What the Thunder Said...

Quentin Schultze's recent book, Habits of the High-Tech Heart, is more and more on my radar lately. An excellent man of God (and equally good blogger - "The Normal Christian Life"), David Griffiths recently reviewed the book, noting his own proneness toward the sin of passive information imbibing (a vice I too often am affected by). A newer, though terrific, blog that I've stumbled upon - "Prosthesis" - often works with a view of informationism and Schultze's philosophy inherent in its warp and woof. So I'm becoming more familiar with the book and its concepts. And as I become more familiar, I find nagging notion that I think I need to read it growing stronger by the nanosecond.

Informationism, as defined by Schultze, is "a non-discerning, vacuous faith in the collection and dissemination of information as a route to social progress and personal happiness." Staring at these black lines forming the words of the definition, it seems ludicrous to me. Yet I know, that every time I power on my HP iPAQ 5550, deep down some where I think myself growing, expanding, becoming wiser, and more potent a presence than I was before. I truly believe the faith of informationism, if I can bring myself to admit it.

If you were to look at my family's residence, this would be confirmed to you. The place that I spend the vast majority of my time is one room - a small study, easily 5% of the entire place. The other 95% is our bedroom, kitchen, living room, et cetera et cetera. This nintey-five percent is dominated by my wife: she has picked out the furnishings, has the final say in the decorating, and generally reflects her presence and taste (which I love and am grateful for, by the way). However, if you retreat back to the five percent in which I inhabit, there is barely any "space;" it is dominated by books, clutter, and (for our purposes here) gadgetry, tech, and wires. These are my interests, and this is what I have "decorated" with.

Now what may be either ingenious or just shocking, is that What the Thunder Said is actually meant to combat my diagnosis of informationism(as well as Thunder Speak). Rather than passively sit in front of a screen, receiving whatever the internet gods force down my information-gorged retinas, this blog is an attempt for me to actively meditate and chew over reflections and ponderings, to coherently and engagingly interact with the networking world beyond my ego. Technology is, after all, not inherently corrupted. Nature is meant to be redeemed. Rather, it is sin-weakened flesh, corroborating with sin-stained law (Romans 8:2-3) that have caused problems as humans; and this sphere must be declared as sovereignly owned and ruled by Christ the Lord. May What the Thunder Said serve as the herald of the announcement of this evangelion to the internet and her meaning-deprived world.