What's On My Braaaiiiin...

I spoke at Waypoint Community Church this past weekend in a fun, dialogue/interview style format with my friend Blair Carlstrom (formerly on staff here at GCC, now Exec Pastor at Waypoint). We meet about once a month anyway at a local restaurant to talk about...well... all kinds of stuff, and decided to carry that simulated format into the teaching time of the worship service so that the congregation could "listen in" on one of our conversations.

The topic of conversation for the day was how impending technology will radically re-shape the nature of the issues that churches will be looking to have to engage in the next two to four decades. In most instances, i don't think that most people in ministry are aware that these issues even exist, much less the seizmic ramifications of how they will affect our worlds. There are more than just these four, but for starters, the convergence of the following (termed GNRC in current literature) are outlined here:

Genetics - The ability to engineer the "building blocks" of our own makeup have farther reaching potential effects than just "designer babies" (i.e. "I want my daughter to be 6' tall, an amazing athlete, have an IQ of 210, be blond and blue eyed, and have genetic resistance to acne and an allergic reaction to stupid males"), and we're already considering the implications of such things as cloning, stem-cell enhanced cures for critical diseases, and even organ fabrication. What if, through such technology, the length of a human life literally begins to push 150 years or geometrically higher over the next few decades until "death" by conventional means or causes is something that happens with relative infrequency.

Nanotechnology - Working with microscopic structures that are smaller than even cells, nanotechnology engineers shapes (and eventually even possibly more complicated mechanisms) that are smaller than 100 nanometers in length. Imagine if some day, small "robots" can be programmed with DNA-based computers to enter your bloodstream and seek/destroy cancer cells in your liver, thus omitting the need for invasive surgery. When they've done their job, they just dissolve into your bloodstream and then exit your body through waste. Did you know that there's a $51 million investment in our own back yard here in South Bend (in conjunction with Notre Dame, Purdue and some major city and community investors) to build a Nanotech R&D facility at the old "South Bend Lathe" facility? This will be only 1 of 4 in the nation, and could literally do to South Bend what Microsoft did to Redmond, Washington in terms of jobs and visibility.

Robotics - We're still a long way from "doomsday" scenarios like those featured in the Terminator movies, the Matrix movies, or even iRobot, but suffice to say that the conventional robotics industry has been making massive leaps and bounds in terms of not only anthropomorphization ("making robots seem more human"), but in terms of function. Think about how many automated functions you don't even think about any more. I drove down the toll road the other day and a machine handed me my ticket. Or you can use iZoom and do away with toll-booths completely. But even more astounding is the idea that according to ideas posited by Moore's Law, by 2040 or so, for $1,000, you should be able to buy a computer with roughly the equivalent computing power of a human being (in calculations per second), and by 2060, for the same price, a computer with the computing power of the entire human race!

Cybernetics - At what point is it actually "more advantageous" to have something prosthetically enhanced than to have "normal" parts? Recently, a South African runner named Oscar Pistorius (named "The Blade Runner") has been the focus of public debate because, as a double-amputee, he's actually faster with his prosthetic legs than many "normal" humans he competes against. Cybernetics, then, attempts to blend both the science of robotics with those of biology to augment the human experience by actually incorporating synthetic, robotic or digital systems into or with a human being in order to enhance, heighten or equalize those experiences. It is entirely within realm to say that in just a few years, we may very well be "merging" in very real and practical ways with the technology we are creating. Goodness knows, i'd certainly love a 50 gig hard drive to supplement my brain... wouldn't have worry about forgetting people's phone numbers any more! Imagine!

At the end of the day, the real issue at stake is simply this: "How will we begin to engage the issue of 'Identity' over 'Function'"? You see, so much of theology, praxis and what we say and do in ministry is geared at defining ourselves as individuals and even as a race by "what we do". Certain things you "do" are "sin". Certain things you "do" are "not". But there is something "core" at the soul/spirit level that drives those actions, and far too often, we target the former and not the latter for true transformation. It's been that way for thousands of years. "Hi, I'm Jack... i'm a Missions Guy at a local church." "Hi, Jack, I'm Bill, i'm a doctor/lawyer/whatever." Function. But how do you define "who you are"? If i ask you to introduce yourself, chances are, you'll tell me your roles and functions as a cue to telling me about "who you are", but your roles and functions do not define your essence (that immaterial part of you that does not change with "what you do"). What do you say to someone if they ask you to define the "immaterial part of you that makes you what and who you are?"

How much more so will this be true as machines outside and inside of us begin to blur the lines of what it means to be "really human". Further, how much of "you" can be modified, augmented, taken away, replaced or enhanced before you cease to be "you" and become something (or someone) else entirely? We used to say, "no machine can (fill in whatever blank you want)..." but every time statements like that are made, they inevitably, as John Von Neuman said in 1949, "... sound pretty silly in about three to five years." So when we enter a rapidly approaching world where we have the ability to manipulate (or mutilate) our bodies to make them become what we want them to be, start living (potentially) for decades or centuries beyond what our "normal" lifespan currently looks like, and begin to merge seamlessly with the technology we create, how will a theology based on line-item verse pointing hold up?