VIRTUALLY HUMAN
Flourishing in a Digital World
By Ed Brooks and Pete Nicholas
IVP. 174 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 783 593 897
This is a book written by two men involved in Christian ministry, who credit their Oak Hill College mentor (Dan Strange) for teaching them ‘how to connect Christ and culture’.
This, in one sense, is the goal of the book, bringing a Christian worldview to bear upon our increasingly technological society. To do this, the authors first seek to provide a biblical framework with which we can engage with the digital world and then use this framework to explore questions such as ‘human identity’, ‘the social network’ and ‘virtual sex’, concluding with a chapter on the impact of the vast amounts of information on the Internet.
There is no doubt that we need books such as this. Sadly, in spite of glowing endorsements, the book fails to achieve its goal. Rather, it reads like a series of loosely connected, somewhat philosophical chapters.
Ethics and moral values
The authors not only present their view that technology is not neutral, but go beyond this, ascribing to technology its own ethics and moral values. Such a view makes no sense to this reviewer, as it is the use of technology by sinful humanity that is the issue, in the same way that books can be used to convey eternal truths or to portray the worst obscenities. Some of the illustrations were also troubling, such as the description of sin as a ‘bug in the system’ and God’s plan of salvation as a ‘system reboot’.
The book also suffers from sweeping generalised statements which are presumably anecdotal but not backed up by research. For example, they state on p.66 that ‘in the UK, marketing agencies know that the biggest users of technology are often the lowest income groups’. A little research reveals otherwise. A pew research study (US) and a 2013 (UK) National Office of Statistics report both show that Internet use increases with income.
Be discerning
The authors are right in believing that we must be discerning and not thoughtlessly accept every technology. As a book that seeks to engage in this debate it is welcome. Sadly, the book is likely to fall between two stools, neither practical enough to help those looking for real life solutions to challenges brought about by technology, nor ‘deep’ enough for those wishing to engage in a philosophical or theological debate. There are many good things in this book, but they are not sufficient for this reviewer to recommend it.
