Emblazoned in enormous letters on the service van in front of me are the words: Cable ON DEMAND. No subtlety. It is in your face, loud and rude: Cable ON DEMAND.
Oh for those old British table manners! If you want the salt shaker, you absolutely mustn't demand it! No, you must say to the person next to you: "Might you like some salt?" to which she would say, "Why, no, but might you?" to which you would say, "Yes if you please ... oh thank you very much..."
None of that with CABLE ON DEMAND.
You've gotta have it and you've gotta have it now. And by golly you can! With our service, you can have it ON DEMAND.
It is one of the many evidences of the aesthetic coarsening of our public life. The more technology enables us, the more we want everything NOW. On demand.
I am reading a biography of Hudson Taylor. In his day, travel from England to China took six months; four if you were lucky to get on a fast ship. En route, you put up with the crotchety captain; you get to know fellow passengers; you help those who take ill; you read the Scriptures to them, and some come to know Jesus.
Nowadays the trip can be made in the time it takes for two in-flight meals -- would you like the chicken or the beef? And you look forward to the movies ON DEMAND in the little TV in the seatback in front of you.
Speaking of Hudson Taylor: he didn't know any "personal savior."
Today we have our personal computer, our personal cell phone, our personal trainer, our personal pan pizza ... and of course, we can have Jesus as our "personal savior." All of them available to us ON DEMAND.
We have no idea Who we are dealing with.
Logos2Go
Philippians 2.9-12 God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
Revelation 1.8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Jesus on demand?
Posted by
David Wang
May 19, 2009
4 comments:
Criticism of one's own time and place ignores the simple fact that we have no other place in which to live! While we can learn from Hudson Taylor, we cannot BE Hudson Taylor. No person ever has had any idea of Who we are dealing with! The aesthetic coarsening of public life began in Eden and has been relentless ever since.
Technology is neutral: it serves good and evil equally well. It is the person that effects the use. Ends and means are of different natures: Ends cannot justify means because means (technology, for example) are morally neutral and thus have no capacity for or need of justification. Ends however are by nature invested with the purposes of persons; they are person-al and thus have moral value.
Words, whether plastered on vans or used to describe our salvation, are not the heart of the matter. People are. Persons. The verses cited speak to our very selves, not our technologies. Indeed, we have little idea who or Who we are dealing with!
The relationship between people and technology gets more fascinating for me as I get older. For example, I am no longer sure that technology is "neutral" as you suggest. Insofar as people -- fallen people -- make technology, technology must necessarily bear the imprint of sin. One notices that cities, crafts, tools, in short, technology, is first mentioned in the Scriptures after the fall, when man began to make a world for himself that was essentially a substitute for the Eden that he had lost. The first city was built by the first murderer (Cain) -- see Genesis 4.17-22. In sum, I rather think that fallen man and technology are in cohoots; technology is what makes the illusion of the autonomy of man ever more pronounced. It is an illusion that the fallen nature cherishes mightily. After all, if technology makes us more and more like gods, we can have more and more things ... ON DEMAND.
But your original post implied a preference for Hudson's ship over today's airplane. I was arguing their equality based on neutrality; you now argue an equality based on their fallenness. Either way, making a value distinction between the two is unfounded.
You must work further to pursuade me. I see both a wooden ship and an aluminum airplane as vessels made of materials from God's creation by builders stamped with His image as well as marked by sin.
Yes, fallen man and technology are in cahoots: fallen men fill those vessels. But grace and technology are in cahoots as well. (Gotta go ... the alarm on my personal cell phone calls me to evening prayer!)
I just came in from the garden after erecting about 40 linear feet of raised beds. All I had was a drill and screws. My elbows and other joints are killing me. I only found one Ibuprofen in the cabinet. I need more technology! Smile. (Don't you like that word "cohoots"?)
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