Their First Langauge
Is HTML

Summary of Session 2
by Leonard Sweet

Speaking from his own experience as “a good Gutenberg person” for the first 25 years of his life, he traced the history of the old technology in his teaching career at Drew University.  First it was the breakthrough to “onion skin paper” which removed the smudged ink from the typewritten page, then came white-out, then mimeograph paper and finally the correction wheel.

“Obviously this world doesn’t exist anymore,” he observed, but this is the world most of us grew up in, the world in which we developed our epistemology.  Sweet came to a sudden realization in 1987, he said, that this world was over and that he needed to, at that point, become a “learner” in the new culture, not rest on his Ph.D. laurels as the “learned.”

It was at this juncture he divided the world into two groups.  The first group are the immigrants, those born before 1962 who think linearly, are most at home with the printed page, and who do strategic planning, relying heavily on logic and scientific research.  Those born after 1962 he dubs natives, whose magic is not the printed page but the screen—in all its forms.  “They are being shaped by another technology—a digital one—that is so fast and furious we immigrants can hardly keep up.”

In his generation, Sweet said, everything was predictable, but now everything is moving.  Change is now exponential, not incremental, as he was accustomed to.  “The microprocessing power of the computer will eclipse the power of the brain,” he predicted.

Some in this generation, he noted sadly, react in fear by creating little cultural “immigrant” communities, putting up gated churches like gated communities.  “But God has chosen you to be a leader for this period of time for a reason.  He has not called you to preserve a culture but to work in a new “native” one.

Quoting author Bill Joy in Does the Future Really Need Us?, he noted that we are being revolutionized by this new culture.  Now it is bioengineering, biotechnology with new information taking over every six years.  The church unfortunately is far behind, causing Joy to argue that researchers should declare a moratorium on their work until religion and the ethicists catch up.

We, in the church, are so clueless, Sweet opined with passion.

He told another story of how he developed a logo for his web site, using the image of a swing.  Going back to his childhood experiences in West Virginia, he wanted something that would be a useful metaphor for this native culture.  He chose the image of the swing, he said, because it represents a childhood ritual of leaning back to begin the action (recognizing tradition), but having to kick forward to gain momentum.

“It’s the image of leaning back into the arms of Jesus,” he said, “and then pushing forward into the future.”  God has a dream for your church, he challenged.  Run the distance, then go back and get a running start into the world.

He called for risk taking, like developing worship styles that are not reactionary to this new culture, but creating one that meets the needs of both cultures, something between Eastern Orthodox and Pentecostal, more appealing to the senses while at the same centered in the unchanging truths of the gospel.

We need to give these natives metaphors, being in touch with the culture but in tune with the spirit, like Jesus was.  Jesus said repeatedly that the kingdom of heaven is like . . . and then told stories—metaphors—a man seeking a lost sheep, a woman giving her last two coins, a farmer going out to sow seed.

When asked if there is a future for denominations (an immigrant paradigm), Sweet said the natives really don’t care about that.  Spirituality, yes, church, no, he said of their view of the organized church.  And while we are becoming more global, we are at the same time becoming more tribal, and Anabaptists should feel right at home with this. 

“You have maintained in your theology an emphasis on community down through the years and now is the time to offer it to this new culture.”