Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film Inception is a brilliant, often uncomfortable portrayal of a future world where sophisticated technology has unlocked the ability for people to escape reality. Through a fictional “dream-sharing” device, the characters in Inception can create, manipulate, and even invade people’s dreams. At one point in the movie, the heroes visit a scientist with the skill to make a sedative that allows for even more powerful and vivid dream-sharing. Upon seeing dozens of people in the scientist’s basement sleeping on beds, connected to the dream-sharing devices, one character asks, “These people come here to fall asleep?” The scientist answers, “They come here to wake up. The dream has become their reality.”

The writers of Inception used a science-fiction context to make a profound observation about human nature. If we can, we humans will tend to use our technology to put the world God has given us at a distance, and flee into an alternative reality that suits us. Although dream-sharing is the stuff of fantasy, there are indeed sophisticated technologies that bestow a godlike ability to create and inhabit our own universe. In fact, one of these technologies is probably in your hands or your pocket right now.

The Web, the smartphone, and social media together make up nothing less than a cultural revolution. For hundreds of millions of people, they represent the primary point of interaction with the world. We now work, learn, listen, debate, recreate, and even worship through the Internet. Given the radical novelty and enormous imprint of this technology on nearly every facet of our lives, shouldn’t we regularly be asking questions like, What kind of medium is this? Is there something here that may be influencing me at a near-undetectable level?

In fact, the answers to these questions may distress us.

Our Digital Dreamworld

The same year that Christopher Nolan fictionalized a world of escape into dreams, cultural critic Nicholas Carr published his manifesto The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr’s thesis is simply articulated but breathtaking in its implications: the Internet is an intellectual technology that is radically altering how we think, read, and communicate. Carr suggests that, whereas much technology (such as the plow or microscope) “extends our physical strength” into the outside world, intellectual technology — such as a clock, a map, or the Internet — directly reshapes how we think. Because of this, intellectual technologies make deeper and more permanent changes in what we believe and value. Carr writes,

Every intellectual technology . . . embodies an intellectual ethic, a set of assumptions about how the human mind works or should work. . . . The intellectual ethic is the message that a medium or other tool transmits into the minds and culture of its users. (The Shallows, 45–46)

As Carr goes on to show, the Web expresses its intellectual ethic in definite ways. Reading a physical book trains the human brain in the skills of quiet and focus, but the Web’s use of hypertext and distraction trains us in the behaviors of skimming, superficial comprehension, and flimsy, impressionistic interpretation. Online, it is very difficult to follow one train of thought deeply or be present for one particular experience or moment, because the Web’s structure emphasizes relentless novelty and diverse input (creating what Carr refers to as “the juggler’s brain”).

Carr’s analysis makes sense of a problem that many of us have. We feel that our phones, our apps, and our browsing are somehow hijacking our ability to read a book for more than few minutes at a time. We sense a diminished capacity to lose ourselves even in moments of true joy. We can detect an angrier, more defensive edge to many conversations even within the church, as people increasingly seem to talk past one another and retreat into competing enclaves that reinforce their opinions. Yet we are often unable to name this problem, and as a result, we’re too frequently left in a muddle of guilt and frustration.

Unfortunately, Christian approaches to this dilemma often settle for generalities. Like the teenage couple that just wants to know how far is too far, believers immersed in the world of the Internet often just want the bare minimum that can appear to “balance” screen time with private devotions or the weekly Sunday service. But this isn’t enough. The challenge before us isn’t to figure out how to inject a little bit of Jesus into our digital dreamworlds. It’s to wake up.

Wisdom’s Wake-Up Call

The book of Proverbs offers an especially compelling wake-up call:

Does not wisdom call?         Does not understanding raise her voice?On the heights beside the way,         at the crossroads she takes her stand;beside the gates in front of the town,         at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:“To you, O men, I call,         and my cry is to the children of man.O simple ones, learn prudence;         O fools, learn sense.” (Proverbs 8:1–5)

“Every wise word or action has one thing in common: a deep resonance with God-centered reality.”

While it may be tempting to think that the intellectual ethic of the Internet is so far removed from the experience of the biblical authors that they offer nothing to guide us, this would be a profound mistake. Lady Wisdom calls out to digital sleepers, inviting them to feast at her house. This is an invitation we need, because it’s precisely wisdom that our screen-addled age lacks. Wisdom, after all, is nothing less than the habit of living in accordance with what’s real. The God who really exists and the world he really made require us, as some theologians have put it, to “live with the grain of reality” rather than against it. While living wisely has many different facets, every wise word or action has this in common: a deep resonance with God-centered reality.

The connection between wisdom and the real physical world is clear in Proverbs 3:19–20:

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;         by understanding he established the heavens;by his knowledge the deeps broke open,         and the clouds drop down the dew. (Proverbs 3:19–20)

And in Proverbs 8:27–31, Lady Wisdom beautifully sings of how her handiwork is permanently engraved on the creation:

When he established the heavens, I was there;         when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,when he made firm the skies above,         when he established the fountains of the deep,when he assigned to the sea its limit,         so that the waters might not transgress his command,when he marked out the foundations of the earth,         then I was beside him, like a master workman,and I was daily his delight,         rejoicing before him always,rejoicing in his inhabited world         and delighting in the children of man. (Proverbs 8:27–31)

Wisdom is no mere grab bag of helpful quotes or memorable witticisms. Wisdom is the “master workman” through whom the whole (real!) universe was brought forth. Wisdom finds delight in the Creator’s inhabited word and in the humans who reflect the Creator’s glory throughout the cosmos. Wisdom, in other words, is deeply awake to the sheer wonder of the world and the people God has made.

“Wisdom is deeply awake to the sheer wonder of the world and the people God has made.”

In applying Carr’s insights about “the intellectual ethic” of the Internet to the biblical teaching of wisdom, I’ve come to refer to the disembodied character of the Web as a set of “digital liturgies.” Like a church service, the Web is a spiritual habitat that works on our minds and hearts to incline us to think, feel, and believe in certain ways. Why is it so hard to think well? Because the digital liturgies of distraction and novelty are crippling our capacity to grasp big, non-Instagrammable truth. Why is it so easy to feel more unified with online personalities than with the people in our actual home or church? Because the digital liturgies of custom-made identities and curated timelines tell us we should be able to be only what we choose to be. Immersed in these technological narratives, our default is to make the dream our reality.

Paths of Resistance

How can we, through wisdom, resist this?

First, we can structure our lives deliberately to give weight to the people, experiences, and things that are physically real. The habit of morning devotions may seem quaint, but it’s a habit passed down by saints who have experienced its power. In a world of unending ephemera, God has given us permanent words to anchor, convict, and comfort us.

We can also deliberately break our relationships out of the digital prison. A phone call or lunch date connects us to each other much more than a direct message or a “Like.” A good book or hands-on hobby will refresh us after a day in front of a screen much more than hours of streaming or scrolling. Getting outside, with no intention of leveraging the experience for social media applause later, puts us in the path of wisdom by reminding us that God’s world is much bigger than our heads.

Second, we can actively cultivate the habits of deep thinking and winsome speech that the Web erodes. Before the latest news headline or theological controversy drives you to Google, looking for quick reads you can use to jump in the fray, consider taking a few weeks to work through a book or meaty essay that will genuinely enlighten you. Resist the temptation to seek admiration by being the fastest, smartest, or most sarcastic online critic, and redirect that effort toward the kind of comprehension that John’s high Christology or Paul’s precise theology demands.

Finally, we can consider practical measures that keep the world of the Internet playing second fiddle in the daily rhythms of our lives. In his book The Tech-Wise Family, Andy Crouch commends regular tech-free stretches: one hour per day, one day per week, and one week per month of deliberate withdrawal from the most immersive and addictive online activities. Cal Newport outlines a more rigorous “digital detox” in his book Digital Minimalism that can help us rediscover which technologies actually serve our values, and which ones simply keep us hooked. Find an approach that works in your and your family’s season of life and that will help to incline you toward God’s wisdom rather than the un-reality of the Web.

Around the turn of the century, some 20 years ago, well-informed citizens might claim 20 sources of news. They’d watch a national and local TV news program, pick up a newspaper delivery or two each morning, wait each week or month on a few magazine subscriptions, forward some emails with bizarre threats, and tune in during morning and evening commutes to a talk radio station or two.

In the last 20 years, however, the number of sources has expanded to 200 . . . to 2,000 . . . to 200,000 . . . to 2 million . . . to 200 million . . . to 2 billion and beyond . . . to every person around the world who can open a Facebook profile, a couple burner Twitter handles, an Instagram account for public and one to hide from the parents, and on and on.

This revolution has implications for every corner of our lives, but perhaps none more consequential than that of Christian formation and discipleship.

From Curation to Algorithm

When pastors stepped into the pulpit 20 years ago, they held a knowledge advantage over most church members. They knew more about the Bible, more about other Christians around the world, more about history and theology. That didn’t mean the congregations would always agree. They could read the Bible for themselves. They could purchase the history books from Borders or Amazon. They could subscribe to Christianity Today. But this study required time, money, and effort.

At the time, it was still a curated world, controlled by editors and publishers and producers. Like pastors, these gatekeepers benefited from broad agreement. TV shows and periodicals could sell more advertisements that way. Pastors could focus on study and shepherding with one eye on the most popular cable news and talk radio hosts among their congregation.

The curated world has largely disappeared. The inconspicuous editor has been replaced by the opaque algorithm. And the algorithm knows more about us than any pastor or any editor ever could. The algorithm gives us what we might not even admit we want. Church leaders can only give us what they think we need.

Internet-Shaped Christians

Compared to 20 years ago, the Internet — not the local church — has become the primary place where Christians are formed today. Before their leaders ever speak, church members already know what they believe. And they expect their leaders to conform — or else. No wonder so many church leaders feel like they’ve lost their footing in the last two years.

“The Internet — not the local church — has become the primary place where Christians are formed today.”

Every pastor, of course, is led to think his situation is unique. Elders resign with accusations of theological drift. Younger members leave in frustration because pastors didn’t change their sermon to speak about the latest viral video. Deacons break decades-long friendships after they discover a new favorite YouTube channel.

In the aftermath, pastors reflect on what they did wrong. Did they unintentionally offend someone? Should they develop a new policy for when to revise the pastoral prayer? Did their favorite person to quote actually do all the terrible things that the podcast suggested?

When it’s happening to one pastor, it’s good to look in the mirror. When it’s happening to a denomination, it’s good to look at the culture of training leaders. When it’s happening in every single church, though, it’s a revolution.

The (Technological) Reformation

Revolution’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Martin Luther lived through a revolution. More than a century before Luther unwittingly launched the Protestant Reformation, Jan Hus had raised many of the same concerns about the medieval Catholic church’s ethical offenses. Hus, too, had the support of powerful political leaders in his native region of Europe. But Hus was executed as a martyr in 1415 at the Council of Constance. Luther died a natural death in 1546 after effecting schism with Rome. Under God’s providence, what made the difference?

Luther seized upon the print revolution of the early sixteenth century. And according to biographer Andrew Pettegree in Brand Luther, he effectively invented the popular theological treatise. He didn’t wait on the church hierarchy. He didn’t write only in scholarly Latin. He took his case straight from the Bible, straight to the people. This revolution of grace prevailed in much of Europe, and now continues to spread on every inhabited continent.

Today we’re living through the early days of a revolution of equal scale but with an uncertain outcome.

Terror to Bad or Good?

Luther and Hus remain heroes to the podcasters and YouTubers denouncing today’s church leaders as corrupt. If any figure in church history would have excelled in the volatile back-and-forth of Twitter, it would be Luther. Hus only wishes TikTok had been available on the road to Constance. If you’ve been hurt or outraged by corrupt denominational leaders, the Internet is your insurance. You don’t need a magazine editor or TV producer to investigate your story. They’ll sit at home and report on your Twitter Spaces. You have the power.

This revolution is a double-edged sword. It’s a terror to bad conduct. But sometimes it also slices the good. How can we, then, leverage this revolution for God’s glory?

Luther didn’t exploit the emerging celebrity culture and printing press for revolution’s sake. His revolution returned Christians to the ultimate authority of the word of God, which is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). This word of God condemns anyone who taxes the free gift of the gospel (Galatians 5:12). This word of God exterminates the brood of vipers who speak good but practice evil (Matthew 12:34).

“Any technology revolution that returns the word of God to the center of Christian life and practice will be blessed by God.”

Any technology revolution that returns the word of God to the center of Christian life and practice will be blessed by God. For the accountability of the word, every true church leader gives thanks. For the videos of BibleProject, the sermons of John Piper, and small groups on Zoom during a pandemic, we give thanks. For Paul’s command that our speech should “always be gracious, seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6), we give thanks — and ask God for slower thumbs.

Wherever the word rules, no one who belongs to God should fear.

Stumbling Toward Sobriety

This is the day the Lord has made. Ultimately, the Internet holds together not in California server farms, but by the word of his power. And yet church leaders today can no less ignore the Internet than the pope could dismiss Luther as a wild German boar.

So what’s the solution to the crisis of church leadership at the dawn of the Internet revolution?

Shifting all our ministry online would make the problem worse. In fact, church leaders do well to tread carefully and even consider stepping away from social media. You don’t pass the glutton another pint and expect him to stumble toward sobriety. Sometimes the best defense against the Internet’s never-ending pseudo-events is ignorance. You may not be able to ignore the Internet, but you should probably ignore most Twitter beefs.

As the Internet has expanded our horizons to the whole world, most church leaders should feel released to focus locally. Ministries like Desiring God and The Gospel Coalition have grown in the last 20 years to help fill the void of digital discipleship and counter anti-gospel messages with biblical truth. But the best our staff can do is help support local church leaders — the ones who know the real you, not the Instagram selfie. We can’t, and won’t, break the body of Christ and pour the blood of Christ at the Table so that you might taste the Lord’s goodness in the forgiveness of sins. When you stray from the word, we can’t knock on your door and offer encouragement and prayer. We can’t preach the word in power after sitting by your bedside in grief.

Our Soul’s Best Defense

The Internet exposes false teachers even as it enables false teachers to spread their destructive heresies (2 Peter 2:1). In every revolution, good people suffer from darkness masquerading as light (2 Corinthians 11:4). The best defense or discernment in the digital age is a local church leader, submitted to God’s word, who knows your name and knows your weaknesses and loves you all the same.

When we reorient toward the local church, the Internet revolution will enhance — not supplant — the ministry of the word. Another Reformation, where God’s people read and heed his word, may unfold in real time. And God’s name will be praised in our spiritual unity, rather than being reviled in all our man-made division.

What if this world was full of dragons? The question opens important windows into reality, even for those who care nothing for dragons.

I first asked the question while watching The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings again (after who knows many times). As my mind wandered to more exciting worlds than my own, Would I be happier, I asked myself, if God wrote orcs and hobbits and rings of power and dwarves and dragons into the pages of history? Would an earth filled with fantastic creatures — with talking trees, singing elves, grumbling dwarves, and firedrakes flying overhead — finally satisfy? I often answered, yes.

In this new world, normal life wouldn’t exist. I wouldn’t spend as much time on my phone. Life, I thought in honest moments, would be more thrilling, more heroic, more throbbing with that elusive something I had taught myself not to expect anymore. There — if there was ever possible — I would find what I had been searching for.

As I wondered about better worlds than God had made, and a more fulfilling life than God had given, the temptation of dissatisfied wishfulness came upon me. And this wishfulness comes to us all, for every human heart is prone to create its own make-believe worlds. On one planet, the perfect wife is found. On another, the doctor confirmed you were pregnant. And still another, the voice which has rested silently for years again calls your name. Each one beckoning like that ancient planet where man first ate in hopes of becoming like God.

We all have fantasies tempting us away from life as God has authored it, to some other life we think would satisfy. In those worlds, our restless longing for more (we imagine) would go quiet for good.

In a World Full of Dragons

In considering worlds where dragons roam, we come to observe a shared fiction: somewhere else seems to be the place of true happiness.

“We all have fantasies tempting us away from life as God has authored it.”

What perpetuates this lie for so many? Our imagined realities so rarely come true. We spend a lifetime pursuing a shadow of which we never see the face. If we actually found that perfect spouse, if our doctor had confirmed our pregnancy, if we had heard that lost loved one calling out affectionately to us, we might be happier, but not decisively happy. Even if our dreams came true, we would still ask, “Is there more?”

C.S. Lewis marks this after his own temptation to wishfulness. Apparently, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes) claimed to have photographed a fairy. Considering that fairies had invaded earth, he says,

Once grant your fairy, your enchanted forest, your satyr, faun, wood-nymph, and well of immortality real, and amidst all the scientific, social, and practical interest which the discovery would awake, the Sweet Desire would have disappeared, would have shifted its ground, like the cuckoo’s voice or the rainbow’s end, and be now calling us from beyond a further hill. (Preface to Pilgrim’s Regress, 236)

Sweet Desire hides just beyond the horizon. When the hoped-for is found, the sweet (and haunting) desire would not satisfy, but shift. It would find another hill to call from. Eventually, we would set out again for another hill, in another world, somewhere else.

Test man’s heart with new and wondrous pleasures, make the imagined real, and he will need more. God has written a message above all the real (and imagined) wells of this life, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again” (John 4:13).

Men Who’ve Seen Elves

This is confirmed by the few who have lived to secure what they chased after. They have the supermodel spouse, the acclaim and celebrity, the money and career, and yet they come to say with Tom Brady, “There has got to be more than this.”

Or, they say the same with the Prince of Pleasures, King Solomon, who after sampling each golden challis as we sample foods at Costco, found them all wanting.

Solomon tested his heart with the rare pleasures most spend their lives pursuing (Ecclesiastes 2:1). He tested his heart with abundant laughter (verse 2), wine and folly (verse 3), amazing careers (4), the beauty of nature (verses 5–7), servants to meet every need (verse 7). Anything he desired, he possessed (verse 10). He filled treasure rooms of silver and gold, hired singers to follow him with song, and filled his palace with beautiful women and sexual satisfaction (verse 8). As the resplendent king, he “kept [his] heart from no pleasure” (verse 10).

Solomon traveled to the rainbow’s end, tried earth’s choicest goods, but nothing satisfied his heart. He leaves us with a whole book summarized in three haunting words describing every well under the sun: “All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). He remarks that all was but a striving after the wind, nothing to be gained but vanity and vexation. Everything, that is, but a life lived for God (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14).

What we love and long for apart from God will leave us unsatisfied in the end. God has fashioned the human heart this way: “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). What we love will fail us as our hope. “Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

No Other Streams

We began with a question: What if this world was filled with dragons? Or, in other words, would our alternate realities — a world of fairies, elves, and granted wishes — bring us to that cool stream of ultimate satisfaction?

They would not. Even in a world of dragons, the human heart would grow cold and yawn and wonder, Is this all?

“Man will never find enduring happiness apart from his Lord.”

Christianity alone explains why our best imaginings after satisfaction inevitably fail: Man is too high a creature for even his greatest imaginings. He is made for communion with something greater than giant talking trees; made for greater dominion than taming dragons. He is made for God (Colossians 1:16), and remade and forgiven through Christ to enjoy relationship with God. Redeemed man is destined to rule with Christ into eternity (Revelation 5:10). Man will never find enduring happiness apart from his Lord. Branches exist to be united to vines; Jesus is the true Vine (John 15:1). All branches detached from him wither, die, and burn (John 15:6).

Or, to finish with Lewis in the realm of imagination, consider yourself before the Lion beside his eternal stream of life and satisfaction, as he warns you about every other stream:

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.

“I am dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the Lion.

“May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion. Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion. (The Silver Chair, 22–23)