Christianity isn’t simply a tool to fix social, spiritual, or economic problems. Its claims are much larger, touching upon truth itself and therefore all things and all people.
It’s common for us to hear much about how we live in an “age of distraction” with an “attention economy” built around capturing eyes and ears for profit, relevance, and influence. Much of this is driven by the all-pervasive screen: the iPhone in your pocket, the laptop in the briefcase, the desktop at home, and the iPad for all the tasks in between. The opportunities for distraction are endless, and much of this is visual. In a recent interview with Ross Douthat at the New York Times, Paul Kingsnorth described the shock of returning to Times Square after living for years with minimal technology on his homestead in rural Ireland. Kingsnorth is also the author of the recent acclaimed book, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, aimed at the spiritual poverty of our technological era.
The damaging psychological influence of technologies like smart phones and social media also appear frequently in news and commentary. This is especially the case for youth, who appear uniquely vulnerable to the addictive qualities of social media. This is certainly not to deny that older generations have also adopted these technologies themselves – indeed, they have done so enthusiastically in many cases. Nor should we deny many of the upsides of having ease of communication across long distances.
To me, one of the most unfortunate casualties of our distracted era is reading. I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks as a way of using driving time to absorb yet more information. I’ve finally gotten used to reading PDF facsimiles of books on a computer screen, though I still resist the now-widespread e-pub format. Nevertheless, whether it’s an audiobook or a PDF on the screen, I know the truth: I learn far less than if I’m sitting in my reading chair with an actual book. Digital media lack a connection to physical reality and give ample opportunity for distraction – unlike a book, a pencil, and a cup of coffee.
The church has also embraced popular technological trends. Churches have their own smartphone apps, screens have replaced hymnals, remote sermons can be broadcast from one location to another, and mechanical instruments like organs and pianos have been replaced by electronics like guitars and keyboards. Worship itself, transformed by digital technology, has become highly virtual. It has perhaps even become, to nod at the philosopher Jean Baudrillard, hyperreal because technological worship detaches itself from the very model it seeks to augment. This loss of connection to the real, tangible, and grounded content of Christian worship surely contributes to our own problem of distraction.
Digital media lack a connection to physical reality and give ample opportunity for distraction – unlike a book, a pencil, and a cup of coffee.
A wider debate about the psychological and social ramifications of digital technology and communication is a conversation all its own. Tech-optimists and tech-pessimists will continue to litigate the benefits and drawbacks of embracing technological advance in every part of human life. Reason, prudence, and common sense will shape how such debates are brought to resolution. Christians will be persuaded on such grounds about how to approach technological change in their daily lives.
The church, however, offers an alternative of its own with a logic given in the gospel. It must implement or resist technological advance on its own terms. Law, reason, and good sense prevail in the world, but Christ has founded his spiritual reign through the church on the word of the gospel and his institution of the sacraments. Nevertheless, we can consider the influence of technology on Christian worship both in terms of the law and the gospel. Practical considerations and theological considerations both have their place when properly distinguished.
One practical reason I favor the analogue, antiquated style of liturgical worship is precisely that it provides a refuge from the intrusions of technology in other areas of life. Sitting in a pew, singing from a hymnal, standing and sitting, listening to a concise and direct sermon, receiving the Lord’s Supper kneeling at the altar – all these things draw us both out of distraction and out of ourselves. One cannot escape being present in a particular place and not somewhere else. In worship, human beings are situated in the sequence of time, which imposes a natural limit. This is one of the chief practical reasons to favor the church’s legendary habit of slow adaptation to technological change. Traditional worship and liturgy make it more difficult to lose touch with where and who you are.
It has been popular to diagnose and remedy the ills of modern life using the raw materials of Christian theology: perhaps Christianity can reenchant our dull, materialist world with a sacramental worldview; maybe, with Augustine, all desire misaligned with rest in God will inevitably destroy society; perhaps liturgical worship can restore a lost connection to the ancient past and heal the spiritual wounds left by heartless modernity. But Christianity isn’t simply a tool to fix social, spiritual, or economic problems. Its claims are much larger, touching upon truth itself and therefore all things and all people. This is where a theological understanding of the purpose of worship and the truth of our humanity comes in.
A theological reason – grounded in the gospel’s logic – to be suspicious of technological distraction is that digital reality offers an escape from creaturely, embodied existence. God made human beings naturally limited to place, in a fixed span of time, and with natural obligations to family and friends. Under sin, human beings are also compelled to work. Dreams of escape from these limitations share with our oldest temptation a desire to reach above the material reality into which God has intentionally placed us. Transcending humanity was the offer made to Adam and Eve, the life of mythic pagan gods, and the hope of those today who wish to live forever in a digital form. Distraction by means of visual media portends a more sinister misunderstanding of our humanity which the church must avoid.
Technological distractions can sometimes serve as anti-sacraments – conduits not of God’s invasive grace into our world, but portals by which we make our escape.
There are as many ways to worship the true God as there are peoples and cultures of the world. After all, this is a result of our limited nature as human beings whose life is local, not cosmic. But in Christian worship, Christ has instituted one universal thing, which is the intrusion of his voice of forgiveness into a world captive to sin, oppressed by the devil, and ruled by the law’s power. Christ alone is essential for the church’s existence, which is why Sunday worship is often called divine service. Word and sacrament are God’s gifts which invade this old world in opposition to sin, the law, and the satanic powers which hold it captive.
In this sense, technological distractions can sometimes serve as anti-sacraments – conduits not of God’s invasive grace into our world, but portals by which we make our escape. Here we can see how crucial the command to rest in God’s word really is. The Sabbath as rest in the word of God means taking leave not only of labor but of our misbegotten attempts to escape our limitations, transcend our creatureliness, and distract our way out of being human. Christ’s word of promise gives true humanity, and therefore exposes all the false ways sinners try to make lives of significance and value for themselves.
It goes without saying that plenty of things in life serve as distractions. The human heart can seize on anything that offers an escape from limitation, embodiment, and responsibility: food, drink, money, status, and sexual desire are obvious examples.
The hard truth of our distracted age is that we are fundamentally distractible people. We owe this to the power of sin at work. But the gospel – especially its public proclamation in word and sacrament – delivers sinners from their captivity to distraction and their desire for escape. Christ situates us where God originally intended: within his good creation as hearers of his word and living in free devotion to the good of the neighbor.
