concept of memorizing a “verse” or debates about the “red letters.”

As helpful as they are, these are technological tools that we’ve added to the Bible, and now these tools shape the way we approach the words of God. This is even more pronounced with study Bibles where the Biblical text is less than 50% of the words of every page.

Delinking

Following Nicholas Carr’s suggestion, here are the links that would normally have been embedded in the text above:

• The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
• Carr’s article “Is Google Making us Stupid?”
• Carr’s post “Experiments in Delinkification”
• Chapters & Verses: Who Needs Them? by Christopher R. Smith
• The Books of Bible – printed Bible without notes or numbers

Notice how different this post is without those links embedded throughout the text.

Deversification

If you try reading a Bible without chapters and verses, you might find that the change is even more drastic. It’s quite different to read Acts without the chapter divisions dictating the narrative pace or to study Romans without the verse numbers splitting up Paul’s arguments.

Does that mean chapter/verse numbers are bad? Are study Bibles and red letter editions evil plots by the Devil? No, of course not. In fact, they are incredibly helpful study and reference aids.

But we still need to be aware that every time we open a printed Bible and every time we fire up the Scriptures on our computer and phones (or use one of my fancy tools http://biblewebapp.com), there is a lot of extra “stuff” that can be quite distracting and which might influence the way we encounter the God’s word.

So if you’re interested in trying a Bible free from the technology of numbers, links, colors, and cross references, check out the “Books of the Bible” project where you can download entire sample books and buy printed copies.

• The Books of the Bible
• Sample downloads

Try reading Genesis or Philippians and let me know what you think…