Experimentation and Mystery

In this, the inaugural post on the Christian Experimentation blog, I want to reflect on whether such a thing is even possible -- i.e., a legitimately Christian experimentation -- specifically with regards to the mystery at the heart of Christian faith.

The idea of "The Lab," which exists only as a website that gathers together various initiatives, approaches, and attempts at exploring what it might mean to live within the kingdom of God. Some of these are purely devotional in aim (e.g., "The Hot or Not Bible Study Method"), others are evangelistic, or institutional, or agricultural. All of these are to various degrees provisional or contingent in nature -- although at least some of the more institutional ventures have some longevity behind them.

I have recently been reflecting on what it means to live in a technocratic society. My likely simplistic understanding of this is that we live in a society that (1) sees all things as a kind of resource for use (what the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, called "standing reserve") and (2) places its hope for salvation in having the right technology. "There's an app for that" is a slogan that describes this worldview well.

Conceivably, there may be those who wish to argue that this orientation to the world is neutral or somehow inconsequential (what Albert Borgmann terms, respectively, the "instrumental" and "pluralist" approaches to technology). I'm not especially interested in this argument, though. I am convinced that this "technocratic" (or, to use Borgmann's term, "substantive") situation is one of the great evil spirits of this age: contributing to the global ecological disaster, the rise of the attention economy, and the loss of much that was human and creaturely in this world.

If, therefore, technocracy places hope in having the right technology, then is a Christian experimentation possible? Are we not simply attempting to locate the "magic bullet" tool or technique that will usher us out of the buffered condition we find ourselves in a secular age and into a world of spirit and divine union? I think this is certainly a significant temptation. We could treat the "experimentation" performed in The Lab as a kind of R&D for the church: looking for ways to improve, refine, enhance, and render more efficient the life of the church. I have used this kind of metaphor in the past -- and the warnings of technocracy have been helpful in giving me insight into the problems with this.

Yet there is another way to treat "experimentation." The earliest scientists, what was called "natural philosophers," did undertake "experimentation"; however, this emphasized the root of the word, which had to do with "experiencing." They encountered the world, not as something to be taken over and put to work, but as something filled with a wonder to which they might stand as witnesses.

The work of detouring technocracy is a challenging one; to describe things a bit differently, technocracy is magnetic, and it is always drawing its denizens back to it. Nevertheless, perhaps by emphasizing an orientation towards the mystery of God -- a mystery that is always also accompanied by the revelation of Jesus -- the technocratic leanings of "Christian experimentation" can be mitigated. Instead of finding a technology that might save us, a committed openness to the truth of what is old and new in the multiple strands of the Christian tradition might allow us to recognize more deeply what has already been accomplished.