From the Garden to the City [Paperback]

Most of us are aware of the vast social changes that the new media are bringing to our lives. As Christians, many of us are concerned about these changes or are at least aware of a "technological imperative". I don't mean the technological imperative that we must use technology but the technological imperative that if we Christians are going to use technology, we'd better know how to use it in godly ways.

Like Tim Challies' excellent "The Next Story," John Dyer's new book, "From the Garden to the City," is an excellent primer on what Christians should think about and how Christians should wisely use technology. In fact, John Dyer has given us a concise but profound theology of technology. Dyer is well-qualified to write this book, having not only a degree in theology but also being the Director of Web development at Dallas Theological Seminary. Many of you may know him from his wise and wonderful blog: doneatthefruit.com.

There are so many wonderful things to commend about Dyer's book, but I'll have to limit myself to a few.

1. First, I love the way that Dyer doesn't just use a few Bible verse to cobble together a theology of technology. Instead, he tells the story of God's relationship with man "From the Garden to the City." You'll be surprised to learn just how important technology is in the Bible! While the Bible begins in the Garden, it ends in a City - the Heavenly Jerusalem.

2. Dyer organizes most of his material around the 4-fold movement of God in his relation to man: Creation-Fall-Redemption-Restoration. This is a very useful and theological way to think about technology.

3. "From the Garden to the City" avoids the extremes of "technological instrumentalism," which states that our tools are completely neutral and don't actually transform us, and the other extreme of "technological determinism," which states that technology is an unstoppable force that is driving society.

4. Dyer restates a lot of familiar material (for readers who have already investigated the effects of technology on us) from writers like Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman. But he also goes beyond what they've said and extends and applies what these men have said. Along the way, Dyer diagnoses the ways that technology transforms us, even as we use technology to transform the world. He also gives plenty of practical examples, not only from new technologies but also from older technologies.

My favorite example of the importance of older technologies (maybe because I'd already had this thought myself 25 years ago) was how God orchestrated the timing of the Exodus with the new technology of writing.

5. I especially like the way that Dyer provides not only useful definitions (for example, technology is "the human activity of using tools to transform God's creation for practical purposes") but also useful principles. My favorite principle of all is Dyer's guiding principle for technology: "Technology is for the table." That's it. Everything we do with technology "should be directed toward enriching the few, precious face-to-face encounters we have in our busy world."

There's much, much more. But this is a profound and thoughtful book for those who want to delve more deeply into how Christians should think about and use the tools, especially the new ones, that we and our culture are using both for good and evil. It merits a careful reading.

A longer version of this review was originally published on my blog [...]

Over the past couple months I have read two decent books on Technology and Christianity, Tim Challies' The Next Story and Adam Thomas' Digital Disciple. Both have real value, but the book I have been looking for is John Dyer's From The Garden to the City.

The main theme of the book is that while we as humans create technology (and that is part of our God given role), the resulting technology shapes us in ways that we often ignore.

In many ways, other books I have read spend time talking about theology of technology, but never explicitly talking about the ways technology shapes us. In a very similar way, I have heard many people talk about the dangers of pornography, but never really read about about the physical, emotional and spiritual reasons why pornography affects us until I read Wired for Intimacy. Dyer spends a significant portion of the book explaining how technology works, where it can be redeeming and where we need to be careful. The quote that I think best illustrates his point is:

"Yet we must also be careful to affirm that the redemptive capacity of technology is limited and temporary. Advances in technology can give us the illusion that it might someday overcome death, but this is a tragic and distracting lie. Clean water and ample medicine can only hold off death for so long--eventually death will find us all. Instead, we should view the redemptive capacities of technology as a temporary means of keeping humanity going while God does his work. He used the ark to keep humanity going long enough to save us, and we too can think of technology as a way of keeping humans alive while God does his work in and through us."

Throughout the book, Dyer carefully navigates between the two tendencies, on the one hand to become dependent on technology as a way to exert our own independence (from God) and on the other to reject the creativity that God has placed in us (some would say the actual image of God is our creativity) for fear of the potential of sin.

There are currently a lot of books being published in media ecology and theology. This book is one of the best, and you should purchase it immediately for your church library as well as for your church media team and pastor. John Dyer has done his homework, and has read deeply in media ecology (think Marshall McCluhan), and philosophy of technology (think Martin Heidegger), but wears this learning very lightly, instead offering an incredibly well-written and faithful reflection on the role of technology in the life of faith and the history of God with God's people. The structure is clever, a narrative constructed of biblical history through Reflection-Rebellion-Redemption-Restoration, always keeping an eye to the ecology of media in each era. As a conclusion, he offers a heuristic appendix as a tool for evaluating technologies and their use in the life of faith and the church. This is perfect either as a supplement to a collection on technology and faith, or as a first acquisition exploring media ecology and theology. Highly recommended.

John Dyer blogs at:[...] His blog is a helpful introduction to many of the themes addressed more comprehensively in his book.