Why the church can rescue us from our smartphones

[Valin]

Washington Post:

Russell Moore

September 21 2016

 

Andrew Sullivan confesses that he “used to be a human being.” In a provocative essay in New York magazine, Sullivan writes about the ways smartphone technology and its constant connectedness have disconnected us from our sense of our humanity and from one another.

 

I was most intrigued by Sullivan’s proposals for the church to be a haven in a digitally exhausted world.

 

“If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, perhaps they might begin to appeal anew to a frazzled digital generation,” Sullivan writes. “’Christian leaders seem to think that they need more distraction to counter the distraction. Their services have degenerated into emotional spasm, their spaces drowned with light and noise and locked shut throughout the day, when their darkness and silence might actually draw those whose minds and souls have grown web-weary.”

 

(Snip)

 

We don’t just have people who are grumpy in line at the supermarket; we have to respond to anonymous critics — or even cyber-bullies — on social media. And we are always just a text message away from the words “I just want to give you a heads-up” upending an entire day or night — no matter if it’s a Sabbath or a vacation or a family dinner.

 

This can be exhausting.

 

Churches cannot undo technology, or the cultural moves behind it. Churches can, though, reclaim the distinctiveness as the institution that sees the human being as a creature, not a machine.

 

Churches can teach that our identity is found in Christ, and Jesus doesn’t care how many Twitter followers we have.

 

(Snip)

 

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