I was really glad the other day, after my stint coaching our Badminton lads, to have made the effort to go home, get showered and changed, and then attend the most recent Centre for Ethics public lecture with Rev Dr Rufus Black (Associate Professor from the University of Melbourne). This man is an incredible thinker and a fantastic speaker – his topic was “The Human Boundaries of Innovation – Drones, Clones and Internet Porn.”

Now I had promised myself, and some of you that I would not again this year write anything more on technology but how could I resist having been inspired by what Dr Black challenged us to consider? His basic premise was that whereas technology can enhance our lives, the great concern now is that we are not in control of technology – it has gotten away from us and is, to an extent, controlling us. Technology is developing at such a rapid pace in a number of spheres – specifically warfare, genetics and cyber porn that we are not keeping up with it in terms of making decisions as to where we limit the negative influence of technology in our lives.

For instance, how far are we going to let the technological innovations in the field of genetic engineering impinge upon human life? Are we going to allow designer babies? What are the consequences of choosing the sex, physical characteristics and the like, of our babies? Is this interfering in creative nature to an extent that we will diminish what it means to be a human, and possibly even diminish an individual’s sense of responsibility?

Through our wondrous internet technologies, pornography is quickly available to anyone who wants to access it. And our kids are masters at getting beyond the “firewalls”. Dr Black made the point that a large percentage of all internet downloads are from porn sites and much of this is accessed by males under 18 years of age. How is this distorting our experience of sexuality? How is this diminishing this God-given blessing of life? Will this diminish women to the mere plaything of men?

So at the ground level I suppose the questions for us are:

1. To what extent does technology rule our own lives?
2. Have we had conversations with our young men about pornography? (You will be pleased to know that we will be having such conversations with our Senior students in Chapel, and in PDHPE in the coming days)
3. What protective mechanisms do we have in place at home to stop our kids accessing pornography?

So why as a Chaplain am I writing about these things? Please be assured that it is not because I am a moral prude, or even a technological dinosaur, it is because I am concerned that we risk diminishing our lives by letting technology control, distract and destroy what is best about being human – reducing the quality of our relationships with each other and with the Creator. Jesus encouraged us to live “abundant lives” and that is my motivation. It is in trying to start this conversation with our young people – is technology always adding to your life, or is it taking away and wasting time and life?

“I have come that you might have life – life in all its abundance” (John 10: 10)

Rev David Williams
College Chaplain