The Christian Mind and Google

A scenario you have probably seen recently—you and your friends are debating certain issues and you come up on a question.  Where do you go to find the answer?  Just Google it.  That seems to be the first response these days.  If it relates to an event, entertainment, food, money, relationships, politics, the economy, and the like, we find today that often we go to Google for help in finding the answer.  It’s quick and easy.  Also, you don’t have to work hard for the answer.  What a joy!

Is it the same among Christians today?  When we want an answer to a question about the Christian life, do we Google it?  If there is a matter related to any of the same categories above and you are looking for an answer from a Christian perspective, do you Google it?  What about deeper issues of our faith and doctrine?  Let’s Google it and take a chance that what we see is biblical and correct.  What is the effect on the Christian mind when we do this?

This has been nagging me a lot over the past few years as a believer.   I have a hard time reconciling this with diligent, systematic Bible study.  After all, we are supposed to involved in studying the Scriptures, aren’t we?  Now I can even read the Bible in Tweets.  Maybe some of our brains can’t handle more than that anyway.  Leave it to the preachers to teach us.

But wait, now we just stay at home and get the preacher’s podcast.  I can lounge around in my pajamas Sunday morning and play the service in the background while petting the dog.  Get me a cup of Joe, the morning news, and my preacher on webcast.  Man, this Christianity thing is great!  I wonder what Jesus would do?  WWJD?

Well, apparently we are no longer asking “WWJD” but we are asking “WWGD,” that is, “What Would Google Do?”  The book has been written, I am not kidding.  The author Jeff Jarvis has prophesied in the new book What Would Google Do? that if we are not asking the question we are going to be left behind in the dust of some prior model of obsolescence.  Google is our new model for thinking, according to Jarvis, and it is hard to find a sector of life and business that has not already been affected by its influence.   Jarvis goes on to say, “Google is changing our societies, our lives, our relationships, our worldviews, probably even our brains in ways we can only begin to calculate.”

That’s where I got concerned for Christians.  We are new creations in Christ, the old has gone, the new has come.  Our minds should be set on what the Spirit desires as we live with the Holy Spirit within us; the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace (see Romans 8:5-8).  We read Scripture, we pray, we turn our minds toward God, toward His goodness, toward life in the Son.  Yet we seek quick answers to spiritual things by Googling it.  Dangers abound when we do.

Fight the reflex.  That’s right, fight the reflex to Google an answer to a spiritual question.  Go to the Source.  We are told to “take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5).  We are even told we have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).  Dwell on this a bit, and when you have a question go to God’s Word.  Ask the Lord to know your mind, to know your thoughts, and to lead you in the way everlasting (Psalm 139).

I know what I am saying may sound contrarian, but I maintain that Jesus was a contrarian.  So I am returning to WWJD next time I am seeking an answer.  I hope you will follow.

The Economy: Searching for Answers

It’s July 4th and all’s well—I guess.   I don’t want to give a hearty amen to this statement because I have been reading Business Week.  So many questions, yet so many incomplete or less-than-hearty answers.

Have you noticed the lack of commitment by all the business experts?  Here’s an example, “All this austerity will pay off—eventually.”  Or Jack and Suzy Welch’s answer to the question “When will this *@&^ recession end?”  They answered, “How about sometime in 2010?  The problem with being more precise, you see, is the mixed picture out there.”

I would agree with that.  But just give me a straight answer.  I want to know whether the stimulus plan is working—plenty of hemmin’ and hawin’ when it comes to an answer to this question.  How many more banks will fail?  It depends on how you define “fail.”  Is there any hope for the automobile industry?  Maybe if they can come up with new and exciting products.  When will unemployment stop rising?  We may be near the bottom of readjustment, so we should see this trend slowing.

There is one question from this issue of Business Week that reveals where the American public seeks an answer.  They are seeking their answer from the White House, which may indicate that we are drifting toward increasing reliance on our federal government to solve everything.  The question:  “What one issue would matter most in your presidential vote?”  Over 50% of the respondents to the Pew Research Center poll answered, “Economy/Jobs.”  Moral values rated, but only at 10%.  Compare these figures to the same poll in 2004.  Terrorism/Iraq/Afghanistan garnered 36%, the economy 21%, and moral values 27%.

Of course the economy would rank higher in this year’s poll.  And it would seem reasonable for Terrorism/Iraq/Afghanistan shrinking to 8% as we move further away from 9/11/01.  My concern is the shrinking emphasis on moral values.  Just take a look at some of the moral issues we see around us, in particular among political leaders.  If we can’t have politicians who know how to act responsibly on a personal level, then we likely will not have politicians who can address major issues with the economy in a responsible manner.

We need men and women who will serve this country with dignity, that will set a proper example for the next generation.  Yes, the economy is perhaps the most significant issue of the day.  But let’s not throw out our morals.  This might just be the time when we consider that the really important things in life are the intangibles.  Our lives will be the richer for it.  Oh, and happy July 4th!

What Would You Accomplish With Billions of Dollars?

I am watching with great interest the hoopla surrounding the “stimulus package” being offered by the Democrats in our U.S. Congress.  According to Daniel Henninger’s excellent analysis in today’s Wall Street Journal, this American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (just 700 pages of reading) is more a “self” stimulus bill than it is an economic stimulus bill because of how much would be spent on rebuilding the government’s infrastructure.  For example, the boast within the bill that says 3 million jobs will be created fails to clarify that these jobs will all be on our government’s payroll with the federal government as their boss.  Is this economic stimulus?  Sounds sketchy and a bit scary to me.

Whatever happened to zero-based budgeting?  You know, where we figure out what is needed first and then assign a cost.  It seems we have reversed this process to something like, “How much money can we spend or print?” and then let’s start putting everything into categories of spending.  We can’t operate our own homes this way.

I looked over some of the numbers in the stimulus package and have never seen so many zeros in all my life.   There is $6,000,000,000 for the construction, repair, and alteration of Federal buildings.  How about $375,000,000 to rebuild trails on our Federal lands?  Or we have the Weatherization Assistance Program chiming in at $6,200,000,000.  By the way, what is that $500,000,000 of expenses included within this?  No detail, just half-a-billion dollars of expenses.

Perhaps in contrast, I became aware that Wycliffe Bible Translators launched the Last Languages Campaign.  This campaign focuses on translating the Bible into 2300 languages that remain on their list of people groups without a Bible in their native language.  Bob Creson, President of Wycliffe, gathered their staff together to pray and plan this campaign.  It was fueled by a donor who asked the question, “If I gave you $100,000,000 for your work, what would you accomplish?”  This is cold, hard cash.  The Last Languages Campaign will enable all of these remaining languages to have a translation started by the year 2025.  The price tag is $1,000,000,000 (give or take a few dollars).

This represents billions of dollars that will accomplish something far-reaching on a scope that influences many people groups on the face of the earth.  It is not an “invest in ourselves” mentality like the Democrats are proposing, but rather an “invest in others” plan that will influence untold cultures and societies for the better.  The lesson for us, and for the next generation, is to look at how we invest in others and how we learn to be a conduit for good while we inhabit a short time on the face of this earth.  The present fades away, the eternal endures.  This must become our focus.