Beyond Paradise: Technology and the Kingdom of God
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Technology is shaping our culture and controlling our lives--for better or for worse. Often, technology’s benefits far outweigh its negative impacts, and technological advances can seem boundless. But the scientific-technological worldview tends to override other value systems. Indeed, this technological way of thinking has influenced many contemporary ideas, beliefs, values, habits, and ways of communicating. Furthermore, in addition to technology’s well-known environmental impacts, social, aesthetic, and spiritual consequences are now emerging. How can we balance positive physical effects of technology with other ambiguous or negative impacts? Some of the decisions we face have no precedent from which to draw wisdom. For this reason, the resources of Scripture and the Christian tradition must be brought to bear on technological questions: How is technology used and abused today? Does technological progress lead to human progress? How can Scripture help us, both individually and collectively, to manage technology’s impact in proactive ways? Swearengen uncovers a comprehensive scriptural mandate for managing technology. On his way to a theology of technology, he evaluates which advances are moving society in directions consistent with God’s purposes. Beyond Paradise: Technology and the Kingdom of God aims to provide practical means for assessing technology’s influence and for steering technology and its effects toward biblical ends.
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In this “prophetic primer for church leaders,” engineer Jack
Swearengen draws on his personal and professional experience to
alert Christians to the pervasive nature of technology in our
world. He summarizes the views of both techno-optimists and
doomsayers on the effects of technology, paying particular
attention to “unintended consequences” and the limits that render
our cherished “American way of life” sustainable for only a few
more years. After a barrage of facts and figures supporting that
unsustainability, he explores a biblically based “theology of
technology,” proposing a kind of Hippocratic responsibility for his
fellow engineers and technologists. Swearengen’s broad experience
in industry, academia, weapons design, and policy-making has led
him to the relatively new field of “industrial ecology,” a more
holistic and biblically compatible approach to engineering design.
He conveys a sense of urgency in a book that abounds in detail and
is both intellectually and spiritually challenging.
Walter Hearn, professor of Christianity and science at New College
Berkeley, is a former biochemistry professor. He is the author of
Being a Christian in Science (IVP) and other works on the
interaction of science and faith.
"Jack Swearengen provides us with a sacrifice of love and insight
in this valuable work. It is a labor of love in that he boldly
ventures into areas to tell us that our best Biblical principles
apply to the evaluation of science and technology. A trained
engineer boldly steps out of his comfort zone into philosophy and
cultural analysis to tell us our technological and scientific idols
are failing us. He does this with passion, insight, and depth,
traits often missing in today’s get-it-down-now society. I highly
recommend this book."
The Reverend Dr. Robert Wauzzinski, Professor of Philosophy and
Religion, Ball State University, President of Interfacing, and
author of Discerning Prometheus
"Swearengen is a Jeremiah for our times, calling on Christians to
stop the idolatrous worship of science and technology. Secular
values are driving innovation, reshaping the world in ways neither
environmentally nor spiritually sustainable. To counteract this, he
recognizes, Christians must limit and shape technology using
Biblical guidelines. Church leaders and others concerned about
global warming, exhaustion of fossil fuels, human cloning,
surveillance, violence, and other technology-implicated problems
will find this wise and learned book a tremendous resource."
Edward Woodhouse, Professor of Science and Technology Studies,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, author of Averting
Catastrophe: Strategies for Regulating Risky Technologies
Product Details
- Title : Beyond Paradise: Technology and the Kingdom of God
- Author: Swearengen, Jack Clayton
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Publication Date: 2007
- ISBN: 9781498275033
Dr. Jack Swearengen's career has included equipment design,
research in materials science, and the application of science and
technology to arms control and weapons dismantlement. He served as
staff member, supervisor, and manager at Sandia National
Laboratories, Scientific Advisor for the Secretary of Defense, and
Professor and Founding Director of Engineering Programs at
Washington State University in Vancouver. He was science advisor
for the US delegation at the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in
Geneva, Switzerland.
Dr. Swearengen has published more than sixty articles in
professional journals, including ten on technology and society. He
has been deacon, elder, and Director of Education in local
churches, administrator of
para-church organizations, and has taught adult classes for thirty
years. He is a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation.