Do You Want Electronic Life or Eternal Life?

I have a new cell phone–an Android Galaxy Note 3 which is an amazing machine. I’m about to upgrade my laptop to a Hewlett Packard Spectre that can do one thousand times what my original computer did for one third of the price.

I’m going to send this blog all over the world via the Internet which didn’t exist when I was in high school. It only takes a few keystrokes and VOILA! My writings circle the globe in less than ten seconds.

These new contraptions are incredible tools, but as Bill O’Reilly has pointed out recently, they can be extremely addicting, distracting, and destructive to our spiritual health.

We may want to ask ourselves the question: Do I want electronic life or eternal life? (Or both.)

Even the secular media is getting the idea that people are getting addicted to the machines, especially impacting kids and parents. Here’s an April 22, 2014 article by Kate Raddatz of CBS Minneapolis:

It’s not just our kids getting too much screen time these days. Parents are also guilty of spending too much time on their electronic devices.”

“Researchers at the Boston Medical Center observed 55 different groups of parents and young children eating at fast food restaurants. The study found the majority pulled out their mobile devices right away, and, in turn, their kids tended to act up more.”

“’It’s just normal childhood behavior,’ said parenting coach Toni Schutta. ‘If I can’t get your attention in a positive way, I’m going seek it in a negative way.’”

“Suzanne Ferguson, of Minneapolis, said she and her husband used to be smartphone addicts, checking their emails around their kids.”

“‘We were the couple that would go out to eat at dinner and both be on our own phones before we had kids,’ she said. ‘We’re very much attached to our phones.’”

“Schutta says parents spend, on average, 11 hours a day using electronic devices. All that time takes away from face to face communication which helps kids learn behavior.”

“’Kids in preschool and kindergarten are no longer as able to read social cues from other human beings,’ Schutta said. ‘That’s in part because of their own media use and it’s in part because of their parents’ media use, they’re just not getting that training.’”

“Too much time on technology can also leave an emotional impact on your child, if you’re missing life moments for email.”

“’We get such a limited amount of time with our kids in the day, we need meaningful conversations,’ Schutta said.” Ferguson said once her daughter starting talking, it was the kick she needed to kick her phone habit.”

“’Dinner is a good time to have family time, so trying to keep the phone as much as possible away,’ she said.”

Of course, the machine craze goes way beyond family life. Driving while texting is probably the biggest new problem on the freeways, and electronic addiction to endless video games (let alone pornography) are driving down our productivity.

Interestingly, the Bible said this explosion of knowledge (via the machines) would come one day.

Daniel 12:4 sounds like 2014: “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”  Doesn’t that remind you of our fast-paced society and the reams of information we must now process each day? 

Yes, we are living in a day of abundant travel (running to and fro) and increased knowledge (the Information Age). But have we stopped to ponder what it might do to ourselves, our families, and our souls?  What is the godly response to the dawn of an age aggressively molded by information and technology?

First of all, let’s look at the positive. The Bible says that “knowledge is power” (Proverbs 24:5). Thus the use of fiber optics, high speed airplanes, the Internet. etc. can all be used to empower the Christ’s Good News to spread throughout the earth. This is certainly God intention: To use this age to increase the knowledge of His Son in all the nations of the world. 

And it is happening. I can e-mail or SKYPE missionary friends all over the world and plan evangelistic initiatives in a matter of minutes. That used to take two weeks of postal delivery–or three-to twelve months to deliver by boat–or it wasn’t possible at all. 

Technology has changed all that.

What about travel?  In the 1990s alone, Our King’s Kids missionaries flew over six million miles and preached Jesus to hundreds of thousands of people. Why? Technology.

When you look at the great missions advance of the past fifty years (hundreds of millions of people coming to Christ on every continent of the world), there is no question in anyone’s mind that technological advances have played a great part in the harvest.

And the best and greatest still lies ahead. I chronicle that in my book The Fourth Wave.

But there is a negative side also.  Much of today’s media  is in the hands of ungodly people or institutions that are discipling the planet with it, and only a small perecentage is being consciously used to advance God’s kingdom.

A recent article almost glowingly looks at the most unifying part of that techno advance–The Internet–with these sobering words:

“We’re at the beginning of a new way of working, shopping, playing and communicating. We’re calling this phenomenon e-life, and it’s just in time. Because the day is approaching when no one will describe the digital, Net-based, computer-connected gestalt with such a transitory term. We’ll just call it life.”

E-life. Interesting term. Of course they mean electronic life, but there’s another phrase that comes to my mind: eternal life. In the article’s paradigm, electronic life is the very future itself–life.  Are we preparing the world to accept the Information Age as the true heaven–a worldly substitute for relationship with God (which Jesus said was eternal life)? 

I fear so, and I don’t want a part of it.  This planet, wired to the hilt without God, is already hell.  Can you imagine what the evil use of technology could create on earth in the coming decades?

Technology is only a tool, but used improperly it can easily become a master (think atomic bombs). Or an idol. Or a substitute for God. I believe that one of Satan’s quiet strategies is to lull us into believing that technology can be a meaningful God replacement.

Ponder this E-life substitute for friendship with the Living God:

1.  Movies can be a substitute for God’s omnipotence. Instead of marveling at God’s REAL voice speaking from heaven during Moses’ time, you go into a movie theater and see actors whose heads are fifteen feet high, whose voices boom in Dolby stereo, and appear to have the power to do anything (the story line allows).

2.  Television and radio can be a substitute for God’s omnipresence.  They’re everywhere–always babbling away. They’re on in many homes 18-24 hours a day. Every airport you travel trough has TV monitors at each gate and in most restaurants. When you need comfort, companionship, or stimulation, or just to pass the time–where do you turn?  The TV knob. It even makes a great babysitter for the kids.

3.  The Internet can be a substitute for God’s omniscience.  It’s the place to go for all knowledge. Right now there are over 2 billion world-wide users. There are  hundred of thousands of pornographic sites and they get more hits than Netflix–corrupting the human heart at the click of a button. 160 million Americans use e-mail. On our favorite machines–the cell phone–you can chat, buy food, pay bills, watch movies, or whatever you like, and spend hours a day looking at an impersonal screen. Hours of prayer have given way to hours of texting and surfing.

A wired, fast-as-a-bullet world has captured our hearts, time, attention, family life, and pocket books (ever count up the money you spent on technology in the past few years?).  In some ways, it is becoming our god (what you give your time and supreme attention to). 

While using technology for the noble purposes of advancing God’s Kingdom, how can we keep ourselves unstained by the god-substituting lust of the e-world?  Which do you enjoy more: The wonders of e-life, or the hope of eternal life? Or can you have both?

Here are my encouragements during this Daniel 12:4 time period:

  • Use all machines to learn, grow, and love those God has put in your life.
  • Spend more time in prayer, Bible-reading, book reading, and worship than you do fingering keyboards and touchscreens.
  • Keep the machines out of sight when you’re with family and friends–especially during meals.
  • Never use the machines for evil. Stay away from all the bad stuff.
  • Use your electronic life to advance God’s kingdom and fulfill the Great Commission.
  • Shut off the machines more and listen to God. Take walks. Meditate in the silence. Long for His voice more than the chatter of a multitude of human voices.

And more than anything, never enjoy your e-life more than you long for eternal life.

You can have both–but one is a grain of sand and the other is an unending ocean of relational delights.

Political Correctness is Really Secular Intolerance

The recent Easter season got me thinking about the fight against faith in America.

I recently read an article in my local newspaper (Kitsap SUN) that described the evidence for the Genesis Flood that an engineer had discovered in rock formations in Arizona. It was a great article and even mentioned Noah’s Ark as a possible historical reality.

Two days later, a letter to the editor was posted that made fun of the article–even calling it “laughable” from a scientific standpoint. Why the shrill response?

Well, I think it’s time to give a true meaning to the term “political correctness.” Political correctness is nothing less than secular intolerance. And it’s becoming a menacing bully in many nations.

Here’s the Letter to the Editor, written by Dan Van Eycke, Poulsbo, Washington:

“Regarding Sunday’s article about the supposed proof of Noah’s flood: Could you possibly have found anything less newsworthy to publish? And on page A3 nonetheless!”

“To begin with, young-earth creationism is scientifically irrevelevant and intellectually vacuous–and has been for over a century. And yet the Kitsap SUN thinks its important to print a story about a tourist from Richland, Washington, who claims that a single geologic formation in Arizona is proof of the biblical flood myth, therefore disproving the scientific age of the earth.”

“This man was a tourist with no expertise in geology who thinks he knows better than the countless trained geologists the world over. That he is an engineer from Hanford gives him no more authority on the subject than a warehouse worker from Tacoma. In fact, emphasizing his engineering background is an obvious attempt to impress credulous readers.”

“If articles like this belong in the Kitsap SUN at all–and that’s an extremely big if–they belong on the religion or entertainment pages.”

Note the incredible condescension in the letter. It ends with Mr. Van Eycke relegating the engineer’s fair-minded opinion to the “Religion” section (does he mean the “Myth Section) or the entertainment pages (is that the “Mindless Section?).

C’mon. This is nothing less than bigoted prejudice.

I’ve studied the creation–evolution debate for about forty years. There are fair arguments on both sides. The evidence for an old earth is credible–though certainly not proven. There’s also substantial evidence on the other side that points to a young Earth. Even if the “old earth” theory is true, that doesn’t discount special creation or the main events recorded in the Bible.

Physician-geneticist Francis Collins is one of the most respected scientists in the world. He gave leadership to the Human Genome Project and currently serves as the director of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Collins believes in theistic evolution–yet doesn’t discount any of the biblical events. He is a committed Christian whose book, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, states clearly how science and the Bible are not necessarily in conflict.

Another book I recently read was entitled the “The Draining Floodwaters: Geologic Evidence reflects the Genesis Text.” by John D. Morris Ph.D and James J.S, Johnson, J.D., Th.D. It presented a cogent scientific case for the evidence of a biblical flood. There are enough “Ds” behind those two names to make you pay attention.

Many of you know that I am completing a doctorate degree this year. The thesis produced detailed research of the cultures and religions of the world. An interesting thing stood out: Many of the world’s diverse cultures possess ancient creation and flood stories. It’s uncanny. I don’t know what the mathematical odds of this are, but they must be pretty slim. Here’s one that appears in my new book.

The Story of the Flood. “The Epic of Gilgamesh” remains one of the most famous tales of the Babylonian period, and gives an amazing parallel account of the global flood (Genesis 7, 8).  In the story, Gilgamesh meets one of his ancestors, Utnapishtim, who recalls the story of the global deluge.  Warning that the gods were going to destroy the earth, Utnapishtim built a large boat and took refuge in it with his wife and two each of all animals. After the flood waters subsided, Utnapishtim recounts what happened:

“All mankind was turned to clay…I opened the window and the light fell upon my face. I bowed, I sat down, I wept, and over my face ran my tears. I looked upon the world—all was sea…I sent forth a dove and let her go. The dove flew to and fro, but there was no resting place and she returned.”

“I sent forth a shallow and let he go. The swallow flew to and fro, but there was no resting place and she returned. I sent forth a raven and let her go. The raven flew away. She saw the abasement of the waters. She drew near; she waded, she croaked, and came not back. Then I sent everything forth to the four quarters of the heaven. I offered a sacrifice. I made a libation upon the mountains peak.”

“As a result of their obedience, Utnapishtim and his wife are rewarded with “the gift of immortality,” which they explain to Gilgamesh can be obtained by eating a plant that grows in the sea. Gilgamesh finds the plant, but before he eats it, a snake steals it away and gains immortality. A humbled Gilgamesh returns to his city of Uruk, (Erech in Genesis 10:10), and is painfully aware that he does not possess immortality. The story ends unresolved.”
 
I share portions of this narrative to demonstrate the “memory” of real events that ancient peoples passed down in a confusing culture of raucous polytheism. Of course, many of these stories are embellished–like the end of the “Epic of Gilgamesh.”

But did you notice the similarity to Genesis?  You find these same “ancient memory stories” in India, China, Africa and even North and South America.  What’s the only plausible explanation?

That the global flood was a real event that left a lasting impact on the scattered peoples of the world. When you add the scientific evidence for a global flood, the playing field is more than level with the explanations from the other side.

So I responded to the letter from the bellicose atheist in these words:

Letter to the Editor,

“I had a different reaction than Dan Van Eycke to your article on the world-wide flood and Noah’s Ark. I was encouraged by the SUN’s open mind on scientific theories and historical data.   Just this week I read an article by an American Ph.D  who shared similar evidence for a global flood. Of course dinosaur prints being found in sediment alongside human prints, seashell fossils found on mountain tops, and the worldwide presence of “oil,” presents quite a case for a global deluge.”

“As one who has traveled the world extensively, I am especially impressed by the common “flood story” that is found in the historical texts of many nations that seems to validate the biblical one. Van Eycke is welcome to his opinion. But his condescension in calling your article “laughable” was extremely rude.  That type of political correctness is really secular intolerance—not a good thing in a free and open society.”

Sincerely,

Ron Boehme

One of the truths that I share in the doctoral thesis (and upcoming new book ) is that of the five views of God that exist in the world, two of them are extremely intolerant of other opinions. They are:

  • Atheism secularism – espoused by Mr. Van Eycke above, and
  • Islam – a religion that often silences contrary opinions.

Does that intolerant spirit tell you something? Any worldview that doesn’t allow other points of view is either extremely insecure or afraid of the freedom that leads to the truth.

The lesson? Choose your worldview wisely.