Analog and Digital

Many people talk about the differences in being a "digital native" and a "digital immigrant". This difference is more than just how savvy one is with technology but seems to speak to a way of viewing and engaging the world.

In the style of Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a digital immigrant if you are giving directions to a location rather than just giving a physical address - you might be a digital immigrant. Or if you print out emails - you might be a digital immigrant. 

Digital native/immigrant language is not very helpful to me because it seems to categorize people by age. If you are less than 35 years old, you are a digital native. Older than that and you are an immigrant. But being a native or immigrant has little to do with age and more to do with worldview. 

I have met a number of young people who are savvy with technology and yet think very analogically at the same time I have met much older people who do not know snot about technology but think much more digitally. 

To this end, I find it helpful to talk about digital thinking and analog thinking.

This is not an essay on the full definitions of analog and digital thinking, but one point of divergence seems to be rooted in how each thinker deals with change.

There are a great number of people who identify the church needs to change - it is the nature of that change that  is the point of tension. Analog-ers want the church to change by just being better at what we are doing. We need to be better teachers - so we try to use video and twitter while preaching. We need to be better at selling ourselves - so we get involved with every social media we can imagine. We need to be better at managing the money - so we higher consultants to help with a stewardship campaign.

On the other hand, there are the digital thinkers who also identify the church needs to change, but not in the same way. The church does not need to just do what we are doing only better, but we need to do things differently. We need to change the way we preach not just do it better. We do not need to be better signs but build better people. Stewardship campaigns are no longer serving the purpose of helping people be better stewards, rather they are pledge drives with Jesus language. 

Analog thinking leads to a place where we build church buildings because we want the church to be around forever. Digital thinking leads to a place where we build the kingdom because we know the church is not what we are called to build.

These are just some basic thoughts that are not original and others around the world have already pointed out that how we address change is not generational but more worldview specific. It is the job of the digital thinkers to learn how the analog thinkers address change because it is the digital thinkers who are calling into question the sustainability of the current systems.

Quick question - do you think the church needs to be better (more efficient, greater communication, etc.) or do you think the church needs to be different (new language, different focus, etc.)?

Dr. Seuss and Ethics - Repost from Buzzfeed

As a child I was captivated by a short Dr. Seuss cartoon tape we had at our home. It had Cat in the Hat, The Sneeches and The Zax stories on it. And the past couple of weeks I have been telling my son bedtime stories and he loves the Sneeches and the Zax. 

In a news amalgamator I use, I came across this little post in which Buzzfeed renamed some Dr. Seuss classics. 

I did not want to lose these and so I posted them here to share with all seven people who run across this blog. 

Enjoy.

Atonement fetish - Part 2

Why does the current church in America have a fascination with the atonement of Jesus Christ?

Tony Jones has been writing about the atonement in Lent and his recent post on his blog that point to the Pathos article he wrote. This post has a line in it which sparks my mind.

Jones writes (emphasis is original),
"In other words, there comes a time in every Christian's life when the Sunday School answer, "Jesus died for my sins," falls short. We want to know how it works."


We want to know "how it works". This line reminded me of the great book called "Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything" which I cannot recommend highly enough.

The author of Monoculture, F. S. Michaels, argues that one story has become the story that drives the world. The first story that held the world together and drove everything was the religious story. The next story that drove the world was science. The current story that is driving the world is the "Economic Story". Michaels defines the Economic story in a very expansive way, and I do not want to diminish her argument by distilling it here. Part of the economic story is the fact that we are driven to think of the world in terms of a transactions.

So we engage in groups for the reason that one day that group may help us out one day. We participate in one thing for potential future help. Why would you participate in a group that you do not "get anything out of"? That is not the way the monoculture story goes. You and I are a part of groups that we get something out of and we are free and obligated to remove ourselves from the group if we are not getting anything from it.

We even "shop" for churches. We want to know how the church can teach me something that I can apply to my life. And we become fascinated with the atonement because it looks like a transaction. It looks economic.

Substitution theory and Ransom theory are defended in the Monoculture of economics because they "fit" much better in the economic story than something like a Girardian approach. 

Could it be the church is interested in the atonement only now because the much larger story of economics is telling us it is most important?