100 Ramblings Of Tech, Faith, And Fortitude

We have officially reached 100 post on Christian life, tech, politics, and everything in between. And as such, it’s time to take these blogposts and turn them into something a bit more sturdy.

Available soon-ish (like later this year) will be a paperback copy of this blog. I hope to do this every time I cross a hundred posts.

With that said. Posts might slow down a bit from the almost weekly schedule. As I focus more on the books than I have before. I want to have 10 book on Christian theology and tech to match my 100 blog posts, and will be putting my energy towards that as a top priority. And that’s beside my work on the Technological survey and commentary of the Bible. Which is looking to be a 5 volume set now.

Hot takes will still happen as often as they are warranted. But in the mean time. The blog will get quieter. 

I’ll also be doing more videos on every platform, but mostly on TikTok.

Enjoy!

A Lifeguard For The Surfers

If swimming were a sin, it’s not, but I'm sure youth group has made you feel that way, would the life guard be a sinner because he’s the best at swimming? Maybe, we’re picking too hard on the church types. What if drowning was a sin. Would the lifeguard be a sinner because he knows exactly how people drown. How to stop it? How to reverse it’s effects? And all because in order to be a lifeguard, you have to get as close to drowning as possible, to keep people as far away as they’ll get.

It’s a paradox of talent and restraint, but ask any life guard what they are told to do when a drowning person won’t let them bring them back to shore. When their flailing's and terror are too set in for their own good, that they threaten the life of the guard.

They let you drown, at least enough to get you to let them save you.

Tech is the same kind of danger that an ocean is. It's as deep and dangerous now with your LLM’s making you bikini pixels as it was when you published your first MySpace post about Baywatch. The danger has not changed, so much as its shifted. Like tides tend to do. And the qualities of who can keep you safe or remove you from danger, have not changed either.

There has been, for some time, a need for lifeguard theologians and pastors who will engage with tech. On tech’s terms but not alongside tech's purposes. Those people know that a world without swaths of social media and any A.I. would be a better one. But are constrained by the times to live in a world as if they were not part of that world. Those theologians are not going to be the nigh on heroic Piper/Sproul types. These guys will play their part, but aren’t the right kind of person to be a lifeguard that actually pulls people from the water. That roll will go to people who have seen both sides of the equations. The slippery pool deck from before and the suffocating pool bottom of the now.

That role will likely go to the millennials in our seminaries. But only if they figure out that learning how to swim at all is a path to not drowning for more than just you.

Everyone who has ever done a swimming class or two ,past water wings, knows that knowing how to swim ignites something inside of you. When you know you can make it across a body of water, you begin to think about getting someone out of that same body of water from the middle. Every boat you get on prompts you to wonder about the men and women who could possibly go overboard. Every pool party becomes a volunteer shift counting heads and keeping your pockets ready to empty.

And theologically, those same kinds of people will get out of their drowning porn addictions, and teach every gooner they find, how to tread water in the cultural waters of OF and snapchat. They will have notebooks for private thoughts and blogs for the same kind of inner monologues. They will have 1000 reasons for a church not to have a TikTok ministry and be a prolific poster of those reasons on TikTok.

The paradox of skill, sinfully, follows the saved to their ministry. It makes their witness that more effective once made so by the grace of Christ. The same way God’s clothes were better versions of the sinful ones Adam and Eve made prior. The sacrifice on their behalf did more than just cover them.

“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21 KJV

The First Clergy Of Mars

The second there are people on Mars who plan on staying, new non earth bound souls are going to be made on that red planet. Those souls will be immersed in technologies Spurgeon never dreamed of and Edwards never saw coming. And the effects of those technologies, on the ability of those Martians, to believe in an earthly religion as valid, will be strained.

Mars will therefore need pastors.

People willing to take the ends of the earth part of the great commission a bit more seriously. Because, likely, the last people being prepped for long term space voyages are the theologically rigorous.

The problem is. That likely. Those pastors haven’t even been born yet. Their pastors haven’t even been born yet. Their seminary professors might just be graduating middle school. And all of this is quietly happening while exactly no church, or para church organization, has an iota of the capability necessary to catch up to the massively funded organizations, currently planning on getting people to Mars in the first place.

I don’t blame them. There’s no sheep there yet to shepherd. But we approaching a time where the likely would be. And unlike in previously Christian time, there is no analog to our modern times to follow. When Christianity first spread to other nations the technologies that it used to do so were common. Boats we not solely owned by governments and Twitter’s CEO. And for a long time it was an understandably common part of the logistics to simply pay for the means to any given Christian ends.

Look up how much it would cost to get a Bible to the moon and realize how behind the eight ball we are, financially alone.

Not to mention ideologically. The world in general is in a cosmic tiff about the idea of a Christian nation. Let alone a Christian planet. Christian nationalist would be crucified for trying to get a rocket capable of exiting earths orbit. Because that rocket could also then be used against the enemies of God on Terra Firma. How far do you think a Christian inter-planetarian is going to get.

The how's and why’s of the population logistics of Mars will not have churches planned. Religion will be relegated to personal choice, if that and only that, and screened for by every personality test imaginable. That’s likely why there’s so many of them these days. The last thing you want in a place where resources might be limited. Are people of think babies are a blessing and that everything is owned by their God. They might have too many kids or worse try to baptize them by immersion. We can’t have that much water going through the recycler, now, can we?

So, Mars will need missionaries. The same way Sudan and Pakistan need missionaries. People willing to be a propulsion technician on paper and a protestant in the habitat pods. Intelligent individuals who in a world of A.I. and digitally available Bibles, will commit them to memory along with their tradecraft. Because they definitely won’t be bringing one, and a digital copy on their work computers will flag them for demotions before the mission to Mars even starts. I wonder which Bible Colleges will be able to teach them this unique skill set. Of Tech-savvy interplanetary travel and Luddite Biblicism.

Looking at you Briercrest.

This and a host of other issues will arise if and when we get to that point and right now are nothing more than possibilities and speculation. But the cost of being caught flat footed here is more than being wrong about how many Tesla type S’s might be there when Musk finally lands.

Any population that stays and begins reproducing on Mars, will be making souls. Not just bodies. And while the science and technology that got them there will undoubtedly do a great job of keeping the bodies alive and multiplying. The souls will, just as likely, be kept from the God of their making.

Mars could be a hell factory, if given the chance to do so, by Christians who don’t have a plan, or even an inkling of a plan, when it stops being science fiction.

“Thine, O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.” 1 Chronicles 29:11 KVJ

Dinx The Puppet And Other Shrouds

Can authoritative teachers be anonymous and can you exercise a spiritual gift through a medium?

This is uniquely important these days because of all the people claiming to be biblical scholars or pastors or doing any kind of ministry online, the best one, hands down, as in I highly recommend this account to almost everyone/anyone…

Is a puppet.

Dinx the puppet to be exact.

A well crafted, VBS style Muppet puppet who does a better job teaching about the Bible and answering questions about the Bible, than just abut everything else. He does it without a beard to prove he’s reformed and without a former onlyfans account to prove he's non denominational. But if we’re being real honest. He’s not doing it, is he?

Most of my problems with online ministry stem from the actual mechanics and physics of what the internet is. I have a problem with online church, not because you couldn’t get exactly what you feel, see and interreact with at a mega church. But precisely because you can get that. The fourth wall is nothing more than a curtain of wires. And the camera does more than add pounds to the church’s presence online. So when someone does such a great job of teaching, I naturally pay attention. And when they do it through a disarming media like puppeteering. I pay closer attention.

Make no mistake. Dinx is not only a good Bible teacher. He (Or rather the He Beneath the bottom of your screen) is a talented puppeteer. Everything from his characters voice, to his actions, to his ability to convey empathy and approachableness through a puppet, with no emotive controls, is impressive. He is a master of technique. Which is what all technologies are in one way or another. The worship pastor who knows certain songs inspire the dopamine rush, that can be mistaken for the Holy Spirit, if played correctly, and in a dimly lit colourfully stage room, does the same kind of thing.

Where I'm conflicted and explorative is if what Dinx does, or rather his worker does, through the puppet and character, authoritative. Dinx expertly never crosses this line. Not that I can tell. As a puppet. He can ask or respond to how another creator is likely wrong, or that they should not be posting what they are. But something that doesn't happen, but also can’t happen, is a call to repentance from the same place he gets his voice.

Dinx couldn’t ever call you repent of sins you commit online. Even if he made a video about them. What is Dinx going to do about you once you respond. If you continue in sin, you simply give him more content opportunities. But if you do repent, how does that baptism eventually work? What the puppet illustrates is the tragic failing of all online ministries. From Mike Winger, to the Lord's Giant to Nala Ray and everything in between. The lack of unity a body of Christ needs to do the work Christ has for it. Separated by the camera and screen for the sake of no one but the individual consuming the content.

Dinx’s exegesis and hermeneutic are always on point. Does that mean his obvious gift of teaching is bearing fruit, though? Because he can not, by several different metrics, be united to the body of Christ. The first of which being that no object, however animated can be a believer. Which is where those gifts are to bear that fruit. I know people are using the media he produces to grow in their faith. But I have a hard time putting that together with what it would look like for the puppet to end up in heaven? We will surely meet the hand that makes that puppet talk. And the voice we hear off camera. But the puppet along with all other bits of the world will be consumed in a fire and laid waste, for a new heaven and new earth to take it’s place.

The permanence of the internet seems insurmountable at times. One nude photo of you ends up online and the embarrassment lasts forever, it seems. But it is a farse. Nothing on this world lasts forever. And every mountain of content we make, for good or ill, will end up gone in the end.

I think it’s vitally important to recognize this kind of thing. Because as robotics and A.I get better it will no longer be a hand of a likely timid but effective believer up the puppets back side. It will no longer be great teaching with honest intent coming through it either. These techniques, that work to convince you that the felt and stiches are the person beneath the puppet, will work when there is no longer a person beneath that puppet. And also when there is no longer gospel coming out of that puppets mouth.

The proxy-ing of faith and the gifting of the Holy Spirit is a long term dangerous game to play. I hope it works out for Dinx. I know he’s being used powerfully. And can’t help but wonder what it would look like for him to be used fully. But if this becomes something that can’t grow further. Where is it going. What fruit is there to be born out of a puppet that can’t baptize a person. Can’t marry a pair of someone's. Can’t cast out a divisive brother in church discipline.

Or maybe what’s worse. What happens when a puppet can do these things?

Teaching, apart from the raw presentation of information, is something that happens in the church, through the believer, and from the Holy Spirit in unison. And right now, we have, arguably, the best presentation of the information our faith has online, happening through a puppet. That’s awesome. But that is also not teaching. And maybe it’s not claiming to be such. Is it being viewed as such though? Right now I don’t think so. But the second it is. We essentially cede the idea that the Holy Spirit can bare fruit with an object. And more importantly that we can have objects do what our persons are meant to do. 

We would call that idolatry if we had the courage to pick a theological fight with a cute puppet with a quarter million followers on TikTok.

Keep up the good work, Dinx.

Downhill Drone Collisions And The Flirty 4th Wall

You’re starting to notice the cameras more often. Aren’t you?

I sure am. For a while now I’ve noticed the subtle creep of the camera man into the screens we’re all glued to. When you watch old news coverage and sports, you almost never see cameras. They are too important to let out from the other side of the fourth wall. Or at least they were. Some time in the early 2010’s this began to change. I suspect it was because of the iPhone Or Casey Neistat. But I'll never be able to prove that. What I will be able to do is show you that you are seeing more and more cameras and to ask you why you think that is.

First we’ll go to the Olympics where what used to be fixed cameras mounted up the super G course, have been supplemented with dynamic drone footage of the same super G skiers now followed from behind. And it’s not just the Super G which is fast and would warrant a nimble drone to capture the moment. The slower slalom had them too. A race filled with obstacles for the skier to avoid. This year featuring a man sized drone that fell from the sky and almost hit the skier. Before hand that camera angle, if used at all, would have had to have been captured by a cameraman on a helicopter. Because you can’t dynamically follow a skier down a hill from 30 ft above without one. But that would have been obstructively much. As no skier is spending the money necessary to have a helo follow them down the training slopes. So they learn to adjust for the noise, down draft, and possibility of a crash. But make that copter smaller and quad it, and you can interrupt the sports event with another display of the failure of tech being dismissed.

Or how about the world baseball championships. I caught a bit of the Italy Mexico game along with a 5 second crotch shot of some poor film student trying to capture the same kind of sports moments with his gimbal. Only to have none of his footage end up on the main feed of the broadcast, but plenty of footage of his unathletic stumble run end up there. I got so see him run onto the field between hits to dutifully do his job and add nothing to the spirit of baseball.

Don’t worry, we can bring this home before we mention porn. How many baptisms have your church’s creative art's director in them these days. Not in the tank, doing the baptising. But holding a camera to capture the moment and serve as the background for any give photo of your family members coming into the body of Christ. Or grazing your thigh as he crouches during worship. To make sure the bots that follow your church’s Instagram page know God is worshiped in this place.

The only place you won't see this creep of the cameras. These cracks in the fourth wall, is porn. That’s because those particular wizards and witches carefully curate the men behind the curtain. They can’t afford you to pay attention to them, Dorothy. Because their magic actually works. Everyone else is just chasing the awe and wonder of what that magic does when there’s no tits to cast that spell. The dynamic view of the helicopter was replaced by the drone, because of cost. The same way expensive DVD production and magazines became websites and streaming services. And once everyone was able to buy drones to do those dynamic shots, the alure of them lost it’s kick. The same way an actress can lose her youthful looks and get relegated to a different niche and category of the website. If barely legal sells, then the talent must be barely legal. If the shot requires a daring pilot, it will seem lame when a nerd does it with a drone. It’s still awesome and spectacular when that helicopter crashes. Because we all sinfully love destruction, but when a drone that is 100x smaller crashes we feel the same disgust as we would seeing an ugly person strip tease us online. The very same.

All these oopsies of cameras being where they shouldn’t betray the nature of the desire to play this particular game of bigger and better. There is no need for baptisms to be Instagram'd. Unless you have a desire to be on Instagram for Instagram's purposes. The same way men and women flaunt their body on Instagram for the same views and the same cultural validation.

The cameras you are noticing are the tail end of being too affected by a sinful culture, to know better. Normalized voyeurism that stared when sports were merely not shown in the best angle to see all their players. The closeups are there for a reason. So is the BTS stuff. It’s all because that feeling of doing the thing while not, was orgasmically programed into a culture that never does things IRL anymore.

The best hockey you ever watch will be in a rink with no cameras. The best skiing you’ll ever see will be when you are also wearing skis. The best sex you will ever have is with the wife of your youth.

All else is just bell curve production value.