Boers quotes Donald Nicholl:
The first thing one needs to know about a car, or any machine for that matter, is how to stop it. The same applies to the traffic of our daily lives.
-Arthur Boers, Living Into Focus, p. 139
I don’t have much to add to that quote. I remember a preacher I admire years ago talking about warning labels. He read an absurd warning label from a halloween costume and asked something like this: Why, when the world can, and legally must, warn the world about everything under the sun…Why, then has the church lost her message of warning? They are compelled to do so? Why are we not compelled? Where are the Ezekiels? Where are the watchmen? Why is it expected that the weatherman will warn us of the impending tornado while the church is expected to act as if everything is okay?
We’ve also lost our message of ‘stop.’
We think it’s too simplistic, too narrow minded, to naive. It’s not simplistic to tell a person they must be able to stop a car, or to show them how to do it. Perhaps we need to serve as models of the ability to stop when it comes to technology.
Stopping implies that we have started. We have not abstained totally, nor should we necessarily. But we can recognize when it’s time to turn something off for a time.
I like your suggestion that the idea of “stopping” ought to be a part of the discussion, because sometimes the issue with technology is starting and then knowing when to stop. We’ve discussed alot of other issues with tech, but I don’t know if this one has been brought up so directly yet.