Craig M. Gay

Summary: Explores the factors shaping modern technology and how a mechanical view that fails to acknowledge embodiment has diminished human flourishing.

Unplugging retreats. Technology sabbaths. Concerns about technology addictions. These are all symptoms of a growing unease with how technology, rather than serving and enhancing human existence, is shaping and controlling and diminishing our lives. Craig M. Gay digs into the factors that have shaped our technological world, and how we might think Christianly about technology. He contends that what we need are not practical, technological fixes but a different philosophical and theological perspective to shape our development of and engagement with technology.

Gay begins by describing some of the ways that technology, far from enhancing human existence has diminished us, particularly in de-skilling us in both mechanical skills and cognitive function, and through invading our private lives. He traces much of this to the development of a mechanical view of the world coupled with an economic logic driving increasing efficiency, and assembly and bureaucratic control systems that have shaped the development of a technological worldview. Gay summarizes a discussion drawing on the work of theorists ranging from Charles Taylor to Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul as follows:

"As we have now seen, this mechanical world picture has deep and extensive roots within the Western tradition. To use Charles Taylor's terms, modern culture is characterized by an 'instrumental stance' toward life, a stance that is 'overdetermined' in the sense that it has arisen from a number of different sources and is even now buttressed by compelling convictions concerning the meaning and purpose of human life. Not only is the instrumental stance supported by modern science, Taylor observes, but it has also become, largely by way of religious convictions, central within the modern ethical outlook. That outlook continues to place a high value upon taking rational and efficacious control of all things by way of methods, procedures, techniques, and technologies" (p. 129).

Gay contends that, for Christians, we must return to a Christian narrative of "where we are and who we are." A mechanical/technological worldview loses sight of a creation brought into existence as a loving work of God and our own embodied existence. Far from a gnostic, "virtual reality," God considers our embodied existence good. Instead of facing our fallenness, humans often have resorted to technology to evade and transcend the vulnerabilities of our bodies, and the reality of death. The redemptive work of Christ delivers us from our own technological attempts to save or extend our lives with the hope of resurrection. He contends for an approach to technology that "practices resurrection" in it valuing of human embodied existence, and adopts a non-mechanical way of relating to the world as a creation to be loved rather than stuff to be manipulated.

This is not a "how to" book on managing your technology. Gay does something far more challenging. He teases out the way of thinking that has become our "default mode" for engaging our world, even for those of us who claim to embrace a "Christian worldview." His insights on how the logic of money is connected to technological development is worthy of reflection for those who claim to worship God rather than Mammon. It is rare, for example, to hear Christians reflect on how the logic of money has destroyed local "Main Streets" in our preference for big box and online vendors that enable us to buy more stuff for less, while destroying vibrant local economies and personal connection with vendors. Gay is also one of a growing number of prophetic voices awakening us to the dignity of our embodied life and future destiny. He invites us to recover a relationship of love and care for a creation that drives us to careful, even scientific study, but not mechanical exploitation, of God's good creation.

Technology will not go away. Gay helps us see we have a choice between depersonalizing technological thinking, and a creational, incarnational, and embodied engagement with technology that pursues the flourishing of people and creation. The quality of future human existence may well depend not only on what we do, but how we think.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.… (altro)

This was one of the most thought-provoking books I've read in quite some time. Two things that I think the book does exceptionally well: 1) It broadens the definition of "secularism" in a way that makes many contemporary phenomena make a new kind of sense; 2) It explains Protestantism's culpability in that secular shift.

But. This book seems to take FOREVER to make those points. And once they've been made, it almost feels as if Gay proceeds to make them again! Honestly, this book felt about twice as a long as it actually is. Now, to be fair, a good part of that is probably the result of the amazing breadth and depth of Gay's background reading (I've lost count of how many titles ended up on my wishlist after reading Gay's summary/analysis of them), but, still and especially in the last third of the book, I found myself reading impatiently to "get to the point."

However, I would still call this book a "must-read" for anyone who is interested in understanding the state of contemporary culture; you will find no better analysis.… (altro)