Who needs reality?

Now, don't get me wrong.  The smart phone that entered mainstream life about 15 years ago does many things well.  But it has definitely put its mark on us, our culture, and our religion.  The fruits of its most enduring qualities have not necessarily been good.  You do not need to be Luddite to acknowledge that the promise of this little handheld screen with its portal into the digital life has had its downside.  

The US Survey on Drug Use and Health tells us some statistics that have accompanied the smartphone era -- anxiety has risen 52% among people ages 35-49, 103% among those 26-34 and 139% among those 18-25. An American College Health Association survey found that, between 2010 and 2020, anxiety rose 134%, depression 106%, anorexia 100% and substance abuse 33%. Not to mention that diagnosis of ADHD cases rose 72%, schizophrenia 67% and bipolar disorder 57%.  Now perhaps you could chalk some of this up to increased awareness and attention to such things or you might just wonder if smartphones have contributed to these chronic ills.  On top of this we could mention that there has also been a decrease in politeness and the social graces and an increase in intolerance, rage, and almost cultic devotion to certain internet personalities whose views are variously defined as bigoted, racist, misogynist, and phobes of all kinds, (definitely me excluded!).

But his is not about culture or society or parenting or the individual health of our people.  This is about how we in the Church have tried to warm up to the screen and adopt it into the worship and educational life of our people.  This is about how we have tried to have our cake and eat it too -- warning about some things but in large measure making the screen a semi-sacramental means for our own purposes of instruction, interaction, and devotion.  How is that working?  That is the point.  It is not working.  In a religion in which the emphasis is on the real, the digital competes and even overshadows reality.  That is exactly the problem.  People do not need the real as long as they have the digital.

The screen church does not supplement the real church but competes against it.  The imagined reality of the screen does not work with the goal of the Gospel but replaces the truth with opinion and preference and justifies it all in the same way consumer preference dominates nearly every other aspect of our daily lives.  Churches have adapted to the smartphone by using it as a means of checking in to church activities and connecting with each other as members.  Churches have accepted the screen as a replacement for the printed page of the Bible, hymnal, and prayerbook.  Churches have allowed the false idea to prevail that alone with your screen is not simply a substitute for in person worship but it equates with what it means to believe and live out your Christian life -- a digital version, anyway.  We have raised a generation which has grown up with the screen, the internet, social media, and the digital frame of daily life.  Churches have adapted to this and attempted to use the screen to supplement the reality of Sunday morning and our lives together in Christ only to find out that the assistant became the central medium and the reality of the personal became secondary.

I will tell you up front.  I have the Bible on my phone and the PrayNow app but I do not use these often nor do I depend upon them.  These tools or aids are not helping us but are competing with the very reality that has defined us as church since the beginning.  It is not simply that the constant dings of the apps on our phones distract us but the screens offer us something that is not real in place of reality.  Witness how quickly rumors replace facts burning up the wires and wifi of the unsocial social media until no one knows what is true and what is false anymore and we cannot be convinced of either by fact.  Christianity is not a religion of opinions but of truth and fact.  Every aspect of the Christian faith imparts to us a greater reality than we can experience with our senses and know apart from the ministry of the Spirit.  Yet the sad fact remains that most of us no longer believe that truth matters as much as opinion and most of us refuse to allow the existence of a truth which would conflict with our heart felt opinions and desires.  How does this aid and assist the Christian Gospel?  We have let our illusions about our technology tell us that screens are safer than in person worship and interaction but tell that to the 85% of porn users who tune in via those small screens.  

We refuse to believe a preacher who warns us of these digital screens and their competing reality because we are not guilty.  Is that true?  Are the only ones addicted to their screens the heathen and the only porn views pagans or are they some of the same people we call Christian brothers and sisters?  What would happen if we had a screen free worship service?  Imagine that!  An hour or two without hearing a text message ding or the most embarrassing ringtone known to man or eyes distracted by that little computer key to the outside world that lives in your pocket or purse?  But instead of warning, preachers try to incorporate these devices and give folks the chance to text their questions or alternative opinions to the one expressed in the pulpit (well, really it is a bar stool on a stage).  I am a daily user of technology but I am also a voice of warning telling anyone and everyone that it is not helping and is really hurting us -- especially as Christians!