Five Pillars of Christianity and Technology Taking over the World
Ever consider how the movement of technology is eerily similar to the characteristics of Christianity? Never had I, until Thursday.
Then, in World Christianity class, our prof talked about someone who came up with the five pillars or characteristics of Christianity. These are handy to keep in my for mission, and they’re good to remember because we often think of Christianity in our own neat and tidy way. These pillars are broader claims about CHRISTIANITY, big letters, with an emphasis on Christianity the world over.
First the five pillars, and then how they connect to technology…
Five Pillars/Characteristics of Christianity
- translability: there is no one language of Christianity. Latin was once used for theology, but it Christianity is inherently translatable
- uses people’s idiomatic expressions of the divine: related to the first, but considers, for instance, how we translate the name of God into different languages
- biographical: Christianity is both about biography of individuals –one’s self– and the biographies of communities of believers. Primarily, though, it is about the biography of Jesus — which we will expound on in testimonies, or sing in hymns.
- poly-centric: not one center of Christianity (but centers, perhaps)
- cross-culturally diffused: loses its cohesiveness in order to interact with the context where it has been received, in that new context gain gains a new cohesiveness
Ok, now think about how new technologies, Web 2.0, and the basic movement of information relates to each pillar of Christianity.
- Technologies are not in one language. In fact, the internet necessarily breaks down language barriers.
- Tech stuff isn’t about expressions of the divine, but it is all about idioms, idiomatic expressions of what people claim as important (even sacred?) in their lives — that’s the blogosphere in a nutshell
- Blogging, facebook, twitter is sooo biographical it’s almost too much for me. They’re all about biography and community, though.
- Clearly, there’s no one center of the net and that’s what gives it enormous power
- This last one is tricky, because technology doesn’t really lose its cohesiveness when met with a new environment, but it does become co-opted and gain a stronger cohesiveness when used well in the new setting.
If this were a paper, I’d now have to tie this up with a sweet conclusion. But it’s not. So I won’t. I do think, though, perhaps this means that Christianity — perhaps uniquely — may be spread through the use of technology. This seems like a big jump, perhaps, but I’ll take it for now. Or, on the other hand, I wonder if Christianity might be threatened by technology because they share so many characteristics? Is this why the church is so rapidly declining in Europe and the US, but growing in South America, Africa, and parts of Asia? Probably not.
Any ideas what to make of this?
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Last spring I was reading a history of hip-hop ( Can’t Stop Won’t Stop by Jeff Chang) and found some similarities between Christianity and hip-hop. The five pillars you mention here were similar to the things I was thinking about – ability to translate, to enculturate, to adapt and modify for both individuals and cultures, and that they both began on margins of the broader culture. I think one of the most remarkable things about Christianity is its ability to relate, to be relevant across culture and through time. I haven’t taken a social movements course, but I’m wondering these themes are typical of other encompassing movements, or if there’s something especially protean about Christianity.
Great stuff!
Jeff
Thanks Jeff. Curious considerations re the hip hop stuff. Notice that not all world religions have many of the pillars, and Islam, for instance, probably has none. Buddhism has one and two. I’d better stop there before making any huge mistakes–or any others;)
Perhaps these pillars can be considered defining features of Christianity, but it seems a stretch to consider them exclusive to Christianity out of all the religions in the world.
Positing translatability as “inherently translatable” would entail that any religion possesses this pillar unless in translation its meaning is altered beyond some arbitrary judgement of relationship between translated and original meaning. But accepting pillars two and five would suggest that mutability of a religion’s meaning is not problematic within the typology you’ve defined. Empirically, it might be true to say that Christianity has been translated into more languages than other religions but asserting that it is inherently more translatable is a very difficult argument to make.
With regard to the specific mention you make of Buddhism, I would assert that Buddhism can be seen as possessing all five pillars. In terms of biography, one could certainly posit that there is an analogous pattern of self-community-religious figure in following Buddha’s life and teachings. Polycentricity, whether intended as geographic or doctrinal is certainly applicable and is in the case of Buddhism a corollary of pillar five. There are multiple schools of Buddhism (Zen, Theravada, Vipassna) which would each have their own geographic centre and which reflect adaptation of Buddhism to different contexts. Being less familiar with Islam, I’ll refrain from applying your model to it, but I think it unlikely that it would have none of the pillars.
I think that while these pillars may allow for interesting empirical observations about how Christianity has fared globally, I don’t think that they are intrinsically unique to Christianity,and in fact, could be identified in almost any cultural movement, sacred or profane which is geographically diffuse and temporally persistent. In other words, mutability, local adaptation of culture, and integration of culture into individual and community “biographies”, translatability (which could be said to always be inherently an act of approximation) are very much the norm. Consequently, this typology could possibly be used to render a claim that Christianity to many aspects of culture, right down to a 4chan meme.
Overall, I’d hazard a guess that technology is not itself in competition with Christianity. Rather, technology is merely instrumental in the diffusion of ideas and culture which compete with Christianity.
Apropos of the comment by Nidya, the word of God may be a wonderful thing for those in third world countries, but timely achievement of the Millenium Development Goals might also be wonderful, perhaps even miraculous. If being better nourished, better educated and healthier means they will be less willing to embrace God’s word, I suspect that’s a tradeoff many would make.
Interesting post!
The first one, I think, is a particularly important distinctive. Christianity is not mediated by a particular race or culture, or by the linguistic constructs of one society. It’s far more universal.
good thoughts on christianity. thanks.
The observation I often make is the devotion that is required by the leadership of our technological society. The most advanced discoveries are made on university campuses. In order to get a Ph.D. you need to sacrifice everything and take a vow of poverty (unless you are already independently wealthy). It’s somewhat monk-like. Science has become a religion and technologies are the implements of worship.
This is the article I chose to e-mail for my computer aticle.
THANKS,
DeAnte Nails
Very interesting comparison, and it makes A LOT of sense. I was partial to the last paragraph it is interesting that Christianity seems to be advancing in what we would call “third world” countries more-so than we see here in the US were our entire world revolves around technology(How many of us have just felt completely out of touch with the world if we left our cellphones at home one day?) Im not sure if that is directly related to technology in itself, or could it be that we as Americans are not necessarily a “starving” culture; were third world countries so-to-speak are starving in almost all senses of the word so they embrace what we bring them and it is a wonderful thing that that is the word of God. This article definitely got me thinking.
What an interesting idea! The part of this article that I most like is about the language, what a true concept!
This article is very interesting I would have never thought to make a comparison between Christianity and the Internet. After reading this article I really feel like I could utilize the internet more to spread the Gospel. I feel so enlighten right all of a sudden.
This would be a fantastic thesis for a Masters or Doctorate, I might borrow it for a paper if you don’t mind..
Most radical movements carry some similar attributes. This really drew some great comparisons though!
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God Bless,
Jordan