Q&A: Is it now possible to be an electronic Christian via all the technology?
Bright spark! asks: Is it now possible to be an electronic Christian via all the technology?
What’s an electronic Christian? I assume you don’t mean robotics (‘Pastor Data’) so I take it referring to the use of technology in the necessary exercise of the Christian faith.
To which the answer is yes. But then, at that level it’s possible for someone to be a penpal Christian, a sign-language Christian or even a liturgically-dancing one.
But to focus on technology. Christianity is a communicative faith – it involves proclamation, and the bringing of good news. Over the centuries Christian mission has promoted and embraced new technologies. The early church leadership made use of letters and constructed networks for passing messages around different congregations. Church proclamation helped standardise languages – Latin and Greek in earlier times, German and English in later times. The earliest use of the printing press was to print Bibles, and later, tracts and magazines etc.
The electronic communication media is no different except perhaps in the sense that the Christian mission as received rather than innovated the technology – there are many examples of Radio, TV, VHS/DVD mail orders, Web sites, Social Media all being used for Christian purposes even if they were not developed for them.
So yes, you can be an “electronic Christian” but this is not a revolutionary thing, in fact its quite an old idea.
