The Radio, Television, and Facebook: How Technology is Competing with Spiritual Formation

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ve love to hear your thoughts.

In 1917 the American Radio and Research Corporation began radio broadcasting and within a few years Americans were bent over little boxes almost every night of the week. Television came in the 1940’s, and within a decade our habits shifted from listening to speakers to watching screens for hours on end. Then Al Gore invented the internet, and soon AOL, then MySpace, then Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest began competing for our evenings.

A little more than a hundred years ago, the American frontier family huddled around candles at the kitchen table after dark. While mom and grandma sewed and mended, kids played quietly and dad read Scripture – out loud – for an hour or more each evening.

Romans 12:2 says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” For the later part of the 19^th century, the truths of Scripture seeped into American minds, reminding us of virtues like integrity, the importance of personal responsibility, the nobility of labor, and a thousand other healthy concepts.

In the mid-1800s, American church attendance and spirituality were at an all-time low. Not surprisingly, our economy was in the doldrums as well. In 1857, desperation led Jeremiah Lanphier and a few business friends to found a noontime prayer meeting in New York City. The practice spread throughout the city, then throughout the country. That’s when Bible-reading began to take hold of us as a nation.

For the next 50 years or so, Americans absorbed Scripture, renewing their minds and transforming their behavior. By the end of World War I, we had become the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth. Reading, studying, and hearing the Bible preached is fundamental to personal transformation.

The revivals of Wesley and Whitfield drove Englishmen to the Bible. Within a few generations, they were the most prosperous nation on earth. The revivals of 1857 and 1858 drove Americans to the Bible, and within a few generations we became the most prosperous nation on earth.

Today, everyone is busy. Doing what? I don’t know for sure, but I suspect it’s watching television, surfing the web, and posting on Facebook. Where once we were a nation of Bible-readers, we’ve become a nation of technology-consumers.

With the upcoming elections, everyone has an opinion on which candidate can help us more. I believe what will really help us is a Bible-reading revolution! What would happen to our country if we all began reading the Bible for a half hour a day? What would happen to you if you began letting Scripture, instead of Facebook, reshape your perspectives? What would happen to your family, if they thought more about God's thoughts and less about The Kardashians? What would happen to your neighborhood if people reset their standards by the Golden Rule instead of the rule of media?

Thomas Jefferson once said, ...the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better homes, better citizens, better fathers and better husbands.

What do you think?

Comments

[Zac Stringham]

Have you read Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps? He traces how technology has changed the way we think and he goes back pretty far. I found it fascinating to think about.

[Jimmy Smith]

Thanks so much for your timely and inspiring words. You could not be more right.

I would like to use this on my blog at http://jimmydsmith.typepad.com/. Let me know if that would be OK? I would simply use Typepad's Blog It button and introduce you before directing to your blog. I wait to hear from you.

[Lisa Frost]

There is absolutely no doubt that more bible reading would improve everyone's mind. The problem is all those time killers you mentioned (TV, Internet, etc) are easy to do. In fact much of their draw power is that it is easy and instant to escape into the void of not having to think or stretch or grow.
The challenge seems to be in these times when easy and instant is everywhere and encouraged, how do you get people to embrace anything that takes an effort. Especially when the biggest rewards of that effort are neither easy or instant?
If you can answer that question maybe we can start a new bible reading revolution. For me I find subscribing to daily doses of short bible studies that i can absorb in 5-10 minutes makes it easiest for me... and while the rewards have not been instant I have found that life gets easier to manage and more fulfilling to live the more I study the word.

[most accurate phone psychic]

I don’t think many of websites provide this type of information.