Let’s step away from the news today to discuss the way we consume the news. The Guardian asks, “Are we living in a golden age of stupidity?” Here are some reasons for the question:

• American high school seniors’ scores on math and reading tests have fallen to their lowest levels on record.
• Dependence on AI tools erodes critical thinking skills, harms learning and creativity, and increases isolation and loneliness.
• Research shows that overuse of social media, video games, and other digital platforms impairs executive functioning skills, including memory, planning, and decision-making.
• Short-form videos have been conclusively linked to poorer mental health and cognition.
• “Brain rot” has become such an ubiquitous term that Oxford University Press selected it as its 2024 word of the year.

Andrew Budson, a Boston University neurologist who specializes in memory disorders, explains our problem: we are using technology for the wrong purposes.

“Their brains actually shrink”

Dr. Budson reports that “our brains evolved for social interactions.” As a result, “People who become socially isolated, their brains actually shrink, even if they don’t have a disorder, and people who are socially isolated are at increased risk of developing dementia.”

I would amend his observation to say that our brains “were created for social interactions” by our triune God, who is relational by nature and made us in his image (Genesis 1:27). Nonetheless, Dr. Budson’s point stands: When we use technology in ways that isolate us from others, we misuse our brains. And this is by far the primary way we use technology.

Right now, I am sitting alone in my study as I type these words. You are likely reading or hearing what I write by yourself as well. Even if you watch television or a movie today in the company of others, you are unlikely to be discussing or experiencing it relationally. Earbuds and headphones intentionally block out everything else. Screens we can hold in our hands keep our hands from doing anything else.

And research emphatically shows that such isolation causes our brains to shrink, lose neuroplasticity, and otherwise decline in health and function.

So the answer is to engage more fully with the world around us, or so it would seem.

Not so fast.

“A dangerous network of domination”

Henri Nouwen warned in The Way of the Heart: “Our society is not a community radiant with the love of Christ, but a dangerous network of domination and manipulation in which we can easily get entangled and lose our souls.”

Nouwen then explained how we become so entangled:

“Compulsive” is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated, or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman, or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world.

If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contacts. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same—more work, more money, more friends.

If being isolated from the world harms our brains, but engaging with the world entangles us in its lostness, what is the way forward?

“Loving a holy God is beyond our moral power”

In The Holiness of God, theologian R. C. Sproul observed:

Loving a holy God is beyond our moral power. The only kind of God we can love by our sinful nature is an unholy god, an idol made by our own hands. Unless we are born of the Spirit of God, unless God sheds his holy love in our hearts, unless he stoops in his grace to change our hearts, we will not love him. . . . To love a holy God requires grace, grace strong enough to pierce our hardened hearts and awaken our moribund souls.

1. S. Lewis would have agreed. Commenting on Jesus’ sixth beatitude (Matthew 5:8), he noted: “It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to.”

So, the way forward seems clear:

1. Recognize our need for the grace by which God changes our hearts and transfigures us with his love (2 Corinthians 5:17).
2. Pray for such transformation daily as we submit to the Spirit who alone can sanctify us (Ephesians 5:18; Romans 12:1).
3. Partner with God by refusing conformity to the world and seeking the “renewal of your mind” in Scripture, prayer, and worship (Romans 12:2).
4. Engage in technology and other isolating activities while in conversation with the Spirit as he guides our minds and hearts (John 14:26).
5. Engage in community while in conversation with the Spirit as he speaks through us to draw us closer to our Lord and thus to each other (cf. Matthew 10:20).

In short, “practice the presence of God,” as Brother Lawrence famously advised. What happens when we do?

“Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lᴏʀᴅ”

The Bible reports that “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). The Hebrew for “walked with God” could be translated, “continually conversed and traveled together with the Lord.”

The phrase is used of only one other person: “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). I think the latter explains the former: because he “walked” with God, he acquired God’s character and thus was “righteous” and “blameless.”

But an earlier reference explains them both: “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lᴏʀᴅ” (v. 8). “Found favor” could be translated, “received grace.”

So we are back to our pathway to God’s best: receiving the grace of God leads to walking in the presence of God, which leads to being transformed into the character of God, which leads to (in Enoch’s case and ours one day) being taken into heaven with God.

Will you pray for such transforming grace now?

Quote for the day:

“A Christian is never in a state of completion but always in the process of becoming.” —Martin Luther

Our latest website resources:

• Reason for hope after the shooting of Alex Pretti
• Finding hope after life’s detours
• What is the purpose of the Board of Peace? Trusting God when we cannot see him
• “Owning” Greenland and other legal fictions: Why do we seek to possess what can never be truly ours?
• Greenland explained, Indiana’s championship run, Iran updates, Minnesota tensions & Epstein files

 

Denison Forum