Ethan J. Brue - A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers

Whether you are a student or a seasoned professional, many Christians working in technical areas struggle with engaging their faith in the world of technology. Perhaps you never thought about how your faith might inform your work in technology. Perhaps you feel a disconnect between your daily professional life and your Christian spiritual walk. The development of technology through science and engineering has always been a cultural activity with religious implications, but its direction is set by the human heart. Developing and using technology is one way we love God and our neighbor, and more fully witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ for the entire world.

The vision for this book is to provide a guide for Christian engineers and others working with technology to responsibly navigate todays technological terrain. A field guide is a resource that helps the reader identify things (usually plants or animals) in their natural environment. We hope this book serves as a field guide for readers interested in engineering and technology to identify and discern technology and its cultural environment. Furthermore, since all readers will be users of technology, and many will be practitioners, this book provides some principles and advice that we hope will be helpful to Christians who wish to be faithful and honor God in the technological aspects of their lives.

A field guide is not intended to be complete or comprehensive, since it is designed to accompany, not exhaustively inform, the traveler. Outfitted with this guide, explorers share the journey guided by the thoughts of those who have traveled a similar path. This field guide shares multiple voices, with varying perspectives about the terrain ahead, but always on the same journey of discipleship.

A field guide also provides a balanced perspective by noting challenges like endangered species and habitat pollution, but also depicting the beauty and wonder of the natural world. Here too, we hope to acknowledge the challenges arising from technology, but also point to the wonderful possibilities that come with technology and its ability to contribute to flourishing. Many books in philosophy and the social sciences provide wise warnings about the threats associated with technology, but we also want to ask the practical question: How then shall we engineer? Like other cultural pursuits such as politics, education, or the arts, technology has consequences if not pursued thoughtfully and responsibly. We want to avoid being what Neil Postman called, one-eyed prophets, who dwell only on the problems arising from technology, unable to imagine the wonderful possibilities. Rather than wringing our hands in despair, we want to explore how we as engineers and designers can responsibly pursue our technical vocations.

The three authors were motivated to write this book because we have each had similar struggles that we suspect many readers have. Each of the authors have served as professors in Christian colleges and universities but have also spent time in industry. Ethan Brue is an engineering professor at Dordt University and has worked as a project engineer in the energy and agricultural technology industries. Derek Schuurman is a computer science professor at Calvin University, but his academic training and industry experience are in electrical engineering. Steve VanderLeest is currently a computer engineer working in industry but previously served as a professor of engineering at Calvin University.

An article published in the journal Christian Higher Education surveyed faculty in Christian higher education and found that professors specializing in computer science, math, and engineering were the least likely to integrate faith into their teaching. Our experience has shown that this is not due to lack of piety on behalf of Christian engineering professors, but rather the challenges of faith integration within certain disciplines. As authors, we understand these challenges firsthand; each of us has worked as an engineer in industry as well as taught in Christian higher education. By sharing what we have learned, our hope is to encourage readers to ask wise questions about technology, aspire to more noble purposes with technology, and live lives more consistent with our faith in the areas of technology.

We acknowledge that the topic of faith and technology is complex, and as authors we did not always agree on precisely what to include or not. In fact, the purpose of this book is to invite you to join the ongoing conversation and participateexploring, discerning, and at times wrestling. Thankfully, none of us need to do this on our own. We can benefit from the insights from a large cloud of witnesses. We recognize that this book stands on the shoulders of many others, including the groundwork laid out in the 1986 book Responsible Technology.

You will notice multiple voices throughout this book..

Part of this book manuscript was written during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, a time when we were reminded of the blessings of technology to facilitate ongoing communication during a time of necessary physical distancing. But it was also a time in which we were reminded that we are not in control; that despite all our ingenuity we remain dependent on our heavenly Father. We are grateful to God for his grace and faithfulness which is also evident in the gift of technology.