Digital technology like smartphones has revolutionised the way we navigate daily life and the way our whole society functions. Such technology has its downsides. Even so, our stance as Christians is often something like, “Let’s use this technology wisely, but not abuse it”, as if the technology is simply a neutral instrument. But the good things of our world (like technology or money) can become much more than this: they can become master-teachers that dominate and disciple us.
In this final episode of the series, Tony Payne brings the discussion to its practical conclusion. If our smartphones are not neutral tools, but powerful forces that shape our habits, attention and desires, what does faithful Christian living with technology actually look like?
Building on the foundations from episodes 1 and 2, this episode asks the key question: what should we do now? How do we respond as followers of Christ? What does it look like to live wisely and deliberately with the devices that are constantly discipling us?
Runtime: 41:12 min.
Links referred to:
- Books referred to:
- Christian Ethics in a Technological Age (Brian Brock)
- Scrolling Ourselves to Death: Reclaiming life in a digital age (Brett McCracken, Ivan Mesa, et al)
- Other resources:
- José Billigton’s YouTube channel: tips, tutorials and digital minimalism
- “The optimal iPhone settings and best apps for productivity, focus, and health: A massive guide to configuring your iPhone to work for you for maximum productivity and to eliminate distractions from deep work” (Tony Stubblebine) 16 October 2018
- Find out more and register for “Left right out: The strange position of the political Christian” (Wed 20 May 2026, 7-9pm)
- Support the work of the Centre
Transcript
Please note: This transcript has been checked against the audio and lightly edited, but still may contain errors. If quoting, please compare with the original audio.
Introduction
[00:00:05] Tony Payne: Hello, I’m Tony Payne, and welcome to Part 3 of our three-part CCL podcast series on the smartphone, which we’ve called “The smartphone disciple”. And if you haven’t listened to episodes 1 and 2, let me really encourage you to press pause and go and do that. You’ll struggle to really make good sense of what follows in this episode without the background of those first two.
[00:00:27] Because in this final episode, we conclude a train of thought that we began back in episode 1. And in that episode, we considered what a smartphone really is and how it’s not just a neutral device or implement that we have in our hands, but it’s a very powerful agent. It’s an agent of change in our lives. It trains us. It teaches us. It shapes us in all kinds of ways. It disciples us.
[00:00:53] And we brought this understanding with us into episode 2, where we thought about how Christ would disciple us with regard to this sort of technology—how through the Scriptures, through his word to us, he teaches us a way of seeing and understanding and living in the world, and living with the products of our technology.
[00:01:14] And now in this final and third episode, we’re going to consider how to finish that train of thought in practice—in action. What should we do? How should we live in light of the renewed understanding we now have from the Scriptures? That’s our task in this episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast.
[Music]
Technology
[00:01:50] Tony Payne: As we come to Part 3 of this three-part series on “The smartphone disciple”, I wonder what sort of expectations you have about how we’re going to approach and respond to the challenges that we’ve seen that the smartphone brings to us. I wonder if, as a good citizen of our technological age, your instinctive response is a technological one—that is, to try to figure out how we might cleverly reconfigure or reorganise the various facets of our smartphone usage so as to maximise the benefits and minimise the costs. As we’ve seen in episodes 1 and 2, that’s the essence of the technological way of seeing and living in the world: to approach every problem as if it’s a technological problem—a problem that can be broken down into its parts, understood mathematically or scientifically or logically, and then reconfigured into a more efficient kind of arrangement.
[00:02:49] Now, this technological approach to technology, to the smartphone, for example, is very often our first instinctive response—that is, to hack our smartphone usage, as it were—to improve it, to make it more efficient and effective—maybe even to find a piece of technology that will help me manage this technology.
[00:03:08] Now there is, of course, a place for the technological approach to life and to reality. Some problems are susceptible of that kind of solution, and we will come to that kind of thinking in due course—to ways we can be more effective or efficient.
[00:03:23] But it’s not the place to start with our response. Nor is it remotely adequate as an overall stance towards technology in general, or smartphones in particular, because it misperceives the real nature and power of the smartphone and of technology more generally, I might say. It underestimates the power of the vast digital system of which the smartphone is part, and to which it constantly tethers us. And as we’ve already seen, the smartphone is not just a neutral implement that we pick up and use, or choose not to use, without it having any effect on us or our lives or our way of thinking. The smartphone is much more significant and powerful than that. It’s a technology. It’s not just a tool.
[00:04:09] In some ways, this is reflected in the word “technology” itself. Technology comes from two Greek words: “tekne”, which means tool or implement, and “logos”, an idea or a word or a study. Technology is not just a simple tool; it’s something more than that. Technology carries ideas with it—embedded within it—and the smartphone certainly does. And it disciples us in those ways of thinking and seeing and living in the world. We’ve explored this already in episodes 1 and 2.
[00:04:40] And we’ve seen how that discipleship of the smartphone often runs counter to how God created humanity to live in the world. The smartphone embodies and propagates a worldly pattern of thinking and of life, to which we must no longer be conformed.
[00:04:57] And by “worldly”, I don’t mean every day or practical, or nuts and bolts or something like that. By “worldly”, I mean what the Bible often means by worldly or the world—that is, a way of thinking and living that excludes or rejects or sidelines God as the creator and redeemer of the world. And this is what the smartphone does—in much the same way as nearly all technology does in our society. It embodies and teaches a way of thinking and living in which God is rejected and excluded in principle and in practice. Ethicist Brian Brock puts it like this:
[00:05:36] Steph Larkin: Technology is a way of perceiving all things in terms of objectifiability, material efficiency and manipulability. In this rationality, all things are rendered objects, and rival schemas of conceptual organisation are homogenised and flattened into it. In short, technology is a human mode of thought that, in rejecting any role for divine action, comes to approach all things and relationships as susceptible to human ordering and management.
[00:06:05] Tony Payne: Now, that’s a complex quote, but it captures the point very well: Brock is saying that technology is not just something we use, it’s a mode of thought. It’s a way of thinking and perceiving things that reduces everything to a material object that we can manipulate and rework for efficiency. And when we approach the smartphone this way—as just an object that we could perhaps configure in the most efficient way—we’re showing ourselves to be thoroughgoing members of a technological society with a technological way of thinking about everything.
[00:06:40] But as Brock also points out, this way of thinking has no place for divine action—for any consideration of what it means for God to have created and ordered the world and spoken the truth about the world—no place at all. And therefore, no place for moral claims about technology. The technological mindset approaches everything with the assumption that we humans can order it and manage it.
A Christian response
[00:07:08] Tony Payne: So at one level, the Christian response to the nature and power of the smartphone must begin not with a technological mindset of how we might use it more efficiently, but with an explicit reassertion of divine action and divinely authorised claims about what is good and true and best for us as human beings.
[00:07:30] Now we’ve explored some of those theological and moral claims in Part 2 of this podcast series. But it remains for us to articulate how they might play out in our lives. What habits of life correspond to those theological and moral truths? And how might those habits of life become a framework—a way of living—in which faithful Christian disciples can become like their master.
[00:07:57] We’re going to address this under four headings or four habits of life that we might adopt as faithful Christian disciples. We’ll talk about what those habits of life might be like in general, but what they’re like specifically in your particular circumstance and situation, that’s for you to think through carefully and prayerfully.
[00:08:19] Well, let’s turn to the first one.
a) Live thankfully as a human in God’s creation
[00:08:21] Tony Payne: Live thankfully as a human in God’s creation. This first habit of life is simply to be grateful for the way God has made us and the way he’s made the world, rather than constantly trying to outstrip or leave behind our created natures and their goodness.
[00:08:39] O give thanks to the Lord, for his good,
[00:08:42] for his steadfast love endures forever!
[00:08:45] Who can tell, who can utter the mighty deeds of the Lord
[00:08:49] or declare all his praise?
[00:08:51] says Psalm 106, and this might stand for any number of the Psalms that bubble over with joy and thankfulness and praise with a declaration and a witness of just how crackingly good everything is that God has done and God has made.
[00:09:09] “Love your work,” we say to someone whom we admire in all that they do, and that’s what we should say to God constantly when we consider our own human embodied created selves and the world in which he’s placed us. “Love your work, Lord!”
[00:09:24] But it’s very possible not to be thankful, but to reject the goodness of God’s gifts. Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy 4.
[00:09:33] Steph Larkin: Now, the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciousness are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with Thanksgiving. For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
[00:10:03] Tony Payne: What Paul is criticising here in very strong language is what some people are doing with respect to God’s good, created gifts—in this case, marriage and food. They’re rejecting them. They’re leaving them behind in the tragic and mistaken view that somehow this is the path to a better life or a more spiritual life. The faithful—in fact, the rational—response to our creatureliness is thankfulness. The reality of our world and our lives within it—it’s all given to us: our bodily nature as men and women; our finitude in space—the fact that we occupy a certain amount of space at any one time and can’t be somewhere else; and our finitude in time—the fact that life is given to us in an unfolding present of events and happenings and occasions that rise up to greet and confront us, and into which we act. All of this—all our human powers and faculties, and the nature of our embodied life—it’s all given to us. It’s what Marilynne Robinson calls “the givenness of things”, and which we should recognise and rejoice in and be thankful for.
[00:11:14] Now, the trouble is that the technological mind, as epitomised in the smartphone, constantly subverts or rejects or seeks to transcend our givenness—our creativeness. It constantly seeks to go beyond the boundaries and limits of our human created natures.
[00:11:34] In fact, our human creativeness is regarded as a kind of a nuisance—an inconvenience to be overcome. And so, we seek to live a kind of superhuman life, unbound by time or space or any individual limit. We’re invited into a virtual existence in which we can be anywhere, see anything, talk to anyone, know any fact. We’re invited into a kind of ersatz omniscience—a kind of cheap, plastic omnipresence.
[00:12:04] I wonder if it’s really so different from the ambitious thoughts that ran through Eve’s mind when she reached out for the forbidden fruit with the desire to become like God. We need to be aware of how much the smartphone urges us constantly to prioritise this virtual superhuman existence over the bodily created existence—to be somewhere else, rather than to be here and now. We scroll and scroll and get incensed about some injustice that we see happening somewhere else in the world. But what can we actually do about it? Not very much.
[00:12:43] In fact, in our interview with Brett McCracken, who is the co-author of Scrolling Ourselves to Death, he had this to say:
[00:12:51] Brett McCracken: There’s so much information stimulation—so much negative, bad news, or infuriating news. It kind of overstimulates you cognitively and emotionally and spiritually in a way that is unhealthy for us.
[00:13:08] And we don’t know what to do with that. We have no recourse then to, like, have a channel or an output—to know what to do with all that stimulation. Which is kind of what I get at in my chapter on the information action ratio in Scrolling Ourselves to Death, where we have this way out of balance ratio with information that comes, which is a lot more than any generation of humans have ever learned we take in response, because what action can you realistically take about some injustice that you came across on Facebook on the other side of the world that we see multiple times a day, every day? All you can really do is take the action of feeling bad—feeling angry, which is good: it’s how God created us—to be angry at injustice, to have compassion. But short of that, I mean, you could take the action of prayer, which would be good. But how many of us actually do that, right? We just keep scrolling. We just go on to the next thing. Maybe you could take the action of making a donation to some cause.
[00:14:11] But I think that what God has created us for is more tangible than that. Like, I think he created humans, if you go back to the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, he created them to tend the proximate stretch of the earth that they were in—to bring order out of that particular chaos that they were in. And each of us has been given a particular plot of land, so to speak, on earth that is our chaos to order. That is our calling, right?
[00:14:41] And yet, the internet pulls us away from that, right? You open your phone and you’re suddenly everywhere but where you are. And you’re not thinking about the chaos in my immediate vicinity, right? You’re not thinking about “How can I bring order to the chaos of my household, my city, my neighbourhood?” Instead, you’re thinking about the chaos of the national political outrage that everyone’s talking about, or the chaos of the Middle East conflict, or the chaos of whatever.
[00:15:12] And I just think there’s something really disordered there and something that’s making us a little bit crazy, for lack of a better word. Like, it’s no wonder our mental health is so poor, because we’re not made for this. We’re made to have more of an even ratio of information and action, and now we’re so bombarded with information, but we have little recourse to take action.
[00:15:36] Tony Payne: What McCracken is really saying here is that we should receive our created human givenness—the place where God has put us to live and to love—and embrace it and be thankful for it—to embrace a human scale of action at a human pace of thought and human relations of bodily existence.
[00:15:54] Now, as I was researching and preparing this podcast, I decided I’d take a little practical experiment in this way of thinking—in this sort of mode of awareness. I decided that I’d write the first draft of the script for this podcast in longhand with a pen and paper, rather than on my laptop. And it was a very interesting experience—an enlightening one. In fact, one of the enlightening things has been seeing the look on people’s faces when I tell them what I’m doing—that I’m writing this by hand, rather than on a computer. I imagine it’s the kind of look the monastics got when they told their friends that they were about to go and live on a pillar in the desert for five years: a kind of mix of astonishment and incomprehension, and maybe a certain admiration.
[00:16:39] But I enjoyed the experience, I have to say. At the end of each writing session, which took a few hours, my hand was sore. It was out of training for that kind of exercise. It felt a bit tired and cramped. But my back wasn’t so sore and my eyes weren’t tired, like they always are after a session on the computer. And writing more slowly, I have to say, was enjoyable: it changed the pace of thought and of composition. I found myself thinking more before each sentence began, and as each sentence unspooled on the page more slowly, it gave me more time to mould it as it went along.
[00:17:16] When I type on my laptop, I tend to type like a machine gun: I splatter down thoughts and words, because I can type so quickly. But writing more quickly is rarely my problem or what I need. If the art of good writing is the art of clear thinking and of artful articulation, which is what I think it is, I’m left wondering whether the speed of composition that the laptop makes possible and which it encourages me to do is always a benefit.
[00:17:45] Now, the point here is not that doing things in a slower and more laborious fashion is inherently better or more noble, but simply that it’s not inherently worse, which is what technological rationality and our technological society usually assumes. In fact, doing things more slowly may sometimes be the more human, and in the longer term, the more fruitful and successful way to do them.
[00:18:10] What would it mean in your situation to live thankfully along the grain of your created nature—to regard your daily bodily experience as a good thing to be enjoyed, rather than a bothersome limitation always to be transcended in whatever way we can, as technology allows us to do? Maybe we’d ask ourselves questions like this: when I go for a walk or ride my bike, why not leave the phone behind and enjoy the sights and sounds and smells and sensations of moving through God’s world in all its beauty and variety? Does every moment of my day need a soundtrack? In fact, what am I not hearing or not seeing or not thinking about, because my AirPods are always in my ears—always whispering to me, always diverting me? Does my mind and body respond well to such a constant stream of information and stimulation? Would my next interaction with someone or communication with someone be most appropriate in person, or by phone, or by letter, or by email, or by text, or by instant message?
[00:19:24] And should I start, by default, at the beginning of that list, rather than at the end? What if I regard the next person I meet today as the notification that really matters? I’m being notified that here is a person in front of me that God has given me to love—a neighbour. And what if I’m missing all these real life notifications of my present existence, because I’m so absorbed in notifications from somewhere else?
[00:19:52] All of these questions prompt me to look askance at the smartphone in my hand or in my pocket, because the norms and values I learn by constantly using it prevent me from asking these questions, let alone answering them in a way that would constitute the life of someone who is a redeemed person in Jesus Christ.
[00:20:14] So life habit or life principle number 1 is live thankfully as a human in God’s creation.
b) Fix your attention where it belongs
[00:20:21] Tony Payne: The second life habit or life principle is to fix your attention where it belongs. Perhaps the single most effective function of the smartphone, among all its Swiss army knife capabilities, is its ability to capture and harvest attention.
[00:20:40] This, after all, is its economic rationale, and this is the basis of its astonishing spread and success. The smartphone repays the vast sums that have been invested in it, in its development, in its manufacture, in the network that sustains its operation—it repays all of this because it is stupendously effective at capturing and keeping human attention. And that’s something that can be monetised. The product that the smartphone harvests and sells, and by which it generates income for its investors and producers, is your attention: your focus; what you look at and listen to and think about. We’ve talked about this already at some length in episode 1.
[00:21:20] Now, a renewed mind—a transformed mind in Christ—will find this disturbing and ultimately intolerable. We remember Jesus’ words about “Where your treasure is, there, your heart will be also.” And we think, “Yes. That also means where our attention is, there our heart will be also.” The smartphones’ capturing of our attention is also a capturing of our hearts—of what we love and what we seek.
[00:21:49] Now, the alternative that Jesus puts forward in Matthew 6 is a positive one: it’s to seek something else. It’s to seek the kingdom of God. It’s not a denial of the value and goodness of earthly things—of the need for food and drink and clothes. But it’s a change of focus—of what we seek, of where our attention is directed. It’s to God and to his kingdom in Jesus Christ.
[00:22:15] Perhaps the most important practical way to reevaluate and to transform our smartphone usage is simply to notice and evaluate our attention. To what extent are we living our lives in the conscious presence of God, aware of his promises, attentive to his word, listening to and considering what his word directs me to think and to do in this circumstance, being thankfully dependent upon him in prayer in our everyday lives? Or is my mind constantly on earthly things, because my attention is constantly directed to earthly things by my smartphone? To what extent am I focused on and attentive to the neighbour that God has placed in my path, and who I’m called upon to love? Or is my neighbour effectively invisible to me, because my attention is so often wholly or partially elsewhere? That neighbour might be my spouse, or my son, or my work colleague, or the person I sit next to in church, or the person I meet on my walk, or the barista who serves me my coffee.
[00:23:20] The two great loves—to love God and to love our neighbour—are really connected with two focuses or foci of attention—of where our minds and hearts are directed; what we see, what we listen to, what we think about, what we attend to. This is the positive habit of life that drives out the self-obsessed, distracted life in which the smartphone disciples us—in which it’s designed to disciple us.
[00:23:48] The second habit of life is to fix our attention where it belongs: on God and on our neighbour.
c) Regularly blaspheme the false god
[00:23:55] Tony Payne: Now, the third principle or habit of life might sound strange at first, but bear with me. It’s to blaspheme the false god, and to do it regularly. To blaspheme the false god. I’ve taken this phrase from Jacque Ellul, the French theologian and philosopher, and his writings about the power of the false god money or mammon. And Ellul suggests that our fundamental response to a false god—to a pretentious idol or fake divinity—is to profane them—to blaspheme them, to refuse to recognise their power. He puts it like this:
[00:24:32] Steph Larkin: To profane money, like all other powers, is to take away its sacred character. For although we usually think of profaning goods and values that are religious in a positive sense, it is just as possible to conduct such an assault against Satan and all he inspires. This profanation then means uprooting the sacred character, destroying the element of power.
[00:24:55] We must bring money back into its simple role as a material instrument. When money is no more than an object—when it has lost its seductiveness, its supreme value, its superhuman splendour—then we can use it like any other of our belongings, like any machine. Of course, even if this relieves our fears, we must always be vigilant and very attentive, because the power is never totally eliminated.
[00:25:21] Now, this profanation is, first of all, the result of a spiritual battle. But this must be translated into behaviour. There is one act par excellence, which profane money by going directly against the law of money, an act for which money is not made. This act is giving.
The dumbphone life
[00:25:38] Tony Payne: If smartphone technology has the kind of power that money has—that is, to become a false god that attracts our devotion—what would it mean to blaspheme or profane the smartphone—to be a smartphone heretic? Well, surely the answer, given the nature of the smartphone’s power, is simply to ignore it—to refuse its constant clamouring for your attention, to adopt habits and practices that blow a raspberry at the smartphone’s insistence that you always pay attention to it, that you remain always plugged in to its virtual network.
[00:26:16] Now, the obvious way to do this is just to get rid of your smartphone altogether, and some people have. We met Michael and Steve back in episode 1, and after becoming frustrated with how much the smartphone was influencing their lives and after trying various things to limit that influence, they bit the bullet and just got rid of it altogether, and now use older-style phones—“dumbphones”, as they’re called. Here are some of their reflections on what that’s been like.
[00:26:44] Stephen: I’ve noticed that I’m able to remain more present and motivated, and, and play the best role I can in the relationships around me when I’m limiting my screen time where possible. And by not having a smartphone, I’m enabled to do that.
[00:27:00] The sacrifices, I’ve found, are, number 1—this is a big one: I’m less cool. I don’t have the latest iPhone, and how can I reach people with the latest iPhone? I’m less cool, which is a bit sad. And I also can’t order food from my table at a restaurant. Another big one. Another one is I can’t use WhatsApp as well. And so, there are frustrations.
[00:27:22] I think the biggest frustration is I’ve got less flexibility when I’m wanting to go somewhere with directions. And so, I’ve learnt that I need either a portable GPS, a friend, or I need to plan extensively in advance.
[00:27:36] Michael: Yeah, very relatable, Steve! To be honest, I have found some workarounds to those inconveniences, such as I’ve kept my smartphone, but I use it offline. So I’ve downloaded Google Maps onto it so I can use it in the car. And I’ve switched banking from my smartphone to my laptop. A lot of things just have switched to my laptop. So there are some inconveniences, but I’m just trying to find some sort of street-smart ways of dealing with those.
[00:28:01] But in terms of the advantages, yeah, I think just lifestyle. Steve was using that word, and it’s a bit clichéd, but feeling more present in situations, not as easily distracted. Life is just simpler—more simple, which just makes it more enjoyable.
Building walls
[00:28:16] Tony Payne: Perhaps for whatever reason, switching to a dumbphone is just not for you. Perhaps it’s not realistic. There are other solutions, though, and here’s José to discuss some of them.
[00:28:26] José: I think, in one sense, we need to be honest with ourselves that there will be some inconvenience to real change, because we can’t have it all, and because the way that I think Christians are going to use technology is going to be different to the way the world uses technology. There’s going to be some friction, naturally, that’s going to come out of that. And I think we need to be okay with that friction.
[00:28:50] So for example, for me, I have very limited set amount of websites that I can use on my phone, but nothing else. A lot of time when I go to a restaurant, I can’t scan the code and order online. And sometimes I need to use someone else’s phone or I go to the counter and order like we used to—give me a physical menu. And that can be inconvenient and awkward and things like that.
[00:29:14] But I think if we’re okay with knowing that there will be friction—that it’s—different things are going to be uncomfortable, it will mean that we might make some more bold moves that otherwise we’ll be afraid of making. Yeah, that would be my top pick.
[00:29:28] And I guess very tight in with that top pick would be to be honest with ourselves on how we use technology and then actually doing something practical about it. Rather than just saying, “I will do better”, I will delete the app. If you delete the app and you download it the next minute, it’s completely pointless. So I think my tip will be to actually putting boundaries between you and technology that actually stops you from doing the thing that you don’t want to do. And that’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be inconvenient. But it’s not the end of the world, and you’ll adapt.
[00:30:00] But I truly do think that we can build walls around our technology so that it serves us and they don’t rule over us. But that will take trial and error. It will be inconvenient. But I think it can be done. So we need to actually just do it.
[00:30:16] Tony Payne: José has developed some very clever techniques for doing the kinds of things he mentions in that clip—for building and maintaining walls around your smartphone, for turning an iPhone or an Android phone into a much more limited, tame kind of device. A passive phone, I guess you might call it. And we’ve put some links in the show notes for some videos that José’s recorded showing you just how to do that.
Stop one thing; start another
[00:30:41] Tony Payne: The important thing in all of this is to be honest and thoughtful about how you’re using your phone, or how your phone is using you—to stop running after its distractions like the Gentiles do, if I can channel Matthew 6 again, but instead to seek the kingdom. There’s always both a negative and a positive move in the transformation of our minds and our lives: to stop one thing and to start another—to stop being conformed to the world and to be renewed in our minds and attention. Elsie and Karen had some interesting thoughts and suggestions along these lines.
[00:31:18] Elsie: So if I could sum up my top tip, this might be more than one tip. I think of three words: “who”, “why” and “replace”. So I would encourage people to think deeply about who they want to be and how does their use of their smartphone help them in that? Is it taking them closer to who they want to be or further away?
[00:31:42] And also think deeply about your “why”—that is, why are you using your smartphone? And if you want to cut down the usage, why do you want to use it less? And that “why” will help you work out how to replace your smartphone.
[00:31:58] So if I am using doomscrolling or endless scrolling as a relaxation tool, what can I replace it with instead? So look for more tactile things. If you like puzzles or building LEGO, you know, go do those things. Go to the library. Get a book. Or go to the street library to get a book. I love pen and paper, so I’ve taken up journalling and planning using pen and paper. I find that really helps. And occasionally, I try to doodle, but because I’m not an artist, sometimes I still turn back to my phone for reference pictures.
[00:32:33] But that would be my tip—is to think very deeply about who do you want to be? Why do you want to reduce your screen time? And replace.
[00:32:41] Karen: I think I’m similar in that after reading that article that Ben sent me, I was very much thinking I want to be able to hack this device in such a way so that it serves me, rather than me serving it. So obvious things like turning off pretty much all notifications so they don’t bother me.
[00:32:58] But also there’s one feature of the iPhone that I really like, and it’s the Focus one, because you can make it location-specific.
[00:33:05] Elsie: Oh, wow!
[00:33:06] Karen: Yeah.
[00:33:06] Elsie: Yeah.
[00:33:06] Karen: I don’t think a lot of people know that. I’ve set it up so that as soon as I set foot in church, it immediately goes into Do Not Disturb.
[00:33:13] Tony Payne: Over the past few months, I’ve been experimenting with some of these blasphemous and heretical smartphone practices. Apart from the ones that have been mentioned just in the last few minutes, I’ve tried just for a certain amount of time each day turning my phone off and putting it in a drawer—just ignoring it and trying to have it as physically on my person as little as possible—certainly not to carry it around in my hand, which is what I see most people under the age of 25 doing these days. All of this is to say it’s worth trying to be a little more like the vast majority of humans in all of human culture, in all of human history, who have had absolutely no need to be plugged in and instantly contactable at all times.
[00:33:58] Now, I’d like to say that all of this has led to me feeling less anxious, less harried, less mentally frazzled and distracted. And I think it has, although of course there’s some confirmation bias in that, perhaps. But I’ve certainly noticed how much more I’m reading and how the ability to read for longer periods of time is coming back to me.
[00:34:18] And I’ve noticed that I’m noticing more. I seem to be a bit more present somehow in daily life—more aware of the people around me, more responsive to them, even. I’m having more casual and unplanned conversations. I find myself spending more time looking up and outwards to the people around me, rather than with my neck craned at that strange angle, concentrating on the phone.
d) Use the phone as an instrument of love
[00:34:41] Tony Payne: And this brings me to life habit number 4—the fourth and final thing to mention, and that is to use your phone as an instrument of love. Humans are given the task of making something of the world in the love of God and for his glory and in the love of our neighbour. And all human making—all human manufacturing and tools and technology—they find their goodness in being part of this divinely given project of our lives. And so too the smartphone.
[00:35:12] Much of this podcast series has been focused on waking up to the worldly patterns of thought and life that the smartphone disciples us in, and actively resisting and rejecting these. But in that rejection and in the transformation of mind and life that follows, is there a way to use the smartphone that does conform to the good and pleasing and perfect will of God?
[00:35:34] Well, if there is, it’s to use the smartphone instrumentally—to use it to love our neighbours, to use it to do something good and worthwhile that benefits other people. And when the smartphone assumes this dimension, it does, in fact, become an extension of ourselves—a tool in our hands to do what we were created to do. Much as we can use money well for the sake of others in generosity, so perhaps we could use the smartphone well—when it’s employed occasionally and appropriately, not in the service of a healthier, happier, more entertained and satisfied me, but in order to bless other people. When we reject its attempts to be an attention-harvesting discipler of our lives and instead, use it like an inert, lifeless, useful tool, well, perhaps the smartphone becomes almost like a pocket knife.
[Music]
Advertisement: Left right out
[00:36:57] Tony Payne: As Christians, how interested and involved should we be in the political life of our society? Now, some of us couldn’t be less interested in politics: we ignore it as much as we possibly can and try to just get on with what we see as the important aspects of living the Christian life and ministering to others. Others of us are really much more interested in politics: we dive right into the online debates, we keep ourselves informed, and we think that Christians have a real contribution to make politically.
[00:37:27] Now, which of these two kind of approaches is the more faithful Christian approach? Or is it somewhere between the two? And why is it that when we do get involved in politics in some way as Christians and we try to engage in the debate, we often feel that we don’t fit in? We’re not quite Left; we’re not quite right. We’re kind of both and neither at the same time. Christians often feel marginal in the political life of our society and wonder where we fit.
[00:37:56] I’m Tony Payne and we are going to be examining these questions at a Centre for Christian Living ethics workshop on Wednesday, May 20th at Moore College, starting at 7:00 pm. The title of the workshop is “Left right out: The strange position of the political Christian”, and I do hope you’ll join us to talk together about these important matters.
[00:38:16] You can get all information, including how to register, at ccl.moore.edu.au. That’s ccl.moore.edu.au. I do hope you can join us on Wednesday, May 20th for this important workshop.
[Music]
Conclusion
[00:38:45] Tony Payne: Well, that was episode 3 of a three-part podcast series on “The smartphone disciple” from the Centre for Christian Living here at Moore College. Special thanks goes, as always, to Karen Beilharz, for all her work in transcribing and editing and producing the podcast, and to the Centre for Christian Living team. There’s a student team here at Moore College who are involved in the work of the Centre, and they did a lot of work in research and in gathering interviews and other material for this podcast, and I’m really grateful for their contribution as well.
[00:39:13] Thanks to James West as well for the music, and thanks to you, dear listeners, for being part of the CCL podcast, for being here each episode. And thank you for the feedback that you keep giving us and the encouragement that we get from you.
[00:39:26] We do love to get emails from our listeners, not only to get your reactions and thoughts, but also for you to ask questions that you might like us to follow up on. You can send an email to ccl@moore.edu.au. That’s ccl@moore.edu.au.
[Music]
[00:40:02] Tony Payne: You can also head across to the CCL website, which is ccl.moore.edu.au, and there, you can find everything basically we’ve ever done. You can find all the talks and events that we’ve put on, and the video from them. You can find every podcast, going all the way back to 2017, plus a stack of essays and articles that have come out of that podcasting and those events.
[00:40:25] While you’re at the website, you can also find an opportunity to donate—that is, to support the work of the Centre for Christian Living here at Moore College, and we’d really appreciate it if you could do that. And also, as all podcast hosts are required to say, we’d love you to subscribe and to give us a review on whatever podcast app you use, ‘cause that helps others to find this podcast.
[00:40:47] Well, that’s about it for this episode and this special three-part series from the Centre for Christian Living.
[00:40:52] I’m Tony Payne. ‘Bye for now.
Photo by Creative Christians on Unsplash
