About Technology

The version used is KJV

Before we get to the specifics of the devices, we should look at some driving forces in our thinking to see if we can apply any of this consistently.

About the principles or whys

Before we look at the specifics of technology, we need to understand why some of us plain people believe what we do and why.. The underlying theme is that we are of the Kingdom of Heaven and not of this world, therefore we need to be set-apart from the world.

These are to be answered and pondered on an individual basis and then as a church body and community.

why do we drive horse and buggy: because its part of ordnung, we have always done it, we like it, plain people means horse and buggy or automobile is of the devil etc.
why do we have telephone outside the house or not at all: because its part of ordnung, technology is evil and cant come into the house, thats where we get the best signal etc.
why do we not live in large city: beacuse its part of ordnung, our ancestors never lived in cities, plain people never live in cities or we need to have land/acreage etc.

Based on how we answer the above questions, will greatly affect our reasoning for technology choices. What follows is my interpretation of various discussions with plain brethren and how the answers to above questions guide them to technology choice.

We are X and so....

If the above questions were answered using: ordnung or what our parents have always done, without understanding why, we will be swayed in getting technology devices (smart phones etc.) based on spirit of the age, business pressures and economomic persecutions.

The main thing I am driving for is in understanding the spirit present in our anabaptist ancestors, when these decisions were made and stuck with for generations, therefore to understand the principles behind them, so we can now apply them in our current setup.

Here then is what I have observed from various interactions with a wide spectrum of plain people, in how some of these past decisions were made. I am sure there are several the reader could think of.

adherence to principles of the Word of God in how to apply set-apartness from the world, while ensuring concious decision on any inclusion of worldly progress into our lives
awareness that when decision is made to let in one practice of the world, it will invariably bring with it several others, while bringing more through generations that we cant foresee yet
understanding that not all brethren and their households are at the same maturity and there by being very careful to not cast stumbling blocks in including a practice that will weaken that brother or his family's walk
debating if the practice being applied appeals to our flesh or what effect it has on our flesh as well as our health

Sidebar: headcovering as a barometer

One thing I have noticed in various churches I have visited or communities I have engaged with is the following: the way of the headcovering is an indication of what is to come. I dont have a statistical study to back this, but just my observations.

Many chruch that relax the full covering of the hair of women to just a part or just the back of the head, also have let in use of smartphones and use of smartphones with unrestricted internet access. As a church body relaxes the traditional headcovering, it seem to let in other aspects of technologies that might otherwise were shunned. In short order (some bodies in less than 10 years) have ended up the way of the world. Its downward slope to worldly conformance.

As we have seen in the past 50 years or so, the place of the world is full of unlimited devices with no headcovering, where headcovering is viewed as bondage and against womens rights etc.

The corollary or inverse is not true. The above doesnt mean that communities that subscribe to full headcovering are perfect in their technology choices, I cannot make that assertion.

[I thank brother Cornell and brother Monroe for discussions on these topics]

1 John 2:16

Technology choices need to be evaluated against the three specific areas of worldly attributes that apostle John writes about - lust of flesh, lust of eyes and pride of life.

Lust of flesh

This can be translated into few different variants using the underlying Greek.

desire and craving of our fallen nature
coveting and gluttony of our flesh

Due to the fallen nature, it is easy to fall trap to titilation of various things that comes from the technology devices. This can range from the sounds/songs/audio to things that can be accomplished using the device that makes our life comfortable and our flesh not stretch, thereby short changing the growth that is needed in our sanctification.

Lust of eyes

This can be translated into few different variants using the underlying Greek.

longing and desire of what eye find pleasing
desire and craving of what eye finds interesting
coveting and lust of what the mind perceives

Since many of the technology devices have some form of screen, it is easy to start with the obvious traps that causes in viewing images and videos of not only inappropriate content but also search and explore things that the mind perceives as interesting. This can also be the very desire to have one of these technological device, where we covet what some one else has in the world or covet what they are able to accomplish with the said device. The social media is that trap which the device can be a gateway to, where we fall for the lust of eyes and dont even realize it. This was one reason we abandoned all social media in 2019 with use of it for business and advertising business items.

Pride of life

This can be translated into few different variants using the underlying Greek.

ostentatiousness of existence
boasting of a property or posession we own
pretention and arrogance of our lifestyle

This is the most subtle form of trap that we fall into when we justify the device of our choice, when it doesnt cause us to fall under lust of flesh and lust of eyes. The choice of the device and the capabilities it does, represents what this phrase in Greek implies. Many in the world have taken smartphones and smart devices to be status symbols. Therefore these are keeping up with the Joneses style of traps in them, inherently. In addition, these devices can be gateway to finding various information and details that have nothing to do with our walk, but we find it worthwhile and start to boast of our unearned wisdom. Many of the parroting and conformity of thoughts, come from unendingly chasing knowledge through these devices, which is now possible. I have fallen for this trap and had to repent of it in 2021.

Hypocrisy

As we try to answer the questions around why we need to see all our choices on technology using the principles driving the decisions as well as the worldly attributes of 1 John 2:16, we also need to be aware of our own inadequacies in reasoning, and avoid traps of being hypocrites. This section is purely on smart devices like smartphones and the peripherals that support them. Again, these are some illustrations and not an exhaustive list. Many of the readers can come up with better examples from their own walk, than these. These are again just tidbits to jog our thinking....

Search deeper

If you are accountable to the church body for sharing of your book library, CD collection or types of songs/hymns, then are you sharing the books in PDF form you got in your email or the type of phonelines you call into for information/songs and such
If the ordnung is to not allow newspapers or TV, can you still call into a news line using your phone

Connectivity required for business

If tractors are allowed for work in the fields, do you use them for personal transportation?
Can you really have the discipline to only use parts of the features of the device for what you want to do in business? Have you ever been able to go into a busy city or coastal town in summer and not sin with your eyes?
How did you survive before the smart devices? Does it only stop there?
Did you get a fax machine in the past, when that was deemed necessary in the business world? Did you get electronic organizers when for decades the world used them?
For having a good time, did you ever consider going to large cities or resorts for vacation? How did you deal with large cities and tempations thereof, when you had to visit for business in past? What if that city and its temptations now came to you in the device?

Required for business

If you want efficiency that the device provides, why not use the latest electric car which is very efficient and ditch your older vehicle or the horse/buggy?
If economic pressures forced you to become a male prostitute would you do that to justify supporting your family?
If you think its mandated by customers/suppliers/vendors, do you drive the business or does your customers/suppliers/vendors drive it? What if you customer wanted to hear your private home communications, will you still allow that to keeep doing business?
If you think with out this particular technology we cant survive in this current world, how did you survice without a washing machine, vaccuum cleaner or any of the inventions of the post-war period that brought in the fake prosperity to this country?
If you think the devices/technology will give you a way to can expand and support missions, why not leave the plain life and be a technologist which has the best pay and opportunities in current system?

Its just a tool

Many brothers have asked me: Whats wrong with it being used as just the tool? My answers have always been the inherent traps that are unseen even to inventors of these technologies. Since the device and the ecosystem around it is very complex, it has made it hard for one person to understand all that goes into that device, its power and functionality and the options it has. We know all things a simple rotary phone is able to do, as in make calls. But there were (and I am sure there are still) 800 and 900 numbers that can be called in for phone sex. Did we have the knowledge and power to block these numbers when we had rotary phones? We may justify it with the fact that we did not know these numbers as they were not listed in our phone books. But what if through the phone (smartdevice) you can search for these numbers or receive in email the questionable content.

Did you know when you brought the cellphone, approved by your church, that it will force you to make calls while driving or be accessible at all time of the day (since you carry it with you) and the expectation that if you cant be reached, the caller gets upset? So how did it affect your behavior and did you anticipate it when that decision was approved by your church or by you for your family?

I believe the recent inventions around the smart devices have a streak of inherent evil in them that is more subtle to detect. Therefore I dont believe the design of these devices are nuetral in of itself. If you want to know more why I think of this, a coversation over coffee or meal is warranted.

Time tested

Going from practices that had decades, if not centuries of experience to see its effect on our body (both physical and church), we have gone to just few years and in some instances few months to see what the effects of the devices are on us and our families.

The world talks about information at the speed of light and the progress we have made in increasing propensity; but to me its all indicative of the end times we are living in, where birth pain contractions, our Messiah talked of, are getting sharper and closer to the return of our King.

So many of these are not time tested and we have let them in, while in past we may be more circumspect and spend years debating, observing and then adopting. Now we are being to lead to these decisions on under a decade. Note that, even the secular world is now questioning the use of these tools from a mental health and well being, standpoint.

How can we know what our choice in technology of today will bring to our grand children? when the television revolution came, many of the conservative Mennonites and Amish fathers stood in the gap to not let that in, so I may enjoy that heritage of purer church in Lebanon. What will my grandchildren inherit if many of the plain communities are not standing in the gap? [Thanks to Larry Baer for this tidbit]

Whats to be done

Heart is desperately wicked [Jer17:9] and only God can search and know it [Jer17:10].

Therefore we cant reason in any way using worldly wisdom around use of these technologies.Once we understand this and prayerfully seek applying the principles of old, from our forefathers, we may with The Most High's help and guidance make the right choices for not only us and the generations to come.

Even with all of this, we can fail due to the ever increasing temptations that the world of technology is offering. For example, tractors have more technology than my 2000 computer. We may need to look at older models of vehicles and equipment, so we dont bring computer to our farm or driveway, if computer is not allowed as part of ordnung.

Many of the technology blurs the line of several devices of the past, there by making it impossible to just account for the primary purpose we need to use the device or technology for. I go into detail in part1. For example, if you want to allow email only, then a dedicated locked down computer setup oustide of the house may be a start. Better yet, using a disconnected setup where there is only a wired way to access a gateway computer which then does the connectivity, so you dont have direct access to internet or mail, is another way. One of the executives at work (who was older) from my past life, used to print out emails to process them. He had ofcourse an assistant that did the processing and handling of the print outs, but thats what he thought he needed to do, to remain pure (for his job) in his thinking.

As I have learnt from my Amish brethren, in order to provide for families, many men have resorted to construction as a means to make money, which had let in things of the world and degraded family relations and spiritual walk within years of employing that means. How much more so a technology or device which has unlimited access and power that we hardly can fathom?

Becoming the very thing you are trying to avoid

Therefore, we need to realize that we dont know what we dont know. Blocking access to certain function on a device is not always possible even with best of the efforts if the software can be used to overcome it. For example, even if internet access via web is locked down on the phone, an app can be designed to stream specific content and you may not recognize that. If you are privacy minded in making sure you are not advertising to the world all your details, the location service keeps track of your movement and based on the provider may send that regularly or periodically.

Hacker is a term used in technology who try to overcome/bypass/enter/break into digital things they are not allowed to. With having to block things that keep us safe, we need to become a hacker in mindset, so we know what is all possible by following a certain device and we then use countermeasures to prevent it. This is not only exhausting, but takes us down a slippery slope of becoming the very thing we didnt want.

In part 3 I plan to give some examples of few of the lifestyles I have observed that I am trying to employ in our lives.