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Luddites or Custodians?
Funny thing technology.
Sometimes it appears to give with one hand and take away with the other.
For example, portable e-mail devices give convenience on the one hand, and take away relaxation with the other.
Portable sat-nav gives you direction on the one hand, but also can give away your location on the other.
Before you know where you are, convenience becomes necessity, and technology appears to govern your life rather than the other way round.
Perhaps this is the cyber-tail wagging the cyber-dog? |
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There are two innovations on the way in the book trade, which appear to be doing entirely different things. On the one hand there is the Kindle - a portable device about the size of a paperback book, onto which you can download wirelessly thousands of books and newspapers.
On the train, on the beach, or even in bed, you could browse a virtual bookshelf and select something to read. Kindle's inventors even boast about the 'paper-like' look of the Kindle's screen, for those who might find themselves pining for its more traditional cousin.
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Kindle |
Espresso Book Machine
(Click for YouTube action video) |
At the other end of the spectrum is the new ATM for books, already dubbed the 'Espresso Book Machine'.
These machines will allow you to browse a catalogue and then to print a 300 page book, including colour cover, in just 3 minutes. To complete the 3's, some are predicting the $3 book from this machine in colleges and bookshops within the next few years. |
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As a faith group often referred to as 'people of the book', you might expect Christians to feel nervous of these developments.
After all, would we want God's holy word dispensed from a machine with all the ceremony of a cup of watery coffee?
Will we encounter God on the sacred page, even when the page is neither paper nor sacred?
In fact, we believe that we encounter God through the Word, rather than directly within it.
Since that is the case, we might do so as easily through a pixellated or an instantly printed page as we might through a paper one.
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BibleGateway.com |
Digital Bible |
Not only this, but Christians have always been keen to harness technology in the service of their faith, whether it is printing presses for the Bible or planes and helicopters to feed the starving.
Our wonderful, creative God who gave us the wits to invent these things also expects us to have the wit to use them!
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