611 - Theology and Technology: Essays in Christian Analysis and Exegesis

Theology and Technology: Essays in Christian Analysis and Exegesis

By Carl Mitchan and Jim Grote

Lanham, Md., University Press of America, 1985. 523 Pp. $20.25.

The essays in Theology and Technology provide a plurality of perspectives on their subject. H. Richard Niebuhr, Bernard Lonergan, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Walter Ong, Charles Hartshorne, Augustine, Martin Luther, Thomas Aquinas and others are utilized by contributions to this anthology of twenty essays depicting relations of theology and technology today. The majority of contributions apply negative judgments about such relations. They variously argue that authentic Christian theology, whether biblical, historical, systematic, or philosophical, is too atemporal, or ascetic/ monastic, or of the cross, or ontological, or ecological to justify adequately modern technologies. These writers trace enthusiasm for technology to the Western Enlightenment to its "flight from being," its historicism, optimism, and progressivism. They criticize prominent contemporary Christian theologians as unwitting apologists for destructive changes of human spirituality, psychology, and physicality brought about by technology. I would allow for possibilities of conversion, synthesis, and paradox in assessing relations of theology and technology. Most of these writers attempt rebut-

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tals of these possibilities and argue instead that the ethics of Christian theology and those of modern technology operate at cross purposes.

The outstanding feature of this text is its 179-page annotated bibliography of books and articles on theology and technology, The section entitled "Pastoral Issues" contains 96 entries. The essays are short, accessible to the general reader, and equally inspirational and analytical. Inclusion of liberation and feminist perspectives would improve this book. I recommend Theology and Technology principally to ministers and religious educators wanting perspective and information on the subject.

James E. Reagan, St. Meinrad School of Theology, St. Meinrad, Ind.