Tanned and rested John has blogged two entries on Ellul. John: where do you find that kind of theological imagination outside the Reformed world? ;-)

One of the signs of hopelessness is that we live in the age of derision, which is “shown to the aged by the young, towards politicians by the media, and in many branches of the arts. (...) [O]ne aspect of modern life is exempt from this derision:”

Technology is not ridiculous. It is not made the object of derision … [Man] cannot compete with technology in power, precision, finesse, and intelligence, so he founders in self-accusation. The system of derision is really an essential aspect of a society in which technology becomes God.

To question the sanctity of technology is the near unpardonable sin. Technology is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit. It is the Excalibur that ensures divine blessing upon our benevolent rule. John’s closing to the second post deserves an echo:

Even in the church, the centre of devotional gravity has shifted away from the Word and sacraments to other things: charismatic gifts, upbeat music, acts of service, political involvement. Not that all these things are wrong in themselves, but that the apparent lack of power in the Word and sacraments, the apparent need to employ other means to bring and keep people in, provides some confirmation that the Holy Spirit is not working as powerfully in the church as we might wish to believe.

One of the reasons, I think, that such a radical critique as Ellul’s isn’t believed is because we put ourselves in the position of wielding Excalibur to defend the church, the people of God, from all corners. This includes needed prophetic critique from within. This puts us constantly at work reassuring ourselves, sometimes precisely on those points on which we should not be reassured. It just can’t be that the Holy Spirit is no longer speaking in our active, noisy, vibrant churches. We have the numbers and market share to prove it, right?

What do we find attractive, and why? John’s phrase is an elegant way to ask the question: where is the “centre of devotional gravity” in our church?