Are all those digital screens beyond redemption?

A mediation on a short video about the silver and (rose) gold idols of our age

All of God’s creation is both glorious and fallen.

That’s a soundbite that I used many times during my decades as a mass-comm professor and while speaking at Christian colleges and universities (and a few seminaries) across America and around the world.

It’s a condensed take on what thinkers in the Reformed, Calvinist tradition refer to as the “cultural mandate.” As you would expect, you can find similar statements in the theology of the ancient church (think Orthodox and Catholic), frequently under the broad umbrella of “creation theology.”

This brings me to a meditation on the video featured at the top of this post. It was sent to me by a Rational Sheep reader — Chris Woolfe — with this note:

A friend of mine and I made a 30 second video connecting scripture with modern day screen culture. We're sharing it with thought leaders like yourself before distributing it more widely. Would you like to see it?

I said, “Of course,” and I have watched it several times.

Here is my question: Is this view of screen culture too dark? Is it, in effect, arguing that the glowing screens in our lives are, to be blunt, evil? Are we dealing with pure evil in the form of digital idols that represent the false gods of our entertainment age?

The scripture in the video, of course, is from Psalm 115.

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.

That is certainly part of the story of our age.