Hi Menno.
As a missionary, I taught intro to computers classes in a developing country. These questions came up - actually, I myself brought them up because I knew ahead of time that my students had the questions but were culturally reluctant to bring them up on their own.
A computer is just an aggregate of parts which have no inherent moral or immoral properties. There is nothing
inherently wrong with a computer.
Similarly, a horse-drawn plow or carriage is just an aggregate of pcomponsnts the equal tech "advanements," just as are cars, jet planes, blue jeans, sewing machines, fish hooks, and the like. Each are just aggregates of components
that have no inherent moral or immoral properties.
Take fish hooks. I can use them to feed my family in reserved ways, and that would be moral. Or, I can use them for greedy gain by depleting Salmon or Tuna reserves, and that would be immoral. But fish hooks ever remain amoral as things in themselves.
The salient question is therefore how things are used and to what ends.
To view porn or exchange bomb-making recipes through a computer is obviously an aberration of Biblical morality. These are obvious and extreme examples.
At the same time, I did my master's degree completely online from a prominent Canandian university.
And I grow spiritually from online interaction with Christians who live many miles away from me, meaning proximal interaction with them is impossible.
Are these uses immoral? No way!
Technology is a blessing if it is used in ways that can be God-blessed.
And apart from the inherent properties of a thing in iteself, all technologies bring cultural changes. Unlike with their inherent properties, these changes can indeed be moral, immoral, or neutral. This gets more complicated here, obviously. As I understand Amish, they say that if
the potential for abuse is there, the technology should be rejected. But they are
horribly inconsistent, since a sewing machine, for example, can be used to sew an outfit for a scantily clad "adult dancer" just as much as it can be used to sew field overalls, winter mittens and scarves, church dresses, and head coverings. Taken to its logical extreme, this inconsistency becomes patently absurd. Since
matter can be used for evil, should we therefore reject the use of all matter? (Woops...that view is foundational to a certain ancient heresy).
Take fish hooks again. Adoption of them might indeed destroy the livlihoods of traditional capturers, for example. But that does not mean fish hooks are immoral as things in themselves. Thus, changes brought on from tech advancements must be evaluated
apart from the objects as things in themselves. Yet societal changes, even radical upheavels due to tech advancements, do not neccesarily equate with the immorality of the object of that change as a thing in itself.
Television, a means to bring theatre to mass audiences among other things, is another example. Theatre as a thing in itself has neither inherently moral or immoral properties. What is
acted out is where the crux lies. And every family acts out or depicts the acting out of things as object lessons for children, so acting cannot be immoral as a thing in itself.
Culture and sub-cultures - and Christian movements can indeed be defined as such - therefore need to decide whether they wish to have the changes wrought by tech advancemnts, and whether the objects of technology are moral, immoral, or amoral for them in their outcomes. They need to decide if the
end result of technology adaption is moral, immoral, or amoral.
In my view, objects that are amoral as things in themselves, including tech ones, are things Christians should embrace and use and/or transform by their use of them toward godly ends.
When Christians adapt amoral technologies for godly ends, they at the least retain higher levels of relevance to and among the broadest array of "outsiders." And I seriously doubt NT Christians were "behind the times" as regards technology.
Christians need to concern themselves with whether tech and other changes can be used for godly ends. If
only ungodly ends, then rejection is in order.
A culture that fails to change appropriately is a culture making its way toward irrelevance and eventual extinction. A culture that adapts change blindly is equally so. A culture that adapts tech changes for its own godly ends is wise and is on a path to continued relevance and continuity. This is my philosophy of Christians and technology in a nutshell.
BTW, I can probably help you with any computer issues. Just ask.
Alright, nuff said. Sorry this is less coherent than most of my posts, but it is very late here and I trust you can get my meaning nontheless!
