No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money (Matthew 6:24).

After a few weeks of posts from the Pacific Northwest, I thought it would be good to return to some of the questions I’ve gotten from conservative evangelicals in reference to our care and keeping of God’s good creation.

Some Christians feel that it’s wrong to call the creation “good” because it is now fallen and unlike the way it was when first created.  However, the Bible does not call the altered natural creation “fallen.”  It is under the curse (Genesis 3); but the curse was placed on the earth to discipline humankind, not to make the creation bad or sinful.  In fact, under the curse it is doing exactly what the Creator wants it to do: keep mankind’s power in check until the great Restoration of all things (Revelation 22:3).  The curse was to limit man’s capacity to use it—and particularly to abuse it.  So many of our attempts to “save labor” and hence avoid the curse eventually turn around to bite us—a fact that relates to this question:

Question: Isn’t environmentalism largely an anti-technology reaction?

Answer: Technology by itself is neither good nor bad. Technology is primarily the process of people using God’s gift of creativity to do their work. While some people think that the need to work was a result of the Fall, the truth is that work is a primary activity of mankind assigned by God right along with the mandate to have dominion over and to cultivate and take care of the earth (Gen. 1-2). Work became much more difficult because of the Fall; so a great deal of mankind’s effort ever since has, through technology, been to make work easier and more efficient.

However, like anything else associated with mankind’s creative capacity, technology can be utilized in the cause of either good or evil—in keeping with God’s purposes or opposed to God’s purposes. One of the most telling Scripture references regarding technology is the prophecy about the restoration of peace and harmony (shalom) in the coming Messianic Kingdom when people will “beat their swords into plowshares.” Implements of war will become implements of peaceful work, which provides for our daily bread—in a sense, Paradise regained. This stands in stark contrast to past and present civilizations pursuing the advantages of technology in the process of opposing God’s will. Powerful and efficient technological devices and processes in the service of self-aggrandizement and personal pleasure by those who have no desire to worship and honor the Creator or His creation will ultimately result in great evil (such as sophisticated terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in the hands of wicked people).

Christians have a responsibility to consider how to use technology in their service to God—being careful to respect all of God’s creation. This calls for great wisdom and understanding as we utilize the best of scientific knowledge and investigation. When it is learned that our use of technology is doing more harm than good in reference to God’s purposes and God’s good earth, we need to have the will to change our ways. This often includes our ceasing to use certain technologies or altering them in such a way as to reverse their negative effects. Even seemingly harmless “high-tech” entertainment devices can negatively affect our lives as Christians. Below is a little “poem” I wrote a few years ago—which my kids felt was a bit over the top. But I believe it got them to think about their use of time a little more seriously:

Screwtape Gloats

Millions of creative hours spent, and
Millions of valuable dollars spent, and
Millions of tons of precious natural resources spent
—to develop a meaningless product.

Millions of people manipulated to spend
Millions more of their valuable dollars to enable
Millions of precious young people to spend
Millions of uncreative hours
—to accomplish nothing.

Computer games: Gift from the creative
Mind of Darkness
To the captive mind of man.
—God’s vice-regent dancing on the devil’s stick.

Few Christians consider all the far-reaching effects of technology and are therefore ignorant of the many negative effects of our modern culture’s mostly self-gratifying fascination with and use of God’s gifts. We utilize the material gift of the creation and the spiritual gift of creativity developing technologies to avoid labor, to save time, and to create wealth. If we then turn around and use our leisure hours and money mostly in the pursuit of entertainment, material gain, and physical pleasures, we squander the gifts of God.

We need to be exceedingly wise in our use of technology, being careful always to ask if we are using it in ways that advance the kingdom of God and accomplish His will on earth. A question we always must ask: Do we use technology more to serve Mammon or serve God?

For further and deeper analysis of the technology problem in modern society, look into the works of Jacques Ellul, a Christian philosopher who approached technology from a deterministic viewpoint, Ellul, professor at the University of Bordeaux, authored 58 books and more than a thousand articles over his lifetime, the dominant theme of which has been the threat to human freedom and Christian faith created by modern technology. His constant concern has been the emergence of a “technological tyranny” over humanity. As a philosopher and lay theologian, he further explored the religiosity of the technological society.  —DO