FUTURE WAVE

Christian Responsibility in the Technology Explosion

DR. EDWARD HINDSON

Dean, Institute of Biblical Studies/Liberty University

We are living in the most incredible times the world has ever known. Technological advances are sweeping past us at faster and faster rates. The future of the technology wave is like a giant tsunami that swells up from the bowels of the ocean. It roars across vast distances and sweeps inland -- taking everything in its path!

The future wave has already begun. We cannot stop it. The question is should we ride it or run from it? Lee Fredrickson and I have written a new book about this phenomenon, titled: Future Wave (Harvest House). We believe that Christians need not fear the innovations of technology. Rather, we should use them to spread the Gospel. God has given human beings intelligence so that we can develop technologies that can benefit our health, education, and spiritual well-being.

At the same time, we dare not embrace technology naively or uncritically. We need to beware of the potential to become the victims of our own success. A technologically-dependent society can easily become a society that no longer thinks for itself. But eventually, like the great tsunami, it will crash violently. Technology will both benefit our lives and ensnare us at the same time. In the end, it will prepare the world for the rise of the Antichrist, who will use technology to control the world.

In the meantime, we have an incredible opportunity to use technology to evangelize the world in our lifetime. The use of personal computers, satellite transmissions, digital images and a host of other innovations will enable us to reach more people in more places, faster than ever before. Christians on the leading edge of technology are already making use of video conferencing, satellite transmission of evangelistic crusades, digital broadcasting, E-mail, voice mail, fax transmissions and electronic publishing. But these are only the beginning of what is coming. Here are just a few of the new technologies that are behind the wave of change that is sweeping our culture:

1. Personal Computers

This is the one with which we are most familiar. Computers have already changed the way we communicate. But this is just the beginning. Computer memory is already 16,000-times greater than it was 20 years ago.

Today, the power of computer chips doubles every 12 months. They are imbedded in our cars, powertools, toys, and a host of household products. The next wave will see them embedded in our brains and bodies.

James Canton, author of Technofutures, states that computers will become extensions of human life, designed to augment intelligence, learning, communications and productivity. They will become voice-activated, video-enabled forms of artificial intelligence. In many cases, they will be smarter than human beings. Computers will be the digital brains of the 21st Century. The “supercomputers” of the future will perform 20 million billion (or two quadrillion) calculations-per-second. This will provide instantaneous communication over the Internet by translating languages as fast as we can speak to anyone in the entire world.

2. Telecommunications

By the dawn of the 21st Century, telecommunications were rapidly becoming “wireless.” Within the next ten years, video communications will do the same. This will change the future of television. People will be able to receive everything from movies to personal video messages on their body, in their car, office or home. Already, several multinational corporations are cooperating in “Project Oxygen” to ensure the global spread of high-speed Internet access that will connect the whole world by fiber optics as easily as breathing oxygen. This will result in a global communications network which many are calling the “Global Brain.”

In the near future, the Internet will observe and process your entire life-style preferences, purchasing habits, and entertainment choices. The Inter-net will become the ultimate consumer psychologist. Web sites will know you better than you know yourself!

3. Future of Education

The Global Brain will enable electronic education to change how we learn in the future. It will pave the way for a Global Educational System. The driving force behind the “schools” of the future will be economics. In time, the new technologies will accelerate virtual education on the Internet and will revolutionize the way we learn and provide the opportunity for schools and universities to reach vast numbers of students worldwide.

For example, students of the future will be able to enter a specialized lab with a customized learning plan that includes a global “chat” with students in England, France, Korea and India -- simultaneously -- with instantaneous language translation which enables them to communicate transnationally in “real time.” They will be able to download research to thousands of students worldwide.

These changes will even affect the way we do “church” in the future. In his new book, Into the Future, Dr. Elmer Towns of Liberty University observes that churches will communicate the Gospel through “multisensory” and “relational” frameworks. What we can communicate today through PowerPoint and video projection will be greatly enhanced by holographic three-dimensional projections of everything from Bible verses to biblical dramas to illustrate and enhance the sermon.

Towns writes, “Today’s church is birthing a new generation of apologists, intellectuals and scientists who are both rigorously academic and unabashedly Christian.”

4. Biotechnology

Science and technology have brought enormous medical advances and benefits to humanity. The ability to diagnose, prevent and treat diseases has saved countless lives. The biotech wave will continue to change how we deal with the human body.

The question will no longer be, “Can we?” but “Should we?” The issues of fetal tissue research, genetic engineering, gene therapy, cloning and reproductive technology will challenge Christians in every area of medical ethics and theological beliefs.

The Human Genome Project has now completed “mapping” the entire human genetic system. This will allow doctors in the future to heal human diseases caused by genetic deficiencies. The final phase of the project will involve deciphering the three billion DNA “letters” that make up the human body. Eventually, scientists will be able to “map” the distinctive elements of individual chromosomes, enabling them to “customize” medical treatments and even produce “designer” people.

5. Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is an emerging science that deals with our world on a molecular level, atom by atom. It is a technology that will allow people to manipulate the smallest building blocks of matter. In the years to come in the 21st Century, these “micromachines” will be able to do basic cell repair, attack viruses and neutralize diseases. Just last month, scientists introduced a camera so small that it can be swallowed like a pill. This will enable doctors to explore the human digestive system and make repairs on a microscopic level.

Eventually, these various technologies will pave the way for alternative energies, medical breakthroughs and global communications. The world of the future will be driven by a communications system that will serve the global economy. It will be a fast-paced society that will challenge many of our basic beliefs and values. For serious-minded Christians, it will mean the challenge of applying biblical and theological truths to formulate a Christian view of post-modern life.

A Christian View of the Future

Theologian Stephen Monsma warns, “Christian theologians have initiated few systematic reflections on modern technology.” The result has been the predominance of a secular view of using technology to benefit ourselves without raising the serious ethical challenges that this technology poses to our Judeo-Christian way of life. We need a generation of Christian thinkers and leaders who can help us use the good aspects of technology for the cause of Christ. At the same time, we need to warn an unsuspecting public of the potential dangers that may lie ahead.

A technologically-controlled society will become a reality which can greatly enhance our daily lives. But such a society can also be easily controlled by a technocratic elite. Christians have to ask if this is setting the stage for the Antichrist to implement his global system?