Imagining Jesus’s resurrection as a technique, or the church of cryptocurrency: what the entanglement of technology and religion may tell us about the future of both
Rob J. Mann
University of Chicago
August 2022
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“Technology is a gift of God. After life, it is perhaps the greatest of God’s gifts.”
-Freeman Tyson, theoretical physicist
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“Why was God able to create heaven and earth in seven days…? Because
he didn’t have installed customers and legacy technology to worry about.”
-Brad D Smith, former Intuit CEO
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Introduction
In the early 1400s, Italian architect and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi—asserted by at least one Wikipedia contributor to be the world’s first engineer—used his technical knowhow to construct an elaborate “ascension machine” out of ropes, pulleys, and platforms, meant to lower God closer to Earth and provide a vision of the divine’s immediate presence. (Alexander, 2020) About 600 years later, when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new company, Meta, he described the coming metaverse as a technology not for people to merely touch and interact with. Zuck, adopting metaphysical language once heard only in sermons at church but increasingly a part of a tech company CEO’s vernacular, noted that instead people will be immersed in the technology; people will become the experience itself. (Meta, 2021) For centuries, religious followers have been allured by technology for much the same reason that technology firms today turn to the rhetoric of religion when promoting the power of their technology: both religion and technology promise us something more than human. History is full of examples of the entanglement between religion and technology, and while attempts to compare the metaverse with a Christian heaven-on-earth may seem like the kind of esoteric philosophizing useful only to theology postgrads and wonky tech podcasters, there are pragmatic reasons for examining the relationship between technology and religion, at least for anyone interested in understanding values and ethics today. I argue that in the 21st century, the values of technology are increasingly defining the values of society itself. Similarly, ethics in technology has never been more important, as the emergence of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and genetic engineering raise serious ethical questions about the very definition of humanity, and challenge centuries of assumptions about humans’ singular role in the world. In these two areas, society’s values and ethics, religion will continue to cede intellectual influence to technology.
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In considering these developments, I cannot overlook how I type these very words on a laptop which is detached physically from any other object, except the table on which it rests. My fingers have never touched the various articles and books I cite here, rather those works are all burned into the digital memory of this machine. The human mind may have evolved to believe only in what one can touch and feel, but today an element of faith is required to accept digital technologies’ replacement of what has otherwise been physically present in our lives. The role of belief and faith are central to my claims about the entanglement of technology and religion, and to further illustrate this relationship, I will ask you to join me in a thought experiment meant to dissolve the barrier between religious believer and technology user. The point is not to convince you that technology and religion are the same, but rather to expand our way thinking about how they overlap, and consider why such an expanded understanding is helpful in evaluating aspects of our current technology-driven society.
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Returning from theorizing at the extreme edges of the technology-religion relationship, I will close with a more pragmatic example of how we might apply this framework to a real-world, rather famous, company that many today find baffling because it challenges traditional assumptions about what technology is and is not. Considering this and other similarly enigmatic behavior regarding how technology companies interact with society, our now-broadened perspective might yield new insights into how technology will continue to occupy greater space in societies’ system of values and beliefs, filling a void left by religion’s seeming retreat from ethical relevance.
Seeing the Connections
As long as humans have held spiritual beliefs, and taken actions based on that faith—thus practicing a form of religion—advancements in technology have posed challenges to religion. Amish communities worry how certain technologies compromise the righteous life God intended for us, and famously ban connecting to the electrical grid, thus forgoing many of the 21st century—and 20th century—technological tools and applications common to modern industrialized society. Many evangelical Christian communities saw in the advent of the internet signs of the coming apocalypse, especially when Y2K morphed from a small computer glitch into a global sociological phenomenon. (McMinn, 2001)
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For just as long in history technology has been used by the faithful, often in novel ways, as a means of amplifying religious conviction. In the 1450s, Johannes Gutenberg chose to print the Bible first when completing his moveable-type printing press, a technology that would go on to revolutionize society by accelerating the spread of information. Advances in building design and construction over centuries in Europe owed much to the work of Jesuits, and it is no coincidence that if you visit Germany today to see the finest architecture produced before the 19th century, you will be visiting a lot of churches. (Stoneman, 2020) Perhaps no single society tied the “useful arts” of technology with religious devotion quite like the Freemasons, considered by some scholars as the founding fathers of the engineering profession. (Noble, 1997) Throughout the 20th century, at every stage of the development of mass media, from radio, to television, to cable and today’s internet, Christian preachers played an outsized role innovating and exploiting the new mediums to reach larger audiences. (Stoneman)
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I could go on picking examples of technology and religion overlapping at moments in history, but that they have a relationship is not the point here. To understand the real entanglement today, we must look deeper at what elements of religious practice end up borrowed, emulated, or appropriated by technology producers, companies, and users. Religious and spiritual language employed to describe technology is a good starting point. Western religious practice is meant to enrich the human experience, bring one closer to the divine, and offer some promise for what comes after life. It is meant to provide meaning beyond simply being human. Cutting-edge technology, which includes so much digital technology, is also designed specifically to alter or elevate the human experience. Technology proponents draw on religious language and symbols to explain the power of their products, and perhaps no tech company in history has done so more effectively than Apple.
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The company, whose very symbol is plucked from the book of Genesis, harnessed the descriptive power of religiosity in 2007 with the launch of the iPhone, or as it became known, the “Jesus phone.” The moniker may not have originated from within Apple, but when media outlets and bloggers began describing the iPhone that way, Apple amplified the message. The term “Jesus phone” was meant to capture just how powerful and transformative was this new device; Jesus has returned to earth, and he’s a phone. Some researchers who have explored the “Jesus phone” phenomenon argue that communication technologies, such as the iPhone, are particularly susceptible to representation through religious language and imagery. (Campbell and Pastina, 2010; Krüger, 2007) Not dissimilarly but decades earlier, the telegraph was viewed as “divinely inspired for the purpose of spreading the Christian message farther…bringing closer and making more probably the day of salvation.” (Noble) The transformative nature of communication media—from the radio to the internet—supports this hypothesis, and this uniquely powerful aspect of media technology may owe to our tendency to derive significance from the method of communication as much as we do the content of those communications themselves. This is not surprising, as communication itself is not neutral, objective technology; it is a vessel for humans to transfer their views, opinions, and beliefs to others. (Krüger) Considering Apple, its iPod music player may have been the sea-change device from a commercial and technological perspective, given how it righted the company ship at a time Apple was floundering and became the world’s first technological accessory, but it was the iPhone—as a tool of communication—that changed humanity, perhaps almost as significantly as its early nickname would boast.
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Another way religion gets brought into technology’s path is when the acceptance or success of a particular technology depends on the devotion (or faith) of its users, and thus must advance though community building—much like religion separates itself from spiritualism by having a congregation of active participants. A hammer is just as effective at driving a nail into a wall if hammers are used by a thousand people or one person; but a new social media platform of one user is meaningless. Besides social media itself, which is specially designed to build communities of users, there are prominent examples of how discrete individuals of certain digital tools ended up building strong communities with distinct values based on a shared devotion to particular technologies. To be a Mac user, especially before the launch of the iPhone, came with a distinct sense of identity and purpose, particularly as rival Windows nearly drove Apple out of the personal computing market. In “The Cult of Macintosh,” scholars Belk and Tumbat (2005) describe a quasi-religious devotion of Mac users, complete with myths surrounding the brand’s creation, its messianic founder, and eventual resurrection. There are also compelling parallels between the religiously faithful and the current digital, or crypto-, currency community. Cryptocurrency devotees are noteworthy for the degree and fervor of their proselytizing; sure, Bitcoin owners benefit financially by convincing others to also buy the currency, but are not followers of Jehovah promised a coveted seat in heaven by converting as many as they can? We will revisit cryptocurrency again below.
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This is a good point at which to reiterate that I am not asserting that such shared language, symbols, and follower behavior mean technology is religion any more than I might try to convince you the earth is the sky because they share the horizon. But it is arguable that the way technology and religion overlap forces a reconsideration of the frameworks through which scholars have analyzed and tried to understand its role in society, particularly when considering the impact of digital technology. For example, Gibson’s (2015) theory of affordances greatly loses its explanatory powers when applied to screen-based or other digital technology. A staircase may “afford” a seat to a weary traveler based on its shape, or a computer mouse may offer a connection to computer based on how well its body fits in a user’s hand and the locations of its buttons. But while a computer screen may be viewed or touched, the technology behind the screen affords no physical interaction on its own. Simple word processing programs or highly complex CAD software for designing robots are reduced to the same role in their interplay with humans via the screen. However, one intriguing framework for assessing technology that is relevant to my argument here is that of the Black Boxes, despite—or because because of—its fictional foundation. The theory of Black Boxes says that a particular technology is contained within a Black Box that we cannot see inside or examine, and thus cannot understand. Crucially though, we are not meant to understand it, as the technology itself inside the box is inconsequential. What matters instead are the inputs that enter the box, and the outputs that emerge from it. (Bunge, 1963) So much digital technology today is essentially a Black Box. Most users do not understand what’s inside their iPhone, nor could they tell you how cloud computing works, but that lack of understanding does not negate their experience with the technology, or the utility of the technology to society. Rather, the lack of detailed understanding of how digital technology functions reduces users to a superficial, almost faith-based, experience. I click A, and through some magic in the box, B appears. To better assess what Black Boxes tell us about technology’s entwining with religion, let us now engage in some more radical thinking.
A Thought Experiment
Cryptocurrency emerged in 2010 with the invention of Bitcoin, and over the ensuing decade-plus, hundreds of different coins were developed, and the crypto market ballooned to a value of more than a trillion dollars by mid-2022. That’s a greater value than the yearly GDP of any country not in the G20. And yet, what is cryptocurrency? It is technology, but you cannot see it, you cannot rub it between you fingers. Crypto is money, and like all money, it represents a promise of a certain value. Its value is derived from buyers and sellers accepting the promise is valid. While all currency then is alike in having no intrinsic value outside this promissory arrangement, and could be described by how it requires faith in a system, crypto gets more religion-like in some distinct ways. Firstly, it is in no way necessary, but is touted as an improvement to existing aspects of society; in this case, global financial systems. As religion only developed in human history after other societal needs were already met, crypto is an add-on to modern society. In separating religion from simple spiritualism, historians of religion emphasize its role as a sign of advanced culture and thinking. In this way, crypto mirrors religion because it is complex and intricate, almost unnecessarily so. If bartering is akin to believing in a tree spirit, buying an Ethereum coin is like taking a stance in Christianity’s transubstantiation-versus-consubstantiation debate. [1]
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Not coincidentally, the details of how cryptocurrencies function are well understood by such a small segment of the population, including its followers. Religion, too, thrives when belief can stand in for knowledge. Cryptocurrency, despite promising discrete benefits such as greater transparency in financial transactions, more security, and an alternative investment vehicle, has gained a faithful following, with its opacity, for providing something material: wealth. The gains, of course, can only be realized by others also having enough faith in the system to first purchase and then maintain cryptocurrency, and then by spreading the word to others to do the same. It is, in this way, little more than a system of shared faith, advancing only through the growth of the congregation who also accept those beliefs. How it all functions inside is immaterial. If I believe in it enough to buy crypto-coins, and then convince you to do the same, I will benefit. Is this so unlike evangelical religious faiths, in which salvation is attained through one’s devotion and by spreading the holy word to other would-be believers? Religious faith is no more necessary to our terrestrial life than crypto is to an investor’s portfolio, but both derive significance from the promise that reward will come to the faithful. This is technology masquerading as religion, as at no point in the path toward salvation (a realized investment) is any look inside the Black Box necessary; one is concerned only that money goes in, so more money can come out.
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Flipping the technology-as-religion coin, let us examine how one of humanity’s most famous expressions of religion may be considered an “act” of technology to its believers. Accepting the resurrection of Jesus is the central tenet of all Christian faiths; to believe in this holy miracle is to be Christian. To the 2.2 billion Christian believers then—and this perspective, of the believer, is crucial—the resurrection happened. One day, Jesus was alive and walked the earth, and another day he was crucified, died, and was buried in a cave. As the prayer continues, on the third day, he rose from the dead, and took his seat in heaven. How? To a believer, the answer is Black Box technology. What happened in that cave to allow him to rise from the dead is immaterial. (Just as to the laptop user who presses Ctl-P and Enter, how the paper with words on it emerges a few moments later from the printer is immaterial.) What matters is what went in (a crucified Jesus), and what came out (the resurrected son of God). And just like other technologies, what came out of the Black Box is really the point. Christianity asserts Jesus rose from the dead to save humanity from sin. That’s a pretty big output. Because of this resurrection, all of history changed. And yet, no one can explain what “technology” was unleashed in that cave 2000 years ago. It is the blackest of boxes.
New Framework for a New World
No, I am not really claiming you should accept that a miracle from the New Testament is really akin to the technology of your dishwasher, however much you may believe in its cleaning power. Nor do I expect you will start seeing the Church of Bitcoin popping up in your hometown. My intention with this thought experiment is stretch our minds to the far ends of the technology-as-religion paradigm to better allow us a framework for examining the very real ways in which the two are entwined today, such as regarding values and ethics. In the complex but measurable ways in which societies defining values today, technology is increasingly replacing an influential role long occupied by religion. Those values espoused by a particular society are reflected in the way that society upholds, promotes, or restricts technology itself, and technology in turn to address and shape those values. Developments in the People’s Republic of China are but one example of this shift. While once largely Confucian, when social norms reflected the central place of the family in society, Chinese society today is heavily influenced by a highly intricate, restrictive, and centrally controlled system that dictates access to information. China’s “great firewall” did not replace some single code of values, but it is a technological representation of the value Chinese society (or at least, the Chinese Communist Party) places today on a sense of harmony over liberty, and those values of controlling information in turn foster greater development of technical tools to restrict information even further.
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Another particularly topical way technology has supplanted religion’s place in society is in the realm of ethics. The growth of AI raises a host of questions about what is ethical when humans interact with machines. For decades, such considerations were the realm of only science fiction, but now that AI is increasingly a part of our daily lives—from benign interactions like Netflix recommendations, to more serious ones like self-driving cars that calculate a priority ranking of individuals to avoid colliding with in a crosswalk—AI is at the center of global discourse on ethical decision-making in technology. What does the Talmud or the Quran tell an engineer at Waymo [2] about whether to program an algorithm to steer a car first away from a child or an elderly person? Technology is forced to answer ethical questions traditional religion simply cannot. (Harari, 2016)
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Ethical dilemmas are just as complex in the area of biotechnology, for example regarding genetic engineering. New tools such as CRISPR allow one human the power to change another human at the genetic level before the latter is even born. (Pattinson, 2005) How and when such technology should be employed is far from settled. Since the beginning of civilianization in the West and East, such ethical decisions were shaped by prevailing religious doctrine and practice. Judgments about the definition of life, for example, may still be highly influenced by one’s religious views, but the ability of medical technology to extend life has led to a state today in American medicine where there is no agreed-upon definition for when life even ends. (Veatch and Ross, 2016) If 21st century technology such as the artificial respirator is changing the definition of life itself, how are passages from a two-thousand year old book supposed to guide society?
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Let me close my argument with a “hypothetical” situation in which our framework may be of some use. Imagine a new company that has become enormously successful by making a product that is as practical as it is innovative, and which find its way into the garages of millions. The product require a bit of a lifestyle change, but is appealing in part because of the values it represents, particularly regarding the environment, but it is also especially enjoyable to own and operate. The product also begins to afford its owners a new sense of status, and belonging to something different, in part because how it shakes up the very traditional industry it is in. The leader of this imagined company is rather more demagogue than businessman, and is seen by his supporters as a kind of prophet, and to his detractors, a provocateur. Curiously, as his products sell and sell and his company grows in size and influence, he loudly proclaims to his own loyal customers that the point of the company is not the products they have happily and faithfully purchased. The point, he tells the millions, is the technology the company has created to build those those products. It is not the thing, he tells them, it is the way. Customers may understand the thing by their physical connection to he product they have purchased, but to understand the way, he calls them to believe in the company, and to believe in him.
For industry analysts still baffled by the actions, influence, and direction of Elon Musk, perhaps a course in religious studies would be enlightening.
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Footnotes
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1. Concerning the Christian Eucharist, transubstantiation is the change of the substance of bread into the substance of the body of Christ, and the wine into the actual blood of Christ. Consubstantiation holds that the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the actual bread and wine. This was a subject of considerable debate at the time of the Protestant reformation, and consubstantiation was heresy to the Roman Catholic Church.
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2. Waymo is Alphabet’s (the parent company of Google) AI-driven autonomous vehicle company.
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References
Alexander, Jennifer Karns. 2020. “Introduction: The Entanglement of Technology and Religion.” History & Technology 36 (2): 165–86.
Belk, Russell W. and Gulnur Tumbat. 2005. “The Cult of Macintosh.” Consumption Markets & Culture 8 (September): 205–17.
Bunge, Mario. 1963. “A General Black Box Theory.” Philosophy of Science 30 (4): 346–58.
Campbell, Heidi A., and Antonio C. La Pastina. 2010. “How the IPhone Became Divine: New Media, Religion and the Intertextual Circulation of Meaning.” New Media & Society 12 (7): 1191–1207.
Gibson, James. 2015. “The Theory of Affordances.” The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 127-143.
Harari, Yuval. 2016. “Salvation by Algorithm: God, Technology and the New 21st-Century Religions.” New Statesman, September 9.
Krüger, Oliver. 2007. “Gaia, God, and the Internet: The History of Evolution and Utopia of Community in Media Society.” Numen 54 (2): 138–73.
Noble, David F. 1997. The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention. United States of America: Knopf.
McMinn, Lisa Graham. 2001. “Y2K, the Apocalypse, and Evangelical Christianity: The Role of Eschatological Belief in Church Responses.” Sociology of Religion 62 (2): 205–20.
Meta. “Founder’s Letter, 2021.” 2021. https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/founders-letter/
Pattison, George. Thinking About God in an Age of Technology. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Stoneman, Timothy H.B. 2020. “Presencing the Divine: Religion and Technology in the Latin West.” History & Technology 36 (2): 187–204.
Veatch, Robert M., and Lainie Friedman Ross. 2016. Defining Death : The Case for Choice. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.