iPhone Fasting
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome back to a new week of episodes
00:00:06.640 | on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:00:08.520 | Last Friday in episode 577,
00:00:10.960 | we talked about the dangers inherent
00:00:12.880 | with digital communications technology.
00:00:15.580 | I think we all sense this is a topic that's important,
00:00:18.120 | and yet we really don't know and understand
00:00:19.800 | what all the dangers are of that technology at this stage.
00:00:24.160 | This technology, of course,
00:00:25.320 | is wrapped up into all of our lives.
00:00:27.040 | We're using it right now,
00:00:28.760 | and I'm on the phone again with Dr. Bruce Heidmarsch,
00:00:31.320 | a historian and the James M. Houston
00:00:33.680 | Professor of Spiritual Theology
00:00:36.000 | at Regent College in Vancouver.
00:00:38.200 | Bruce, most of us simply cannot disconnect
00:00:40.920 | and become digital monks,
00:00:42.720 | so we need to master the art of technology fasting.
00:00:46.400 | What are some practical helps for doing this well?
00:00:49.920 | - I think that's really good,
00:00:50.840 | and I wanna talk a little bit about fasting,
00:00:54.520 | 'cause I think that's the right kind of way
00:00:56.720 | to begin to think and reframe this.
00:00:58.960 | I think the first thing we need to do in our churches
00:01:01.160 | and in our discipleship context
00:01:04.000 | is to do what you've just done, is to name it,
00:01:05.960 | to name the task and to acknowledge it,
00:01:08.080 | because it can become invisible.
00:01:09.520 | It's just, it's the environment you live in.
00:01:12.800 | We need to acknowledge that we're going to need
00:01:14.560 | to experiment with disciplines,
00:01:16.640 | with practices that help us live in this world,
00:01:19.620 | and see what helps.
00:01:21.160 | And maybe we will need,
00:01:23.800 | I'd like to make a call for some people
00:01:26.480 | to be actually to be digital monks,
00:01:28.600 | and some people to be digital hermits,
00:01:31.120 | to preserve and report back
00:01:32.680 | what it's like to live another way.
00:01:34.920 | "It won't be long," says the historian,
00:01:37.020 | "until we have no one left
00:01:38.460 | "who'll be able to remember what it was like
00:01:40.280 | "to live before computers or to live before the internet.
00:01:42.920 | "We'll have no one left who is formed
00:01:44.780 | "in their mind and heart
00:01:46.700 | "and their habits by another reality."
00:01:49.240 | And some digital hermits,
00:01:50.640 | like it's good to have some astronauts
00:01:52.160 | who can report back what it's like
00:01:53.580 | to live in another reality.
00:01:55.160 | I think there may be some people
00:01:56.440 | who actually are called to see how far they can unplug
00:02:00.360 | and live that way,
00:02:01.640 | not everyone, but some people.
00:02:05.480 | And then I think what's not required
00:02:07.640 | for all people at all times
00:02:08.960 | should be still relevant to all Christians at some times.
00:02:13.120 | And that's like fasting.
00:02:14.600 | I think that's a great model.
00:02:16.040 | Saying no to something good to say yes to something better.
00:02:20.120 | Checking that we have not become addicted and enslaved.
00:02:22.960 | And making space for God.
00:02:26.800 | And I think here's where realistic practices
00:02:30.640 | that limit the dangers of the technology
00:02:34.120 | and seeing what's going to be helpful
00:02:35.840 | in our own discipleship.
00:02:37.240 | Once we recognize the need for it,
00:02:38.520 | I think there's lots of room for experimenting.
00:02:41.080 | I have a friend who, he's a college professor.
00:02:44.640 | He doesn't check his email until 4 p.m.
00:02:47.840 | That's his rule of life.
00:02:49.320 | Doesn't check his email until 4 p.m.
00:02:51.500 | And he actually, one day a week he sits
00:02:54.360 | and he just works in the kind of coffee shop area
00:02:57.480 | so he can meet face to face with students
00:02:59.480 | and they know he's available.
00:03:00.800 | They don't have to just email him.
00:03:02.720 | I have another friend, a senior scholar,
00:03:05.160 | who his rule of life is he checks his email twice a day,
00:03:08.200 | but no more.
00:03:09.040 | I put away my smartphone, shut down my email on Sundays.
00:03:12.920 | They have one day a week
00:03:13.960 | when I fast a little bit digitally.
00:03:16.600 | Some people will need to put their smartphone
00:03:19.560 | in another room than their bedroom.
00:03:21.120 | So it's not the first thing they look at in the morning.
00:03:23.400 | They can begin with prayer and Bible reading
00:03:26.240 | and have a space for that
00:03:27.880 | rather than immediately jumping on digital media.
00:03:31.680 | I think it's also important to have,
00:03:34.800 | you say no to something to say yes to something else.
00:03:37.640 | So maybe while one gives up email,
00:03:39.880 | one chooses to write a letter to somebody
00:03:42.660 | with pen and ink and paper.
00:03:44.160 | It's a wonderful way to try to say something
00:03:46.840 | that has a different kind of impact.
00:03:48.560 | Garrison Keillor called this handmade writing.
00:03:51.880 | But there's other focal practices
00:03:54.000 | that put us in touch with creation
00:03:55.520 | and with our bodies and with other people.
00:03:57.760 | Walking outdoors with loved ones,
00:03:59.760 | gardening, reading a book, slow food,
00:04:03.800 | taking time to make a meal over a long period of time.
00:04:08.600 | Focal practices that actually reground our lives
00:04:13.600 | and do a lot of good things.
00:04:15.880 | I think we can use technology to limit technology,
00:04:18.200 | use reminders to shut off the phone and pray,
00:04:20.600 | filters, I think probably everyone should have filtering
00:04:23.800 | and accountability software of some kind on their computers
00:04:26.440 | and their phones and their devices.
00:04:28.240 | I think it's also important that our digital world
00:04:33.000 | is not by default secular.
00:04:35.820 | So we need ways of acknowledging that in my world of email
00:04:40.120 | and texting and Facebook, it's not simply a secular world.
00:04:42.920 | God is there, that scripture and prayer
00:04:46.220 | and Christian fellowship, all the things
00:04:49.040 | that constitute the Christian life
00:04:50.360 | are present in my digital world.
00:04:52.440 | I don't just leave that as an alien world to God, he's there.
00:04:55.440 | I think one of the most important focal practices
00:04:59.080 | that Christians could do as,
00:05:02.160 | so there's some element of saying no of fasting,
00:05:04.960 | at least from time to time, but is to recommit ourselves.
00:05:10.320 | And so here's a practical suggestion,
00:05:12.600 | but to reinvigorate the practice of eating,
00:05:16.900 | of sitting down at a meal together
00:05:19.940 | with those that you love, of opening the table
00:05:22.660 | to friends and neighbors.
00:05:25.100 | And that is, I just heard a lecture yesterday
00:05:29.380 | on a fellow talking about Christianity and Islam.
00:05:34.380 | And the conclusion to his lecture was,
00:05:38.460 | invite somebody, invite a Muslim into your home for a meal.
00:05:41.900 | And that was the most radical thing
00:05:43.800 | he felt like you could do as a longtime missionary
00:05:47.240 | to the Muslim world is hospitality,
00:05:51.240 | listening to somebody's story face to face.
00:05:53.840 | They said, I guarantee you by the end of the conversation,
00:05:56.280 | they'll ask you about your religion
00:05:58.240 | and ask you about your faith.
00:05:59.760 | He says, I've seen it time and time again.
00:06:02.080 | When we were, I was concerned when our kids were
00:06:05.080 | sort of junior high, high school age,
00:06:08.280 | that we hadn't established a practice
00:06:10.080 | that I had experienced in my own family growing up
00:06:13.160 | of actually reading the Bible
00:06:14.440 | and praying together as a family.
00:06:16.760 | And just life was so busy
00:06:18.720 | and everybody's pulled every direction.
00:06:20.720 | And what we did is my wife and I committed ourselves
00:06:24.400 | to getting up early in the morning before our kids
00:06:27.040 | and making a really big hot breakfast.
00:06:29.320 | It was gonna be bacon and eggs,
00:06:31.280 | or it was gonna be pancakes,
00:06:32.720 | or it was gonna be homemade scones,
00:06:35.160 | but making a really nice big breakfast for the kids.
00:06:39.280 | And in the context of gathering around the meal
00:06:42.080 | in the morning, reading the scripture and praying together.
00:06:45.720 | And I'm just so grateful that our children
00:06:48.520 | will have some memory, they're adults now,
00:06:50.600 | that they will have a memory that we did that.
00:06:53.080 | And I wish we'd done it longer and done it more.
00:06:55.660 | So I think we need to give attention to the ways
00:06:57.720 | in which it's not just saying no to some things,
00:07:01.440 | but it's actually reinvigorating other things
00:07:03.480 | that are very, very life-giving
00:07:05.400 | and that we ground our discipleship.
00:07:08.200 | - That is really helpful for parents and couples
00:07:10.400 | as we think of hospitality and of our homes
00:07:13.400 | and the embodied traditions and patterns
00:07:15.500 | we wanna build into our lives,
00:07:16.720 | especially in reaching the lost.
00:07:18.560 | Thank you, Dr. Hyde-Marsh for that focus.
00:07:20.560 | For now, I have time for one more question for you,
00:07:23.600 | and it relates to the issue of workaholism,
00:07:25.800 | of finding our identity in our careers
00:07:28.760 | and the inherent dangers of this.
00:07:30.860 | I know you have some thoughts about this,
00:07:32.120 | and I wanna get your perspective next time.
00:07:35.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:07:36.400 | We'll see you tomorrow.
00:07:37.560 | (silence)
00:07:39.720 | (silence)
00:07:41.880 | (silence)
00:07:44.040 | [BLANK_AUDIO]