Stephen K. Spyker has lived and worked at the intersection of religion and technology for more than 35 years, most recently serving as director of information technology at Earlham School of Religion and at Bethany Theological Seminary, both in Richmond, Virginia. The author salutes the positive dimensions of technology especially the ways in which it can "free our minds, expand our horizons, allow us to become the more fully human beings God is calling us to be." But there is also a negative side to all these advances that is creating addicts of an entertainment society where "we can't spend more than a few waking minutes alone in our own skin" as we feed off our cell phones, iPods, and Blackberries.
Spyker uses eight lens to assess the relationship between spirituality and the technology:
• Simplicity: our responses to emerging technology.
• Transparency: ways in which technology is changing our world and the way we think.
• Community: how the information revolution is changing community.
• Identity: how technology is evolving and what it all means to us.
• Velocity: how the new technologies change our view of time.
• Connectivity: ways in which our hyperconnectivity affects our spiritual lives.
• Liberty: the challenge of technology; does it set us free or turn us into addicts?
Spyker asks good questions and points us in the right direction as we think about the information revolution and its impact on our lives and our spiritual communities.
