The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the rate of change and its irreversible impact on our culture. Is the church ready?
Neil Postman in Teaching as a Subversive Activity asks us to imagine what it would be like if your neighborhood was cordoned off and all the electronic inventions of the last 50 years would be removed from them. (Postman wrote this in 1969 so we will look at the last 80 years). First out the door is the computer, gone, no more internet, no more email, no more i-tunes. At the same time your cell phone disappears, goodbye! How's your life being impacted so far?
Next we lose the TV, what will you do tonight, tomorrow night? Go to the movies, sorry not an option, perhaps you could rearrange your furniture so its not centered on the now empty space. All your entertainment media would be gone. But taking a step back 80 years will also impact your heating and cooling systems, your refrigeration system, lighting, transportation. If the truth be told I (we) would be very poorly equipped to live in the world as it was 80 years ago.
An environmental change is never simply an addition to something that was there before, that addition changes the environment itself, it creates a, 'totally new environment requiring a whole new repertoire of survival strategies.' (Postman p.7) The technological innovations of the past 50 years have significantly changed (whether we like it or not) the way we interact with the world.
If this is true then why has the church been so resistant to change and how will it survive in this new environment?
Postman gives us a way to look at the increasing pace of change. He suggests we look at change in terms of 60 minutes on a clock face, with these 60 minutes representing the approximately 3,000 years that humanity has had access to writing systems. Using this analogy, the first 51 minutes are fairly stable and then the printing press was invented about 9 minutes ago. About three minutes ago the telegraph, photograph and train appeared. Two minutes ago the car, telephone, radio, movies and the airplane appeared. Television appeared in the last minute. Communication satellites with the last 45 seconds. The personal computer and cell phone within the last 15 seconds, the internet became popular within the last ten seconds.
Change, at the rate we see today be thoroughly discombobulating, as a result many have looked to the church to be a refuge from this change. A comfort from the craziness that's out there in the world. As a result many churches have failed to display the needed flexibility and adaptability to minister in the new world and are failing to attract younger members for whom this new world is not so frightening because it is their home.
