Enjoy the Process

Tag: technology

  • The Letter of Robert to the New Jerseyians

    Introduction

    The idea to write this letter sprouted a couple of years ago when I submitted an application for an entry in a theological newsletter. The idea was to document the process of writing a handwritten letter and to contrast that with reading letters in print. I wanted to summarize what I learned academically and disseminate the nuggets of wisdom I discovered in an accessible format. However, my idea was not accepted.

    A few months ago, I spoke with a friend from New Jersey. We talked about faith and church. Through the conversation, I remembered this idea. However, this time I had a particular audience in mind and a greater reason as to why I wanted to write the piece.

    I wrote this letter because I wanted to encourage and inspire a handful of people I knew. I wanted to succinctly document my theological learning and experiences over the past five years. I wanted to express the content in a familiar format so people can approach biblical letters with a renewed perspective.

    The Letter in Print

    Whether or not a New Jerseyian was encouraged or inspired, it was a fun process to write (by hand), type, edit, format, and print this creative piece with a humble curiosity for greater things.

    New Jerseyians

  • The Influence of Economic Prosperity on Religious Flourishing: A Case Study of South Korea

    The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber argues that “practicality has somehow received the sanction of modern religious understanding, so that what appears to be purely pragmatic and egoistic behavior is actually religiously motivated in some way; [and] religious understanding has somehow been debunked within modern culture in such a way as to give a free reign to practicality and pragmatism.”[1] In this paper, I will argue that economic prosperity—regardless of the root cause being of Christian origin—compounded by the effects of globalization,[2] will inevitably lead to a practical and pragmatic worldview that will impact people of all nations, including Christians. I will utilize Korea as a case study for this trend, which in turn can be analyzed as a signpost for the larger global society.

    The history of Korea is plagued with a tumultuous narrative of multiple, successful invasions from various nations.[3] While the prosperous footprint of South Korea can be seen internationally today, it has been only less than a century since the end of Japanese rule and the Korean War, leaving the nation to rebuild from its agricultural roots.[4] Since the war, South Korea has seen unprecedented economic growth, which has been coined as the “Miracle of the Hangang River.”[5]

    This miracle can be attributed to earlier forms of globalization with the involvement of Japan and Western nations. While the Japanese colonial rule of Korea in the early 20th century has been associated with much tragedy, it has also paradoxically aided in the development and modernization of Korea.[6] “Undeniable economic exploitation by Japan, especially in the agricultural sector, was balanced by the deliberate creation, often for strategic reasons, of the public works and communications infrastructure of a modern country.”[7] Following the Korean War, the 1965 normalization treaty “provided for a $500 million settlement in grants and loans which Japan promised to South Korea” and in turn greatly helped stimulate the economy.[8] As the economy of South Korea grew, it quickly attracted international attention and received investments from the United States and other Western nations.[9]

    As the external influences of globalization aided in South Korea’s miracle recovery, rebuilding with improved technology was also integral to the nation’s growth. Known as the Saemaul movement, this was a collective effort to improve the rural standard of living alongside the industrial development.[10] Improved agricultural technology and proper infrastructure has essentially rid rural poverty in South Korea.[11] The Saemaul movement continues to be an indispensable part of South Korea and its modernization and economic improvement.[12]

    The miraculous economic growth of South Korea cannot be examined without exploring a parallel miraculous growth of Christianity in the 20th century. In 1900, only 1% of the population of South Korea was Christian and by 2010, it grew to roughly 30% of the population.[13] This growth has been attributed to varying circumstantial and spiritual reasons. In the early 20th century, the “Japanese oppression of the Korean church… cast it as a champion of Korean nationalism.”[14] Christianity later provided various social improvements such as education, medical aid, and community engagement.[15] In regards to the spiritual climate of Korea, there was a natural attraction to the Christian ideas of salvation.[16] In addition, there was a strong emphasis on evangelism, prayer, and Bible studies.[17]

    At this point, one could argue that the growth of Christianity could have been a root cause of the growth of economic prosperity in South Korea, especially when considering what Max Weber explicated in the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.[18] While it is evident that Korea was influenced by Western culture and values,[19] I argue, it is irrelevant whether economic prosperity comes from a Christian origin or other means such as through globalization and improved technology. It seems once a nation reaches a certain level of prosperity, that nation will inevitably veer towards a form of secularization as seen in Western nations and now in South Korea.

    As discussed thus far, economic prosperity and Christianity has seen tremendous growth over the past century in South Korea. However, Christian growth has now somewhat stagnated, reaching a “saturation point” particularly for Protestantism.[20] Despite South Korea being considered one of the centers for global Christianity,[21] the plurality—i.e. 46%—of the country has no religious affiliation.[22] Economic growth, on the other hand, continues to rise—in 2017, South Korea ranked 12th in gross domestic product.[23] The technological development in South Korea has vastly improved and according to one study, ranks third in the entire world, just behind Japan and the United States.[24] The development and progress of South Korea since the Korean War has vastly improved “the material quality of life,”[25] however a former South Korean pastor argues that “the church faces the challenge of filling the spiritual void in Korea, which has been created by materialism and the obsession with economic development.”[26] (italics mine) Reverend Kisung Yoo, a senior pastor of a church in Seoul, also acknowledges that “the Korean church has achieved tremendous quantitative growth since the 1980s, but there has been too little focus on qualitative growth.”[27] He is seeking to battle the “challenges of secularization” through the Walking with Jesus movement, a combination of spiritual practices aided by the use of digital technology.[28]

    The story of Christianity in South Korea is still being written and perhaps it is too early to make any definitive conclusions. However, if the Western church is any indicator of its progress in light of its prosperity, it will be challenging to say the least. Son Bong-ho, a philosophy professor, criticizes the South Korean church having “a fatal lack of critical attitude toward the materialism of modern culture.”[29] And the spiritual void mentioned earlier could very well be a result of the “impact of revolutionary capitalism” and how a modern system creates a “cultural vacuum.”[30] While South Korea is not a Christian nation in the same sense Western Europe or North America was, there is a similar pattern developing even in its short history that aligns well with Weber’s critique that practicality and pragmatism will reign.[31]

    By utilizing South Korea as a case study, one can see the impact economic prosperity has on a country in a relatively short span of time. South Korea has had a unique experience, and despite its tremendous and rapid growth, it is facing similar challenges that Western Christians are addressing, such as materialism and consumerism. While most of the development of South Korea happened in the 20th century, a time period filled with massive innovation that fueled globalization,[32] the technological innovation happening in the 21st century is only compounding these effects. Take for example, the number of monthly active Facebook users in 2008 was 100 million and by the end of 2018, it had 2.32 billion monthly active users.[33] This accounts for approximately 30% of the world population.[34] Our global society has never been more connected than it is today.

    Despite the complexities associated with defining and placing globalization, it is a trend that will continue to progress, for better or worse. My focus is not to argue for or against globalization as some have attempted, but that it is an inevitable reality.[35] Technology and economy will progress, most notably now in the form of cryptocurrencies and digital money. This new technology offers a “gospel” to developing nations and is a practical means of lifting them up out of poverty.[36] When nations and their people are hyperconnected to the world and can make financial transactions with one another ultimately improving their standard of living, there is no need for any other gospel, [37] especially when they realize how poor Western Christians have responded to the needs of their global neighbors.[38] This is particularly concerning as Christianity has shifted to the Global South and is growing in developing nations. As globalization will exponentially increase the speed in which nations reach a certain level of prosperity, the global church should take heed with what is happening to the church of South Korea.

    When nations and their people are hyperconnected to the world and can make financial transactions with one another ultimately improving their standard of living, there is no need for any other gospel, especially when they realize how poor Western Christians have responded to the needs of their global neighbors.

    The key takeaway here is to recognize that this complex force of globalization and modernization may be the biggest competitor to any form of religious flourishing. The greater danger is that those who are engaged with globalization are making futile arguments for resistance, while the vast majority of Christians and non-Christians alike are either ignoring or fearing it.[39] Peter Heslam, who works from an interdisciplinary approach, may have stated it best: “The only substantial agreement is that this is a transitional period. Many of the values, assumptions and structures that once enjoyed broad acceptance have been set aside, but new ones have not yet fully emerged.”[40] While this temptation is nothing new to followers of Christ as he instructed that we cannot serve two masters, hopefully the global church will not follow in the same patterns as the church of South Korea.[41]

    [1] Taken from Craig Gay’s explanation of Max Weber’s thesis found here: Craig M. Gay, Cash Values: Money and the Erosion of Meaning in Today’s Society (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans and Regent College Pub, 2004), 27.

    [2] Globalization, defined for the purposes of this paper, is a process in which people of all nations are being evermore connected by means of technology, including but not limited to communication, manufacturing, and production, thereby making every decision and action interwoven and impactful on a global scale.

    [3] David Rees, A Short History of Modern Korea (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1988), 2.

    [4] Ibid., 64.

    [5] “The Korean Economy – the Miracle on the Hangang River,” Korea.net, accessed April 9, 2019. http://www.korea.net/AboutKorea/Economy/The-Miracle-on-The-Hangang.

    [6] Rees, 72.

    [7] Ibid.

    [8] Ibid., 148.

    [9] Ibid., 149.

    [10] Ibid., 151.

    [11] Ibid., 155.

    [12] Ibid., 154.

    [13] Philip Connor, “6 facts about South Korea’s growing Christian population,” Pew Research Center, accessed April 9, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/12/6-facts-about-christianity-in-south-korea/.

    [14] Donald N. Clark, Christianity in Modern Korea, Asian Agenda Report 5 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986), 36.

    [15] Ibid., 29-30.

    [16] Ibid., 36.

    [17] Ibid.

    [18] While outside the scope of this paper, this would be an intriguing proposition to explore as Protestantism constitutes most of the Christian population in South Korea. See Douglas G. Jacobsen, The World’s Christians: Who They Are, Where They Are, and How They Got There (Chichester, West Sussex, U.K. ; Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 190.

    [19] Clark, xi, 47-49.

    [20] Jacobsen, 191.

    [21] Ibid., 373.

    [22] Connor, Pew Research Center.

    [23] “Gross domestic product 2017,” World Bank, January 25, 2019, accessed April 11, 2019. https://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf.

    [24] David Allouche, “Top 10 of the Most High Tech Countries in the World,” accessed April 10, 2019. http://www.young-diplomats.com/top-10-high-tech-countries-world/.

    [25] Clark, 16.

    [26] Ibid., 37.

    [27] Kisung Yoo & Paul Sung Noh, “The Korean Cyber Monastery Movement: Overcoming the challenges of secularization,” Lausanne Global Analysis Vol 7, Issue 5 (Sep 2018), accessed April 11, 2019. https://www.lausanne.org/content/lga/2018-09/the-korean-cyber-monastery-movement

    [28] Ibid.

    [29] Clark, 25.

    [30] Gay, 42-3.

    [31] Ibid., 27.

    [32] Robert Angus Buchanan, “The 20th century,” History of technology, accessed April 10, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/technology/history-of-technology/The-20th-century

    [33] “Number of monthly active Facebook users worldwide as of 4th quarter 2018 (in millions),” statista, accessed April 11, 2019. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/.

    [34] Calculated based on 7.7 billion people in the world from http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/, accessed April 10, 2019.

    [35] Peter S. Heslam, Globalization: Unravelling the New Capitalism, Grove Ethics Series ; E125 (Cambridge [England]: Grove Books Ltd., 2003), 25.

    [36] In reference to the remittance industry and digital money in smaller fractions than the US dollar. See Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World (New York: Portfolio, 2016).

    [37] Myers, 255.

    [38] See Ronald J. Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity, Reprint edition (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2015).

    [39] Myers, 4.

    [40] Heslam, 3.

    [41] Matt 6:24.

  • Theological Reflection of a Vocational Dishwasher

    “You cook, I will clean,”

    I told my beloved wife. My wife and I agreed this would be a fair distribution of household duties while considering our natural preferences and desires. I do not mind cleaning and prefer doing the dishes. Cleaning dishes began as nothing more than a simple responsibility within the complex dynamic of a marital relationship. However, it has now evolved to be a mirror reflecting culture, theology, identity, vocation, and technology. Dishwashing has aided in the development of my personal theological foundation as well as of my understanding of how the gospel relates to (my) culture.[1] Dishwashing has helped me understand the overarching narrative of culture; pushed me to question what is the good news of Jesus Christ and its relevance to my role as a dishwasher; redeemed my understanding of identity and vocation; and guided my reflection on the impact of technology.

    “Can you please put away your dirty dishes,”

    my mom occasionally told me while growing up. Dishwashing and anything related to it was never something to look forward to or be inspired by. My experiences as a dishwasher began in my early childhood, when putting away the dishes and sometimes cleaning them was nothing more than a menial chore. If anything, both cooking and cleaning were the tasks of my mother—the kids simply put their dishes away once finished with the meal. Later into adolescence, the chore slightly evolved acquiring a small payment for doing the task and with rare glimpses of maturity, I did my own dishes perhaps to help out my mother from time-to-time or to establish some sort of illusionary independence. I also learned at an early age that cleaning in general was the only job I could get without requiring special skill sets or simply being older. It seemed my own childhood experiences were universal as I learned when I started living with roommates during my undergraduate years. No one enjoyed doing the dishes and they would frequently pile up in the sink, leading to a game of who can stack the dishes the highest without touching the spout. It seemed as if I frequently lost this game as I ended up doing them out of frustration. This general pattern persisted up until my marriage, where I voluntarily chose to be the primary dishwasher or dishwasher loader—more will be said about this later.

    My past experiences, including being the primary dishwasher for the past five years, has taught me much about culture. Dishwashing serves as a reflection on how culture views identity and what it values. Much of our cultural identity is shaped by what we do which further reflects what we value. And the role and function of a dishwasher is not on the high-end of what culture values. A simple job search easily reveals this notion and even more so, people do not attend university so they could obtain a degree in household cleaning.[2] Washing dishes as a function also does not “help pay for the bills” as the cliché goes. This challenged the deep-rooted narrative that had been written on my mind and heart for many years—the value of culture is largely determined by occupation and close behind that, money.[3],[4]

    The subtlety of this value taking hold of my worldview revealed itself once I became a dishwasher. Prior to marriage, I thought I genuinely affirmed the role of full-time, stay-at-home mothers, recognizing household duties as valuable and necessary work. However, once I was in the position to be a full-time, house husband, that genuine affirmation slowly eroded after realizing one of my primary responsibilities was to wash dishes. According to cultural standards, because I had no occupation and was making little to no money, what I did had little value and in turn, my very identity as well.

    Our occupations provide financial and social value. Thus, occupations that are high-paying or with significant titles generally hold more currency. There has also been a more recent shift or rather attachment to this cultural narrative, where personal fulfillment and meaning has become a major factor in choosing one’s occupation.[5] It would also be easy to assume that this cultural narrative is only a secular one. Particularly from a Western Christian perspective, there is an additional “religious currency” where the most valuable occupations or callings, to spiritualize the term, are ministerial roles such as pastors or traditional missionaries. Other occupations merely exist to support the institutional church’s agenda.[6] This false dichotomy between the sacred and secular and hierarchy of what one does plagues Western Christianity. In essence, so called sacred vocations are much more valuable than being a dishwasher. This version of the gospel of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with washing dishes, or one’s occupation, and more importantly, one’s vocation.

    “Do you believe Jesus died for your sins,”

    would be the most common focus of the version of Christianity I knew. Where dishwashing reflects a broad cultural narrative, what is reflects about the gospel in most Christian narratives is the mere irrelevance of one to the other. Through my journey of becoming a vocational dishwasher, I have questioned what is the gospel. My prior understanding of the Christian gospel is my belief in Jesus Christ for my personal salvation. While there may be some truth to this, this solely individualistic perspective and “truncated version of the biblical gospel” has no relevance to the broader culture, society, and world.[7] While “it is gloriously true that sinners are saved through the cross of Christ, it is not actually the whole gospel or the whole achievement of the cross.”[8] If Christians continue to adopt this form of the gospel, there will continue to be this negative dualism and a complete insignificance to the burgeoning pluralistic culture. By redeeming the entire biblical narrative from the beginning of creation to the end of new creation, including themes of the value of one’s so-called ordinary work, being a blessing to other nations, and not only believing but knowing Jesus Christ who lived, died, and rose again from the dead, could there be a possible redemption of the relevance of the gospel to be just that—good news to culture.[9],[10]

    “I am a vocational dishwasher,”

    is the new mantra I now confidently live by. My recent and ongoing explorations of the gospel and the whole biblical narrative has helped me to understand vocation and redeemed my identity as a dishwasher. According to the biblical narrative, who we are is shaped and defined by our relation to God and who God is and what we do is shaped and defined by our relation to what matters to God and what God is doing.[11] This stands in stark contrast to a cultural narrative that says we are largely shaped and defined by the shaky foundation of what we do. “Work is a creational good, but the Bible is well aware of the temptation to turn work into an idol – when we live for what we can do and achieve, and then derive our identity and fulfillment from that.[12] Rather, when our vocation is the whole range of relationships and responsibilities, not just our occupations or our primary means of making money, can we then live a life filled with good news.[13]

    My vocation as a dishwasher is vital to the role I play in the relationship with my wife. As I am liberated by the narrative that I ought to be the primary financial provider, I can blossom in my responsibilities to provide a space and home that is clean, welcoming, and loving. As I am liberated by the notion that more is better, I can live simply within my means and truly be satisfied. This type of meaning and fulfillment had largely been elusive even when I was making a six-figure salary or doing impactful work. By living my life according to the biblical narrative, I can see how God is pure and “clean” and thus is in the job of cleaning up, not only my personal mess, but the entire world.

    Another beauty in becoming a vocational dishwasher is the amount of transferable skills and lessons I have acquired over the years. When people see dishwashing as a vocation and not just a menial chore, they can benefit from practical growth. Over the years, I have improved on my time-management, organization, and innovation skills, just to name a few. An early lesson I learned is to do a little bit at a time because once the dishes pile up, they are much harder to do. Procrastination can be a form of poor time-management in any occupation or aspect of life and washing dishes has helped me to be more diligent in this regard. I have also found that it is better to do big dishes, pots, and pans at the end when there is more room in the sink. By organizing in this manner, it is much easier to tackle the little dishes or easier tasks before attempting to finish more difficult ones. And being a vocational dishwasher can lead to more innovative approaches and solutions in achieving one’s goal. For example, by stacking dishes utilizing my “proprietary method,” one is able to save water, which in turn cuts down on costs and is better for the world. One final lesson I learned in this journey is the importance of communication. Dishwasher or doing the dishes can mean different things depending on one’s context and culture. It is important to communicate and understand what work means for different people.

    “Just put it in the dishwasher,”

    is a common instruction for the modern-day individual. While most discussions on technology surround digital innovations, one only has to look at dishwashing to see the impact of technology. The dishwashing machine was invented a little over a century ago. And now an Internet search for “dishwasher” returns results for dishwashing machines from major appliance stores.[14] Ironically, there have been more recent concerns for artificial intelligence (AI) and robots taking over the jobs of humans. However, this trend has already started long ago. Dishwasher is no longer a human who washes dishes, but for most in the modern world, it is a machine. While a discussion on the impacts of technology require its own place, my journey as a vocational dishwasher has reflected the trends of technology and its relation to or rather now its monopoly over culture.[15]

    In simpler times, there may not have been a question of who is in control—the human uses and has control of a tool or technology. For example, a construction worker uses and controls a hammer or a dishwasher is in control of the tools used to wash dishes. With the invention of the dishwashing machine, it is more difficult to discern who is in control. The machine has stripped the human the title of dishwasher and so now we have to wonder if the human is still in control and utilizing the dishwasher or is the dishwasher dictating to the human its own ideology? It is not difficult to make the leap to where society and culture is now with “scientific studies” explaining the harmful effects of screen time or how we lose our relationality with robots and the networked life.[16] Scholars are concerned with the impact of our existing digital technologies, yet the wave of innovation for new discoveries in AI or blockchain, for example, show no sign of slowing down. Washing dishes may seem to have absolutely no relevance to this more complex topic and in some sense it does not. However, if a culture does not have a proper framework and understanding of people’s vocation, something as simple as washing dishes, it is only a matter of time that titles and professions humans hold dear such as accountant or caretaker will be monopolized by technology. It is also crucial that society does not leave this topic on the periphery, but address it head on. It is crucial for religious institutions to be relevant in this sphere as well so that they do not make the same mistake by disregarding the vocation of dishwashers and in turn having no good news to share with culture.[17]

    “So, what is your vocation,”

    one may ask. My vocation is a dishwasher. Dishwasher relates to my wife who constitutes much of my life. Dishwasher speaks to my responsibility to wash dishes and by understanding my identity in light of a biblical narrative and Creator God, it also speaks of my responsibility to be a cleaner of all things, that whatever I touch, I can make the world a slightly cleaner and better place. The beauty of this vocation is anyone and everyone can do it. So,

    “Are you willing to wash some dishes?”

    [1] In the era of late globalization, it would be foolish to assume one culture is normative over another. When I use the term culture, it is from a modern, Western perspective and a middle-to-wealthy socioeconomic class.

    [2] Out of curiosity, I searched if something like this existed. The closest thing would be online certificates, material from an established institute for cleaning practices, and a questionable “university for maids”.

    [3] I must recognize that this is not the only value dominating the current cultural narrative, however it will be the one I will focus on. Other examples include consumerism or post-modernism.

    [4] See Craig M. Gay, Cash Values: Money and the Erosion of Meaning in Today’s Society (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans and Regent College Pub, 2004).

    [5] The influence of post-modernity is changing what people value in regards to occupations. I am mainly assuming that most in the modern West still value occupations that provide more financial and social currency.

    [6] Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan, 2010), Location 206, 3953, 4191, Kindle.

    [7] Wright, Loc 5250.

    [8] Wright, Loc 824.

    [9] See Gen 2:15-16, Isa 65:17-25, Acts 4:1-22, Jer 29:7, and 1 Tim 2:1-4.

    [10] This is a very brief and elementary summary of the biblical gospel. Much more can and needs to be said in light of traditions differing from Western Evangelicals and more importantly the growth of World Christianity.

    [11] Steven Garber, Visions Of Vocation (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP BOOKS, 2014), 161. Also adapted from Christopher Wright, The Mission of God’s People.

    [12] Wright, Loc 4537.

    [13] Garber, 11.

    [14] Based on a search result from DuckDuckGo. Accessed on Feb 28, 2019. One would need to input “dishwasher job” to get results related to the human act of washing dishes.

    [15] I owe much of this discussion on technology to Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Reprint edition (New York: Vintage, 1993).

    [16] See Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, First Trade Paper Ed edition (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2012).

    [17] My stance here is not an anti-technology one, as I am well aware of the tremendous benefits technology has brought to society, even the dishwashing machine, which I use. This excerpt is to highlight that the gravity of technology is much heavier than most probably realize.

  • Ideology of Technological Money

    Introduction

    “Nothing is more persuasive and insidious than money.”[1] It impacts every person regardless of race, nationality, social status, or religion. And as globalization continues to grow, it is nearly impossible to discuss global trends without having a conversation about money. Simultaneously, technology has grown at blinding speeds. What was once defined as a tool used by humans, these tools are evolving to form a “technopoly”, as Neil Postman defines.[2] And for a modern person, technology has become synonymous with digital technologies. A broad review of history suggests that money and technology grew hand in hand, particularly during the Industrial Revolution.[3] However, what happens when money and technology become one in the same?

    In this paper, I argue that as money and technology marry to form what is commonly known as cryptocurrencies, the combination of these two powers will form a new ideology that people have yet to perceive. I will initially provide general overviews of both money and technology and discuss technological innovations surrounding money. I will then present what this new ideology could be and lastly provide a critique from a theological worldview.

    There are inherent limitations to my research as most scholars have the benefit of hindsight being 20/20. While it is important to learn from history, I believe it is an ever more critical time to apply and prepare ourselves for the future changes to come. My analysis is done in broad strokes, with the hope that this paper will just be the beginning of equipping both scholar and layperson to take money matters more seriously.

    Overview of Money

    The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides five different entries for the definition of money.[4] Most intriguing is the phrasing, “something generally accepted as a…” [italics mine]. This something is further defined as official coins or stamped metal currency, money of account, or paper money. The functions of money as defined by an institutional investor are a “1) Store of value, 2) Means of payment, and 3) Unit of account.”[5] While an average person may not consciously make these distinctions, one may very well behave in these patterns by opening savings accounts, using credit cards, or simply looking at products in a grocery store. What is more revealing is that no one would think twice about what money truly is or how it is used. For most, it is enough of a task thinking about how to obtain more. Yet, “Nothing, whether in human nature or in the nature of things, whether in technology or in reason, adequately explains the original act of creating and accepting money.”[6]

    Based on a modern person’s understanding of how money works, one would logically conclude that a barter system was the antecedent to money.[7] However this has recently been challenged as a myth by anthropologists such as David Graeber—rather, money was birth as an abstract ledger of credit and debt, or a unit of account.[8] Over time, money has evolved beginning with commodity money or specie currency, to a bullion standard, fiat currency, and now a possible transition to post-fiat currency. This current era of fiat currency largely began once the United States ceased to operate under the gold standard in 1971. The predominate form of money today is “sustained by a collective trust in [its] value rather than any intrinsic worth.”[9] “The fact that a central bank issues paper doesn’t make currency any more legitimate than any other vehicle or commodity that a community trusts or values for trade or commerce,” states David Birch, creator of the Digital Money Forum.[10] Whether from a sociological, economical, or historical view, the abstraction of money is complicated to say the least.

    The current form of money has developed certain ideologies during present times. Particularly for the modern West, it is the system’s exaltation of the monetary unit, or capitalism’s Money Metric, coined by Craig Gay, that has ultimately redefined or objectified value, reshaping and even diminishing traditional meanings.[11] Society has bought into this Money Metric, pursuing money as an end goal and whatever pleasures its fruits can provide. Clearly, money and its power has persisted throughout history in many different shapes and forms. Theologian and sociologist, Jacques Ellul argues, “Money is not a power because man uses it, because it is the means of wealth or because accumulating money makes things possible. It is a power before all that, and those exterior signs are only the manifestations of this power which has, or claims to have, a reality of its own.”[12]

    Overview of Technology

    Technology may be just as, if not more, complicated as money.[13] The definitions are muddling at best and I would argue most would not typically define it in scholarly terms. One crass definition asserts technology is, “Anything that has to do with computers. Often misused by stupid people and corporations that market to said stupid people.”[14] While an exploration of technology deserves its own space, I will briefly describe its evolution mainly borrowing from Neil Postman’s Technopoly. Postman frames his narrative by categorizing cultures into three types: tool-using cultures, technocracies, and technopolies.[15] In a very simple summary, cultures have evolved from a tool-using culture, where tools were used to serve a specific purpose[16] to a technocracy, where tools were “a central role in the thought-world of the culture,”[17] to lastly a technopoly, the complete totalitarian dominance of technology, where our so called tools are questioning and redefining all past traditions and social spheres such as government, religion, economy, education, and family.[18]

    It is in this current paradigm most of the developed world exists as well as developing cultures are headed. “In Technopoly, we are surrounded by the wondrous effects of machines and are encouraged to ignore the ideas embedded in them. Which means we become blind to the ideological meaning of our technologies.”[19] Two clear examples of this effect that is now coming to surface is the impact of social media and smart phones. When a major technology company creates an application to possibly limit the use of their own product, I would argue, is a pretty good indicator of a greater issue at hand.[20] The most harrowing effect of the growth of technology is how much trust we place in it, which I will expound upon later.

    Technology, similar to money, has a wide-ranging impact. While advances in technology has generally improved living for most, there are detrimental effects as well. Economist Raghuram Rajan best explains, “… technological advance is a good thing for everyone in the long run… But in the short run, technological advances can be extremely disruptive, and the disruption can persist into the long run if people do not have the means to adapt.”[21]

    Technological Advance of Money

    It is the technological advance particularly in the financial services industry that is of particular concern. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), released a paper in 2016 highlighting ten technological disruptions the financial service industry ought to prepare for.[22] The authors are well aware that, “It is now becoming obvious that the accelerating pace of technological change is the most creative force – and also the most destructive – in the financial services ecosystem today.”[23] More alarmingly, 81% of banking CEOs surveyed are concerned with this pace of change more than any other industry sector.[24]

    One of the technological disruptions mentioned is the blockchain, the essential technology cryptocurrencies are built on. “Cryptocurrency,” as PwC defines, “is a medium of exchange, such as the US dollar, created and stored electronically in the blockchain, using encryption techniques to control the creation of monetary units and to verify the transfer of funds.”[25] What is interesting is how PwC compares cryptocurrency to the US dollar as a medium of exchange. While most cryptocurrencies are not currently backed by any major government, there is a clear interest in adopting or creating their own digital currency. Regardless, there is a difference between “government-based legitimacy or legitimacy based on law” and a market-based legitimacy, as Jon Matonis, Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation, argues. “Bitcoin doesn’t necessarily require the former to be successful or functional.”[26]

    Bitcoin was initially created as a peer-to-peer, electronic payment system. The mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, writes, “What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.”[27] In essence, this is the culmination of the evolution of money, allowing strangers to transact with one another without the limitations of current forms and systems. This “Trust Protocol,” coined by Don Tapscott, is “a trustworthy global platform for our transactions.”[28] “Today thoughtful people everywhere are trying to understand the implications of a protocol that enables mere mortals to manufacture trust through clever code.” [emphasis mine][29]

    It is this disruptive technology, initially starting with bitcoin in 2009 to the countless cryptocurrencies, coins, or tokens constituting the crypto universe, that has the attention of all global powers. “In the sense that cryptocurrencies are an abstract unit that can be used as a token of exchange by anyone with a computer, they are, by most definitions, money. However, they do not cohere to the modern, global economic definition of the function of currency.”[30] It will be interesting to see how this narrative will unfold, especially as global powers such as Japan seek to create their own cryptocurrency.[31] If history is any indicator of what is to come, historian William N. Goetzmann best illustrates this point: “financial technology allowed for more complex political institutions, enhanced social mobility, and greater economic growth—in short, all the major indicators of complex society we call civilization.”[32]

    This review of the technological advance focused solely on the form of money or perhaps what it is evolving to be. Blockchain has only garnered the attention of media, unsurprisingly, when pegged to price fluctuations. The applications of this technology are much deeper, reshaping digital identity, supply chain management, and telecommunications to name a few. Other disruptors such as robotics and artificial intelligence are making significant headway in financial technology and other sectors as well. How all these changes will affect global society and humankind is another matter altogether.[33]

    New Ideology

    Based on the material discussed thus far, I will briefly attempt to forecast how these tectonic shifts may further impact our global society. I believe the most significant shift in ideology will be related to trust. Up until this point, society has not valued technology to the degree of trust. No one would hoard multiple iPhones or attempt to exchange software as transactional values. However, what seems to be happening is that global powers are looking for a new store of value in the form of technology, whether that be bitcoin or a different protocol (e.g. Ethereum or Ripple). It is already evident that cryptocurrencies are a valid and more effective medium of exchange. And lastly, the distributed ledger may serve as a global unit of account. Simply put, society has increasingly valued money, despite the abstract form that it has already taken today. Society has also put a certain level of trust and dependency on the various forms of technology. Now with technology marrying or perhaps even overtaking this abstraction of money and becoming money itself, it is evident not only how much trust we put in technology, but that it becomes the very value we seek to desire. This will naturally have a waterfall effect in all spheres of life. There is already a growing distrust, whether it be of corporations or governments. Search results for words of the year in 2018 are misinformation, toxic, and justice.[34] It is only a matter of time society will put their collective trust in technology and code than in any major institution, and perhaps even in other people and humankind.

    This technological change will have ecological effects—it will neither be additive or subtractive, rather “one significant change generates total change.”[35] As with all technological advance, there are immediate, superficial benefits. Taking one example, the remittance industry is plagued with archaic processes and high fees. Companies such as TransferWise[36] have begun to disrupt this industry, however, companies like Abra are utilizing blockchain technology and are envisioning “open access to the global financial system and drive greater financial inclusion.” [sic][37] There may be no need for remittances as this technology can be the catalyst in including those who are incapable of participating in the global economy. David Birch states, “…it’s not just people who are already fairly wealthy, or who are already fairly tech savvy, who can enjoy the benefits of money in electronic form, but actually we’ll be pulling more people into the economy and helping them with their finances and spending behavior and all of it because of these tools.”[38] While no one may overtly disagree with helping those in extreme poverty, these massive shifts will only fuel the narrative to trust in technology over any institution. As decentralization provided through technology proves to be a more effective method in governance and consensus, it will only exacerbate issues already created by digital technology.[39]

    Theological Response

    “Today, we live in a global community, one where commerce is now transacted in ways the Sumerians, Greeks, Chinese, Italians, and other early founders of our monetary system could never have conceived of.”[40] I would add that we live in a global community that the early church could never have conceived of. The universal church is no longer an abstract theological doctrine, but is now a reality. Financiers see the need for “Seeing the future clearly and developing a proactive, strategic response – rather than simply reacting to events,” which “will set apart the winners from the losers in a fast-evolving market.”[41] The leaders of the global financial system known as the Masters of the Universe are clearly preparing for these major disruptions.[42] Will the global church be proactive about these shifts rather than simply reacting to them?

    I would argue that the church has predominately been reactionary thus far. In his lecture turned paper, “Should We Listen to the Churches When They Speak on Economic Issues?”, Professor Anthony Waterman illustrates the differences between strong and weak utterances and how to speak on these issues in a free verse un-free society.[43] Weak utterances are broad, usually pastoral, and largely uncontroversial. I believe Craig Gay’s remark, “we are occasionally encouraged to reflect about the ethical implications of the ways that we spend money,” would fall under this weak utterance.[44] However, “the implications of assigning monetary values to things is not typically something that we worry very much about… Yet it is important to stress that everything — including even religious understanding — is indeed effaced in the alchemy of monetary commodification.”[45] While one can hope this is not true or disagree, it is difficult to see how most modern Western churches are not influenced by or operating under the Money Metric, where success is measured by false proxies such as attendance and finances.[46]

    Waterman also discusses examples of strong utterances, such as when Canadian bishops made their recommendation on unemployment verse inflation, where they “risk making themselves and their church look foolish or irrelevant if it turns out that they used their sacred office to recommend disastrous economic policies.”[47] Another example is Michael Schluter’s relational economy, where he acknowledges that “First and foremost, there has to be a change in worldview, where the dominant values of individualism and materialism are replaced by those of ‘Relational Thinking’. Unless people learn to think differently, and prioritise relationships over wealth for example, other changes will be cosmetic.”[48] Schluter’s critique is mainly regarding capitalism and while hopeful, it is still nonetheless a view looking through a lens through past and present situations only.[49] I do wholeheartedly agree with his conclusion that, “Rather than wait for these sinister alternatives to emerge, Christians need to read the signs of the times. To protect society for the wellbeing of our children and children’s children, the time to press for radical economic and social reform is not in 20 years’ time. It is today.”[50]

    I believe the other extreme response would be almost Platonic in nature—i.e. to dismiss or ignore the significance of economic matters and place an unbalanced focus on non-earthly ones. I believe the balance for a Christian is first to be faithful to God’s will. “Everything that tends to turn us away from this faithfulness (first expressed as recognition of sin, then as acceptance of grace, finally as personal commitment to personal action) diminishes Christian effectiveness, even if outwardly we do a great deal, changing institutions and mobilizing the masses.”[51] I would also agree that “What the churches have to say to us ‘when they speak on economic issues’, in other words, is far more important, far more truly radical, than any mere advocacy however well-meaning, however well-informed. It is simply that there are really no such things as ‘economic issues’ at all.”[52] Upon this foundation, do I believe it is critical to tackle the looming changes at hand. Regardless of one’s eschatology or theological doctrine everyone will have to face these changes on this side of heaven. Whether we simply and blindly adopt blockchain technology and use cryptocurrency once the greater masses start doing so, or think about these changes and speak into them despite its inevitability, is something individuals will all have to act upon and not rely on some vague collective response.

    Conclusion            

    This paper presents a broad scoping overview of the technological change of money and the potential it has in forming a new ideology and thus the ecological effects it will have on society. There is much more to address and much has been omitted, however my hope is that this paper will spark an initial interest to dive deeper into the complicated world of cryptocurrency and technological disruptions. My hope is that Christians would not be irrelevant to these broader changes and be rulers even over money.

    [1] Clive Lim, “APPL/INDS 564: Money Matters: Money, Mammon, & the Meaning of Life,” accessed Dec 21, 2018. https://moodle.regent-college.edu/course/view.php?id=714.

    [2] Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, Reprint edition (New York: Vintage, 1993).

    [3] David S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some so Poor (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), 187.

    [4] Merriam-Webster Dictionary, s.v. “money,” accessed on Dec 15, 2018, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/money.

    [5] John Pfeffer, “An (Institutional) Investor’s Take on Cryptoassets,” accessed Dec 21, 2018. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/john-pfeffer/An+Investor%27s+Take+on+Cryptoassets+v6.pdf.

    [6] Jacques Ellul, Money and Power (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2009), 81.

    [7] Adam Rothstein, The End of Money: The Story of Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies and the Blockchain Revolution., New Scientist’s Instant Experiment (Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2017), 115.

    [8] Ibid.

    [9] Rothstein, End of Money, 121.

    [10] Brett King, Breaking Banks: The Innovators, Rogues, and Strategists Rebooting Banking (Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Singapore, 2014), 120.

    [11] Craig M. Gay, Cash Values: Money and the Erosion of Meaning in Today’s Society (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans and Regent College Pub, 2004), 42–43.

    [12] Ellul, Money and Power, 76.

    [13] Some define money as a tool or technology. While there are certain aspects that qualify money as a technology, the distinction I will make is money from a digital technology.

    [14] Urban Dictionary, s.v., “technology” accessed on Dec 18, 2018, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=technology.

    [15] Postman, Technopoly, 22.

    [16] Ibid., 23.

    [17] Ibid., 28.

    [18] Ibid., 48.

    [19] Ibid., 94.

    [20] See Apple’s recent Screen Time app. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208982.

    [21] Raghuram Rajan, Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 22.

    [22] PwC, “Financial Services Technology 2020 and Beyond: Embracing Disruption,” accessed Dec 21, 2018. https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/financial-services/assets/pdf/technology2020-and-beyond.pdf.

    [23] Ibid., 3.

    [24] Ibid., 9.

    [25] Ibid., 14.

    [26] King, Breaking Banks, 128.

    [27] Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” accessed Dec 21, 2018. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf.

    [28] Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World (New York: Portfolio, 2016), 6.

    [29] Ibid., 5.

    [30] Rothstein, End of Money, 130.

    [31] Arjun Kharpal, “Japanese banks are thinking of making their own cryptocurrency called the J-Coin,” accessed Dec 20, 2018. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/27/japanese-banks-cryptocurrency-j-coin.html.

    [32] William N. Goetzmann, Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 14.

    [33] I must reiterate at this point that this review has been done in broad strokes. Much more can be said about money and the various role it plays in different systems, as well as blockchain technology and the implications it may have. Matters such as decentralization, privacy, and ownership will all play a role alongside the technological shift in the form of money. The importance here is not to discuss what has passed nor what has progressed thus far, but rather what will come.

    [34] See Dictionary.com, Oxford, and Merriam-Webster, respectively.

    [35] Postman, Technopoly, 18.

    [36] See https://transferwise.com/.

    [37] To note, Abra initially began as an app to aid remittances primarily between the US and Philippines. See https://www.abra.com/where-is-abra-available/. Accessed Dec 20, 2017.

    [38] King, Breaking Banks, 133.

    [39] Due to the limits of this paper, I avoid bringing into discussion the works of previous scholars such as Peter Berger’s, The Homeless Mind. Berger discusses, much better than I can, the effects of technological production on the consciousness of mankind. I believe these new technologies will heighten some of these effects or birth new ones altogether, adding to the ecological effect of technological money.

    [40] King, 121.

    [41] PwC, 4.

    [42] Tapscott and Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution, 55.

    [43] Anthony Waterman, “Should We Listen to the Churches When They Speak on Economic Issues?” of Recent Developments in Economics and Religion, ed. Paul Oslington, Paul S. Williams, and Mary Hirschfeld (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2018), 351-62.

    [44] Gay, Cash Values, 60.

    [45] Ibid.

    [46] The idea of a false proxy was taken from, Dave DeVries, “Measuring Success in Your Church,” accessed Dec 21, 2018. https://www.missionalchallenge.com/measuring-success-in-your-church/.

    [47] Waterman, 356.

    [48] Michael Schluter, “Beyond Capitalism: Towards a Relational Economy” of Recent Developments in Economics and Religion, ed. Paul Oslington, Paul S. Williams, and Mary Hirschfeld (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2018), 258.

    [49] Note, Schluter’s paper was written in 2010 during the early inception of bitcoin, thus his views may certainly have changed.

    [50] Schluter, 260.

    [51] Ellul, Money and Power, 19.

    [52] Waterman, 361.

  • Theological Reflection on Blockchain Revolution | How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World

    Bitcoin has recently garnered a tremendous amount of attention, despite it having been around for nearly a decade. Momentous highlights include purchasing pizza with bitcoin as the first transaction completed to the Silk Road scandal where numerous illegal drugs were being sold.[1] However, bitcoin attracted the most attention once its market value surpassed $10000 skyrocketing to nearly $20000 in December 2017. More recently, the price has settled down close to $7000, as of the writing of this paper.[2] Despite the negative attention and skewed portrayal of bitcoin by the media, the underlying technology has largely been overlooked—i.e., the blockchain. In the recent book, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World, authors Don and Alex Tapscott explore the bigger implications behind bitcoin and blockchain technology.[3] In this paper, I will provide a critical review of the thesis discussed in Blockchain Revolution and offer additional reflections from a theological point-of-view.

    Critical Book Review

    Similar to bitcoin, the term blockchain has become overhyped that companies with no track record of any means to utilize or adopt the technology is adding blockchain to their names, triggering huge spikes in their stocks.[4] It is important to understand not only the difference in terminology but of function in order to fully grasp the opportunities and challenges this technology presents. The original intent of blockchain was to introduce a peer-to-peer electronic cash system utilizing digital coins, or bitcoin.[5] This new protocol was first outlined by a pseudonymous author, Satoshi Nakamoto. This protocol allows individuals to send payments to one another without having to go through a third party, such as a financial institution, utilizing encryption or cryptography. The distributed, public ledger upholds the integrity of all transactions and relies on the consensus of the majority, rather than a select few. The blockchain forms as transactions in a block are verified by a node in the network, which is then immutable, linking to the following block, forming a chain. While this is a grotesquely oversimplified version of the technology, its premise is simple: “[blockchains] enable us to send money directly and safely from me to you, without going through a bank, a credit card company, or PayPal.”[6]

    The implication of this technology is massive and undated, a protocol that “enables mere mortals to manufacture trust through clever code.”[7] The public perception and trust in centralized institutions is quickly fading beginning with the 2008 financial crash to the recent massive data breaches. This ‘Trust Protocol,’ as Don and Alex Tapscott phrase it, is the culmination of technologic development over the recent decades, from the inception of the World Wide Web to the current Internet of Things (IoT). “We believe the truth can set us free and distributed trust will profoundly affect people in all walks of life.”[8]

    The most prominent and widely discussed application of this technology is with the financial sector. Much of the news is focused on how much bitcoin and cryptocurrency is being traded for, however this only scratches the surface. Because of the disruptive nature of the technology, those who hold the majority of the wealth are concerned and are seeking ways to safeguard the $100 trillion global economy by creating private or permissioned blockchains.[9] The blockchain will challenge the financial industry because of improved attestation, cost, speed, risk management, value innovation, and open source.[10] Financial intermediaries are no longer the gatekeepers to verify one’s identity or establish trust and there are substantially reduced costs and greatly improved speeds to execute transactions. Financial institutions are already adopting this technology internally and “could eventually use it to replace traditional exchanges and centralized markets, upending how we define and trade value.”[11] Influential stakeholders are attempting to keep their walls up, however,

    “[whereas] the old world was hierarchical, slow-moving, reluctant to change, closed and opaque, and controlled by powerful intermediaries, the new order will be flatter, offering a peer-to-peer solution; more private and secure; transparent, inclusive, and innovative.”[12]

    An example of this new order is Consensus Systems (ConsenSys), founded by Joseph Lubin in 2014. ConsenSys is a company that runs on the Ethereum platform[13] and functions like a holacracy, “a collaborative rather than hierarchical process for defining and aligning work to be done.”[14] The platform allows for members to own a stake in projects, incentivizing collaborative behavior. The eventual goal is to build a “decentralized autonomous organization owned and controlled by its nonhuman value creators, governed through smart contracts rather than human agency.” When asked about the risk of removing human agency in decision making, Lubin comments that his concern is not for machine intelligence as humans will evolve alongside it, or even if it surpasses humans, it will operate in a different ecological niche.[15] The blockchain allows firms to shift from vertical hierarchies to horizontal networks, connecting those on a global scale. The vision Lubin describes is that, “Global human society can now agree on the truth and make decisions in ten minutes, or ten seconds. This surely creates an opportunity to have a more enfranchised society… The greater the engagement, the greater the prosperity.”[16]

    Don and Alex Tapscott also explore the wider applications of blockchain technology from the development of decentralized applications in forming new business models to the Ledger of Things connecting the IoT. While we are currently beginning to scrape the surface of smart objects such as home thermostats and wearable technology, the near future will unfold to all these objects being able to communicate and transact with one another through the blockchain. Carlos Moreria, CEO of WISeKey, states “We are moving into another world where the trust is delegated at the object level. An object that is not trusted will be rejected by the other objects automatically without having to check with a central authority… This is a huge paradigm shift that has tremendous consequences in the way that processes will be conducted in the years to come.”[17]

    Another major impact of blockchain is the disruption of the prosperity paradox—while the global economy is growing, the scales of inequality are as well. The Global South has typically favored being anonymous to their corrupt government officials, however, new digital identities and inclusion into the vast economic network will allow for a more balanced opportunity for those in developing countries.[18] Remittances account for a large flow of capital for developing countries, however, the industry has been plagued by high fees, slow transactions, and corruption to name a few of the challenges. New companies such as Abra or Stellar are focusing on banking the unbanked and overcoming these hurdles through the blockchain.[19] The benefits and opportunities are not limited to the economic sphere but can radically change governments to form new models of democracies as well as the arts, giving power back to content creators rather than the centralized intermediaries.

    While the opportunities and possibilities of blockchain technology seem limitless, there are inherent risks and challenges as well. Some of the more apparent ones we are facing already are large consumptions of energy, government restrictions, and criminal use. There are technical hurdles impeding greater mass adoption, the fear of job loss, and a lack of a strong enough incentive to collaborate. The possibility of a Skynet where machines become fully autonomous is no longer that of science-fiction, but much more of a possible reality.[20]

    The Tapscotts acknowledge that “[the] debate over technological innovation and progress is an ancient one: Is the tool good or bad? Does it advance the human condition or degrade it?”[21] They conclude that “[technology] does not have agency. It does not want for anything or have an inclination one way or the other.” Rather, the harmful use of any technology “speaks more to the lack of strong governance, regulation, advocacy, and education than to its underlying virtues.”[22] Therefore, Don and Alex Tapscott are calling forth leaders from all industries—governments, venture capitalists, developers, academics, nongovernment organizations—to form what they call global solution networks (GSNs).[23] These GSNs are not controlled by states or state-based institutions, but involve a plurality of stakeholders, working together on and with blockchain, “pushing us inexorably into a new era, predicated on openness, merit, decentralization, and global participation.”[24]

    A Theological Reflection

    Blockchain Revolution contains bold implications and bright promises for the future. It is undeniable how revolutionary the technology is and while the authors do introduce some precautions to take, there may be even greater unintended consequences society ought to embrace for. It is apparent that in the call for global stakeholders to participate in the formation of the new world order, there is no mention for religious leaders or philosophers to contribute, which is not surprising at all. While there have been cases made that scientific experimentation and technological innovation birth from a Judeo-Christian principle and accelerated even more so from the Protestant Reformation, it is clear that society has moved on well passed these older premises. Regarding technological innovation, Professor of History and Economics, David Landes states, “Success bred imitation and emulation; also a sense of power that would in the long run raise men almost to the level of gods.”[25] Lewis Mumford corroborates this point in saying, “Mechanics became the new religion, and it gave to the world a new Messiah: the machine.”[26] What motivated the development of new technologies in the past and continues to do so today is the close link with economic profit.[27] The early conversations of bitcoin and blockchain revolved around tech geeks or the dark web; however, once Wall Street developed a universally positive opinion of blockchain and its role in finance in 2015, did the rest of the world begin to take interest.[28]

    Why this is concerning is not because there is a need to refer back to a metaphysical or religious explanation, but because of the tremendous insight previous philosophers and religious thinkers provided in the direction of technology.[29] While Don and Alex Tapscott do make a point about technology’s lack of agency in regards to the negative use of it by humans, they are making a critical flaw in treating blockchain as a neutral agent. Twentieth-century philosopher, Martin Heidegger argues, “we are delivered over to [technology] in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral; for this conception of it, to which today we particularly like to do homage, makes us utterly blind to the essence of technology.”[30] Joe Lubin’s perspective on the evolution of machine intelligence and his claim that it would “occupy a different ecological niche” is limited when considered against Neil Postman’s argument that “[technological change] is ecological… One significant change generates total change… Therefore, when an old technology is assaulted by a new one, institutions are threatened. When institutions are threatened, a culture finds itself in crisis.”[31] While there have been technological innovations that disrupted societies throughout the centuries, there has been none to the scale of blockchain technology. Adding further complication to this matter is the effect technology has on one’s consciousness, as discussed by sociologist and theologian, Peter Berger. Technological production is not just limited to those who are directly involved in the industry, but it has formed the consciousness of modern society affecting the way we view the world, one another, and even ourselves.[32]

    The conundrum of blockchain technology and the new age it is ushering in is that it has been long awaited for by the technological wave unleashed centuries before. It is the capstone of all innovations prior, “utilizing the machine to make the world more perfect: the machine was the substitute for… the Christian ideals of grace and redemption.”[33] All the inventions of the past along with the cultural transformations that took place surrounding it “had at last formed a complex social and ideological network, capable of supporting the vast weight of the machine and extending its operations still further.”[34] This is seen with the possibility of connecting the IoT through the distributed network, allowing for autonomous agents to communicate and transact with one another, greatly improving efficiency, speed, and costs. The blockchain is also the epitome of the network described by Francis Fukuyama in his 1998 work, The Great Disruption.[35] Fukuyama was already aware twenty years prior that “there has been substantial pressure to decentralize, federalize, privatize, and delegate authority.”[36] He writes, “If we understand a network not as a type of formal organization, but as social capital, we will have much better insight into what a network’s economic function really is. By this view, a network is a moral relationship of trust.”[37] Fukuyama understood that “it is hard to turn ideas into wealth in the absence of social connectedness, which in the age of the Internet still requires something more than bandwidth and high-speed connectivity.”[38] The decentralized, privatized, delegated authority that functions based on social capital eliminating the need for trust, fulfilling what the Internet age has lacked, this very something is the blockchain.

    The blockchain revolution in this sense has even bigger implications than what Don and Alex Tapscott propose. It is not just a new technological invention to allow peer-to-peer transactions, but with its disruption of institutions, it will disrupt cultures and consciousness on a global scale as never seen before. The possibilities of new technologies forming with and through the blockchain is no longer science-fiction. Amidst this revolution, is ironically the fate of Christian religion, which debatably gave birth to this behemoth. While it is tempting to retreat to some form of romanticism and recover the past, 20th century German Catholic priest, Romano Guardini would suggest one ought to fully understand, acknowledge, and accept this new world.[39] French philosopher and lay theologian, Jacques Ellul, takes this concept even further claiming that “[Christians] must not weaken the opposition that exists between the Christian faith, the claims of revelation, and life in the world and its demands, its faults, and its compromises.”[40] He calls for the critical position of the laymen, essential to both the church and the world, who “ought to place himself at the point of contact between two currents: the will of the Lord, and the will of the world.”[41] “Thus it is not for us to construct the City of God, to build up an ‘order of God’ within this world, without taking any notice of its suicidal tendencies. Our concern should be to place ourselves at the very point where this suicidal desire is most active, in the actual form it adopts, and to see how God’s will of preservation can act in this given situation.”[42]

    While the Christian claims that it is only through Jesus we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free,[43] there is a direct contender to this truth, the Trust Protocol. It would be foolish to dismiss blockchain technology despite its suicidal tendencies, even from a Christian perspective. The possibilities of connecting the Global South and reaching diasporas is unprecedented with blockchain technology, a relevant concern for missiology and the church. The benefits of distributing wealth and economic inclusion for the billions of people in extreme poverty as well as uplifting those in corrupt governments should be celebrated by Christians. It is a critical opportunity to be in the middle of this disruption to not only provide social and economic relief, but to provide a transcendent meaning as well. Perhaps the attitude is not to be overtly against this new era, despite its many alarming signs, but to be God’s salt, light, and sheep amongst wolves where it seems most needed.[44] It seems the world will continue along its path without inviting religious leaders and thinkers a seat at the table and perhaps rightfully so because their discourse is becoming more irrelevant. However, this may be a call for the lay leaders to walk outside the comforting walls of churches and old traditions and engage with the wolves of this world. “Of course [a Christian] can always immerse himself in good works and pour out his energy in religious or social activities, but all this will have no meaning unless he is fulfilling the only mission with which he has been charged by Jesus Christ, which is first of all to be a sign.”[45]

    Debates about the value of bitcoin have been longstanding and ongoing, with predictions of its monetary value increasing well over $20000 in 2018. What is less debatable is the inherent value and the simultaneous disruption of value itself blockchain will have in the near future. The impact this technology will make will affect all verticals, all industries, including the church. Heidegger describes the essence of technology as enframing, a challenging forth, a revealing,[46] which blockchain will do first and foremost in the financial sector, along with governments and nongovernmental organizations, music artists and videographers, developers and coders, networks and individual consciousness, and the local and global church. “Human activity can never directly counter this danger. Human achievement alone can never banish it. But human reflection can ponder the fact that an all saving power must be of a higher essence than what is endangered, though at the same time kindred to it.”[47]

    This is the time when a collective effort is needed to reflect on the implications the blockchain revolution will have on the world. While there is a call for global leaders to collaborate, how will the global church respond to such a massive paradigm shift? Will the church continue to operate as siloed, centralized institutions amidst a changing landscape? Will global Christians be able to find consensus and be on the frontiers of great disruption? Or will Christians become largely irrelevant as the religion of the machine reigns?

    The blockchain revolution has only begun.

    [1] Marco Santori, “Silk Road Goes Dark: Bitcoin Survives Its Biggest Market’s Demise,” accessed April 9, 2018. https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-milestones-silk-road-goes-dark-bitcoin-survives-its-biggest-markets-demise/.

    [2] Based on coinmarketcap.com.

    [3] Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World (New York: Portfolio, 2016).

    [4] Fitz Tepper, “SEC warns against public companies adding blockchain to their name,” accessed April 9, 2018. https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/25/sec-warns-against-public-companies-adding-blockchain-to-their-name/.

    [5] Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” accessed April 9, 2018. https://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-paper.

    [6] Tapscott, 6.

    [7] Ibid., 5.

    [8] Ibid., 7.

    [9] Ibid., 55, 67.

    [10] Tapscott, 58–60.

    [11] Ibid., 60.

    [12] Ibid., 86.

    [13] Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference. See www.ethereum.org.

    [14] Tapscott, 88.

    [15] Ibid., 91.

    [16] Tapscott, 89.

    [17] Ibid., 154.

    [18] Ibid., 174.

    [19] See www.abra.com and www.stellar.org.

    [20] Tapscott, 253–76.

    [21] Ibid., 277.

    [22] Ibid., 276.

    [23] Ibid., 283–300.

    [24] Ibid., 310.

    [25] David S. Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999), 59.

    [26] Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1934), 45.

    [27] Ibid., 26.

    [28] Tapscott, 66.

    [29] Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1977).

    [30] Heidegger, 4.

    [31] Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, (New York: Vintage, 1993), 18.

    [32] Peter L. Berger, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness (New York: Vintage, 1974).

    [33] Mumford, 58.

    [34] Mumford, 59.

    [35] Francis Fukuyama, The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order (New York: Free Press, 2000).

    [36] Ibid., 195.

    [37] Ibid., 199.

    [38] Ibid., 211.

    [39] Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como: Explorations in Technology and the Human Race, trans Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 1994).

    [40] Jacques Ellul, The Presence of the Kingdom (New York: Seabury Press, 1967), 16.

    [41] Ellul, 20, 27.

    [42] Ibid., 28.

    [43] John 8:32 [ESV]

    [44] Ellul, 9.

    [45] Ibid., 12.

    [46] Heidegger, 12, 14, 20.

    [47] Ibid., 33–34.

  • Technology’s Fingerprint on Christian Thought and Culture

    A glance at the news and our surroundings will undeniably speak of how much technology[1] has become a central focus and part of people’s lives. The growth of the digital footprint over the past two decades alone has been exponential and shows no sign of stopping. While there have been numerous benefits of technology, society is beginning to experience some of the adverse consequences and is now being challenged with difficult questions such as the negative effects of social media. While it is easier to identify certain effects of technology, particularly those directly associated with the field or product, it is more difficult to be aware of how it influences and shapes our thinking.

    This paper will focus on how much technology’s influence on human consciousness consequentially impacts Christian thought and culture.[2] I will be painting broad strokes across multiple areas with the intent to bring awareness. This brief exploration will not discuss the positive impacts of technology for the church and broader culture, while I do acknowledge them. Nor is it to prove or voice a pro- or anti-technology stance, but rather to state the current condition of Christian thinking and perhaps reevaluate how to consciously think ahead.

    In order to claim that Christian thought and culture have been compromised, it is imperative to understand the effects of technology at the level of consciousness as well as knowing its ideology. First, regarding the effects of technology at the level of consciousness, Peter Berger best demonstrates this by examining the “essential concomitants of technological production” and how it shapes the “everyday consciousness of ordinary people engaged in [it].”[3] There is an organization of knowledge intrinsic to technological production. Workers possess a specific knowledge in relation to a much larger pool of scientific and technical knowledge, which creates a hierarchy of experts.[4] This work knowledge is unique in content as well as in style, which consists of mechanisticity, reproducibility, and measurability.[5] There is a cognitive style intrinsic to technological production, with its main features being componentiality and the assumption of maximalization.[6] These features and their impact will be expounded upon later. The key takeaway that Berger argues is that it will be “very difficult to ‘think away’ these elements while assuming that technological production will continue.”[7] The result is that this unique technological consciousness bleeds into the majority of the population. “For better or for worse, it is not necessary to be engaged in technological work in order to think technologically.”[8]

    Second, an ideology of machines has emerged in the technologically dominated culture. Neil Postman defines an “ideology as a set of assumptions which we are barely conscious but which nonetheless directs our efforts to give shape and coherence to the world.”[9] One assumption of technology is that it “[eliminates] complexity, doubt, and ambiguity,” which can result in a lack of intellectual struggle for the ordinary thinker.[10] A consequence particular to the field of medicine is that medical technology has dissociated the disease from the patient and thus created a hierarchy where the “objective” technology is more reliable than the subjective patient.[11] In other words, the ideology of technology is that it is more trustworthy. Another unique assumption of technology is its ability to think, or more popularly known as artificial intelligence. When society continues to use and depend on artificial intelligence and unknowingly acknowledge a technology’s possession of beliefs, we reject the “view that humans have internal states of mind that are the foundation of belief and [argue] instead that ‘belief’ means only what someone or something does.”[12] Highlighting this ideology of technology may provide further clarity to its impact on Christian thought and culture.

    With the above foundation in mind, we can now assess the impact this technological thinking and ideology has on Christian thought and culture. The organization of knowledge intrinsic to technological production impacts Christian thinking by disrupting the oneness of body. While there are some similarities between the hierarchy of experts within an institution and a Christian body,[13] the mechanical and reproducible nature of technological production can make one feel replaceable and dispensable. This is in direct contrast to Apostle Paul’s instruction, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ … On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are dispensable.”[14] While the irony may seem that the Corinthian church struggled with this issue before the technologically dominated world, it is only enhanced in today’s worldview. When Christians are constantly influenced by technological thinking whether in their workplace or subconsciously with the use of technology, it is ever more difficult to properly view Jesus’ definition of his body. With globalization ever increasing, this type of thinking not only affects the microcosm of a local body, but on a macroscale as well where each church may view others as dispensable, measuring success with false proxies such as attendance and finances.[15]

    Closely related to this aspect is componentiality, i.e. “the components of reality are self-contained units which can be brought into relation with other such units—that is, reality is not conceived as an ongoing flux of juncture and disjuncture of unique entities.”[16] One major consequence is the “segregation of work from private life.”[17] While this occurs at an institutional level and thus a common prerogative for those seeking a job is a good work-life balance, this type of consciousness has impacted Christian thinking reflected in the Sunday-Monday gap.[18] There is a clear struggle for many Christians to connect their faith and work, and thus there is a lot of focus on redeeming one’s vocation, faith and work movements, or business as missions. The point here is componentiality has made its impact and now Christians are forced to respond to the consequences.

    Another aspect of componentiality reveals itself through anonymous social relations. Berger argues that there is “an intrinsic requirement of technological production that those who participate in it define each other as anonymous functionaries.”[19] This has broad implications affecting the way people relate to one another and even one’s own identity. The componentiality of self and others leads to a human engineering of self, others, and emotions.[20] While the immediate effects of this can be seen in local Christian communities, how this affects the global relation amongst Christians is yet to be seen. The universal church is no longer an abstract idea forced into anonymity, but different denominations, branches, and schools of thought may be forced to view each other as concrete persons. Or, the global church will exhibit the same symptoms as the rest of the technological world.

    Componentiality also affects the way we relate to Christianity. The 2002 National Survey of Youth and Religion (NSYR) discovered that “while most U.S. teenagers feel generally positive toward religion, [it] is not a big deal to them.” “Other social and cultural forces (therapeutic individualism, mass-consumer capitalism, the digital communications revolution)” compete for and take priority even within Christian culture.[21] From an early age, the compartmentalization of Christianity versus extracurricular activities, friends, and school take place. In other words, Christianity is just another component of one’s life, rather than something that defines it entirely.

    On a related note, componentiality affects Christian teaching and learning. The NSYR found that “the single most important influence on the religious and spiritual lives of adolescents is their parents.”[22] However, how often do we find parents leaving spiritual formation and guidance to youth directors and mentors, albeit being influential? Thus, this creates a mechanistic way of looking for those with the best knowledge to guide and teach. One step further, there is a clear distinction in teaching and learning at higher-degree institutions verse the formation and teaching within a community. It seems that advanced theological learning takes place at an institution and afterwards those with specialized knowledge are plugged into different “systems,” operating as components within a larger system that can be reproduced, measured, and replaced.

    The second feature of the cognitive style in technological production is the assumption of maximalization. More simply put in contemporary language: bigger, better, faster. The way this shapes Christian thinking is more apparent than componentiality: bigger churches is synonymous with success, an overemphasis on better strategies and improving programs and methods of reaching out, and especially with the instant-gratification culture, expecting faster prayers, discipleship, and community. A unique element of this feature is multi-relationality, which poses a “constant threat in the situation of meaninglessness, disidentification, and the experiences of anomie,” which only adds fuel to what has already been discussed.[23]

    The ideology of technology further complicates this current mentality. The main aspect that is being threatened is trust. As demonstrated with medical technology, medicine is now “about disease, not the patient. And, what the patient knows is untrustworthy; what the machine knows is reliable.”[24] Jacob Bronowski challengingly asks, “how are we to choose between what we have been taught to think right and something else which manifestly succeeds?”[25] For contemporary Christians, when someone is sick, are our instincts to pray and ask God for healing or is it to turn to ‘reliable’ medicine and examinations? The danger here is that this ideology is breeding less critical, intellectual reflection on these matters. There is a belief forming in this ideology that is secretly competing within Christian thought without many being aware of its dangers. While Jesus warned his followers that no one can serve two masters contrasting that with a more tangible mammon, the ideology of technology is largely invisible to most Christian thinking.[26]

    While more can be discussed regarding the consequential effects of technological thinking upon Christians, equally important is to look ahead and be prepared. As stated earlier, it will be difficult to simply shift one’s frame of mind, however, we can be more aware and better prepared moving forward. Postman suggests a revamping of education so we can understand how technology is affecting our society and psyche, so that more informed conversations can happen surrounding it.[27] Romano Guardini also agrees for a deeper, richer education, yet goes further and suggests that an entirely new approach, thought, inwardness, and freedom is required to combat the chaos of the world.[28] The old worldviews nor a romanticism for the past will suffice, “but a living adumbration of what is coming.”[29] New technologies are being developed at incessant rates, which will continue to feed into the technological thinking and ideology. The task for the Christian is no longer to ponder about elusive concerns, but to wake up to the current condition of this world and provide direction moving forward. “When a method of doing things becomes so deeply associated with an institution that we no longer know which came first – the method or the institution – then it is difficult to change the institution or even imagine alternative methods for achieving its purposes.”[30] “Will we come to God from the depths of our being, link ourselves to him, and in his freedom and power master chaos in this coming age?”[31] Or will we continue in the patterns covertly dictated by technology?

    [1] Technology is used here and most commonly understood as modern or digital technology. While there are extensive works on how to define technology, I will be using the word in an all-encompassing manner, with a leaning towards modern technology.

    [2] Although narrow focused, I will speak about what I am most familiar with, i.e. a modern Western Christian thought and culture.

    [3] Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness (New York: Vintage, 1974), 23.

    [4] Berger, 25.

    [5] Ibid., 26.

    [6] Ibid., 27, 36.

    [7] Ibid., 39.

    [8] Ibid., 40.

    [9] Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (New York: Vintage, 1993), 123.

    [10] Ibid., 93.

    [11] Ibid., 100.

    [12] Postman, 112.

    [13] 1 Cor 12:20 (ESV).

    [14] 1 Cor 12:21-22.

    [15] The idea of a false proxy was taken from, Dave DeVries “Measuring Success in Your Church,” Missional Challenge, accessed March 5, 2018. https://www.missionalchallenge.com/measuring-success-in-your-church/.

    [16] Berger, 27.

    [17] Ibid., 29.

    [18] Princeton University Faith and Work Initiative, “Sunday-Monday Gap Research Projects,” accessed March 5, 2018. https://faithandwork.princeton.edu/research/sunday-monday-gap.

    [19] Berger, 31.

    [20] Ibid., 34-35.

    [21] Kenda Creasy Dean, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 202, 205.

    [22] Ibid., 203.

    [23] Berger, 37.

    [24] Postman, 100.

    [25] John G. Burke, The New Technology and Human Values (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co., 1966), 33.

    [26] Mat 6:24

    [27] Postman, 198.

    [28] Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como: Explorations in Technology and the Human Race, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1994), 83.

    [29] Ibid., 91.

    [30] Postman, 143.

    [31] Guardini, 95.