Made Strange by the Word in a Technological Age (Brian Brock, 2003)
FOR MOST OF US THERE IS SOMETHING GENUINELY EXCITING ABOUT NEW TECHNOLOGY. What child is not viscerally attracted to the gleaming rows of cars at a new car show, or amazed at the world to come promised in science fiction? Even our adult imagination boggles at what is being made possible today by technology, a fact marked by the stories of new hi-tech feats that now regularly appear on the front pages of our newspapers.
Almost all of us are used to having our attention grabbed by new technologies. We are part of a social milieu in which a host of social and cultural forces have succeeded in linking these developments with excitement, a sense of exploring the unknown, a touch of entrancing menace, and aesthetic progress.
But, in this general excitement, have we directed attention away from the miracle at the heart of the universe? In asking about the relationship between the Bible, technology and human identity, the Bible presses us to ask this question. It does so by indicating that human identity can be understood as being formed by that which excites it, because where our interest is engaged, “there will your heart be also” (Mt 6.21).
