A Theology of Technology

In the beginning, God created stuff, including us. Since we are made in God's image, we like to create stuff, too. God created from nothing; we create using all the stuff God created. And that is, in brief, my definition of technology: It's all the stuff we make, using the materials of God's creation. To put it another way, technology is the marriage of our creative impulse with God's resources. So by this definition, an apple is not technology--God already created that!--but an apple slicer is. Apple juice is. An Apple computer is (although it uses many material resources, none of which are apples).

Technology explodes onto the biblical scene in Genesis 4: Enoch builds a city. Jabal becomes the ancestor of all those who live in tents (technology!). His brother Jubal becomes the ancestor of those who play the lyre and the pipe (technologies!). And Tubal-Cain made all kinds of bronze and iron tools (more technologies!).

Despite our long-standing tradition that Jesus was a carpenter, and the son of a carpenter, the Greek word used by the gospels is more expansive: τέκτων (tekton). It's someone who makes stuff, and if it sounds familiar, that's because it comes from the same root as our modern word "technology." Jesus was a techie. When Jesus instituted the sacrament of communion, he did not choose for elements things that could simply be found and consumed in their created form (like fruit or water), but rather things that had to be made through a technical process by skilled hands--bread and wine are technologies, too.

The Apostle Paul carried out his evangelical work using the great, innovative technologies of his day: Pen, parchment, and the Roman highway. The Protestant Reformation of the 16th Century was made possible by the technology of Gutenberg's printing press, which placed bibles, commentaries and hymnals into the hands of the masses. And for most of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, the church pipe organ reigned supreme as the most complex music technology ever invented.

In the closing years of the 20th century, projectors and screens found their way into Christian churches, along with electric guitars, synthesizers, church websites, and touch-screen offeratory kiosks that swipe credit cards.

And yet, it is only these last few things that are recognized by most as "technology."