Jason Thacker (1)

Following Jesus in a Digital Age is about not just how we are using and should use technology, but how technology and the digital age is actually shaping us in both good ways and harmful ones. Above all, the goal of the book is to understand our relationship with technology and the digital world and how it is discipling us daily, whether we realize it or not.

The author says: “…this book is not really designed to help you craft better technology habits, or a book about tips and tricks to use technology better. Rather, it is (1) an attempt to open your eyes to all the ways technology is profoundly shaping you toward efficiency, falsehood, self-absorption, and division, and (2) a call to a moral, holistic, and deeply biblical way of navigating such a shaping force by walking (not just believing in) a more Christlike direction of wisdom, truth, responsibility, and our true identity in Christ.”

Throughout the book, I learned a lot about the issues facing us in our current time, such as society’s shift to a more individualistic culture that has thus bred loneliness and division, as well as the seriousness of technology used with malicious intent.

As I read, my eyes were opened to the ways technology affects us and even altered how we have developed throughout our lives. I was reminded of how the digital world has caused us to be always “on,” to feel like we must be reachable 24/7, or always checking our devices out of FOMO (the fear of missing out on something or of being left behind).

One of my favorite quotes from the book is one I think most everyone needs to consider:

“Professor Jacob Shatzer [says], ‘When you’ve got a smartphone with a camera, everything looks like a status update.’ The truth is that technology is shaping us in ways that we may not even notice and that should concern us all.”

As put forth in the book, the key question we need to ask ourselves is, “How do we identify the good [technology] can do for us, while also pinpointing the bad it’s doing to us?” How this book reflects on this question makes it an important read for our day.

I received a review copy of this book for free from Netgalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.… (mer)

Summary: A collection of essays exploring the contours and complexities of the digital public square, specific issues that have arisen, and the call of disciples as they engage the digital public square.

Nearly forty years ago, in The Naked Public Square, the late Richard John Neuhaus argued that we cannot strip the public square of belief, religious or otherwise. He argued for a public square practicing principled pluralism, where Christian belief, as well as others, had a place in public discussions. Today, much of our public square discussions occur on various online platforms in the digital world. For Christians who seek to carry forward Neuhaus’ project in this world, it is necessary to understand the nature of the digital public square and the issues that will confront one to frame a Christian engagement that is both faithful to Christ and cogent. That is the purpose of this volume of essays edited by Jason Thacker, the chair of research in technology ethics for the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The collection is organized into three parts. The first part, “Foundations” surveys the landscape of the digital public square. Thacker introduces the section with an essay, “Simply a Tool?” that explores the value-laden of our technology that must be critically appraised and not simply accepted. Bryan Baise looks at how our technology has changed the shape of our public square. Nathan Leamer and Patricia Shaw offer American and global perspectives respectively on governmental approaches to telecom law, AI, and privacy issue. David French concludes the section in his usual, carefully reasoned fashion, discussing the legal and policy issues of online governance and how difficult it is to ask the government to intervene in content moderation. In the end, he believes much of it comes down to personal responsibility rather than looking for government to save us from ourselves.

Part Two focus on “Issues.” Joshua B. Wester discusses religious liberty and freedom of speech essays in the digital context where individuals or groups can be “de-platformed” for expressing viewpoints that fall outside the character of publicly accepted ideas. As private entities platforms from Amazon to Twitter can do this with no avenue of recourse in many instances. In the case of Amazon and books, this can result in a significant revenue loss and essentially mute an author’s voice. Brooke Medina discusses the difficulties in the terminology of “hate speech” and in the policing of such speech online. Classic criteria allowed most speech other than that which actively incited or was likely to incite violence. Sometimes, online technologies such as YouTube have actively been used for such ends in other countries with tragic results. How then will Christians resist and report such speech while engaging in reconciliatory speech?

Jeremy Tedesco and Christiana Kiefer discuss content moderation policies, particularly as they have sometimes been applied to Christians affirming traditional sexual ethics and the experience of censorship in online discussions (I found it interesting that they did not discuss similar efforts of Christians in the realm of book challenges and bans). Bonnie Kristian discusses online pornography, the case for banning it and the difficulties, particularly the deleterious effects of having humans moderate content on their personal lives and emotional stability. We don’t like the idea of “bots” doing this but have we thought of how this effects humans. Much like David French, she argues for personal responsibility and virtue.

Jason Thacker contributes another quite fine essay on conspiracy theories and the “post truth” digital world. He returns to the idea of principled pluralism, the belief in and advocacy for truth, recognizing that others may see things differently but that this does not warrant a contempt for or the trivializing of truth. Olivia Enos explores the world of the “heavy handed” regimes that use digital technology to surveil citizens on one hand and to suppress access to information on the other. She particularly exposes the uses of digital technology of the Chinese in repressing their Uyghur minority and similar actions in Belarus. What is also disturbing is to read about how such regimes export this technology to others and, in contrast to American commitments to the free flow of information, seek to exercise cybersovereignty over their information.

Part Three considers the Church’s discipleship and witness in light of the digital public square. Jacob Shatzer considers the opportunities for and challenges to discipleship. While noting opportunities for digital community and digital education, he notes a number of problems: loneliness and paradoxically, never alone, being reduced to our data, enticements to idolatry, distraction, poor abilities to relate, and lacks of accountability. Shatzer does not seem to offer much in the way of remedy other than the call to follow Jesus is still binding and calls us to press through these things. Keith Plummer focuses on our witness before a watching world. He draws on the work of Francis Schaeffer, contending we must embrace two orthodoxies–one of doctrine and the other of loving communities. The truth is evident in the beauty of our relationships, leading Plummer to argue for the importance of the local and embodied presence amid the opportunity of virtual worlds.

Thacker, in an afterword acknowledges the challenge of such a book with the rapids changes of technology and illustrates it with noting the likelihood that Elon Musk wouldn’t acquire Twitter after all. There was a time when this looked to be so but that acquisition has in fact changed the landscape of platform moderation for all the social media companies. The book also preceded the rise of ChatGPT, and the implications for our digital public square of increasing amounts of AI generated content and product. My own sense is that we may not be able to see very far down the road but this book does help ask the question of how we will engage the digital public square, particularly recognizing the value-laden character of our technologies and platforms.

After the turmoil of the Trump presidency and the pandemic years, my sense is that we are taking a collective breather. With the approach of the 2024 elections, this is coming to an end. Now is the time for careful thought about how, as Christians, we will cogently and faithfully engage the digital public square in ways that uphold Christ and seek the common good. These essays offer a great place to begin.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.… (mer)