The Church as Filtering Community | Thesis Chapter 6
I'm posting chapters of my masters thesis. See more here.
For 170 years we have been obsessed with machinery that would gives access, and give it fast, to a Niagara of information. Obviously, the Internet does that and we must give all due praise for its efficiency. But it does not help us, neither does television or any other 19th or 20th century medium (perhaps except the telephone), to solve the problem of what is significant information. ~ Neil Postman
Having to squeeze my thesis into a linear, black & white, double-spaced chunk of paper was ironic, considering I was writing about digital media. Even so, I did my best. I even started this chapter with a YouTube video:
This one (or previous versions of it) has been super popular. No doubt some of the stats are tilted for effect. But it shows how strong the tie between relationship and information is. In fact, this latest version picks up what I've asserted for five years now: Facebook will be more important than Google, because it has the power to sort or filter information based on our relationships: which is a natural human function. Think word of mouth.
In this chapter, I envision the church as the natural community that can practice discernment in the filtering of information, and specifically imagine the use of scripture in the community.
