wfn.org | Lambeth report highlights benefits, perils of technology

["Lambeth98" <storm@indigo.ie>]

ACNS LC095 - 6 August 1998

Lambeth report highlights benefits, perils of technology

by Nan Cobbey
Lambeth Conference Communications

Bishops in Section One addressing modern technology describe the
heaven-and-hell nature of "this gift with a price"-its vastly
different effects in different cultures-in their report released
to the Lambeth Conference.

"Modern technology can save lives, cure disease, increase
productivity, connect people globally . . . . [Yet, it] can also
alienate and isolate people, even kill and dehumanize," says the
report issued by the 24 bishops in the subsection.  

"We cannot talk about technology without also talking about
stewardship," declares the report in its first paragraph.
"Technology is the means by which human beings exercise
dominion." 

In presenting global perspectives, the report recounts both
promise and danger. "The west might be more immediately concerned
about cloning or the effect of Y2K (the malfunctioning of
computers programmed to recognize the year in two digits) which
will affect banking, the food industry, military and security
organizations, communications and the entire world-wide
technological infrastructure," it observes. At the same time,
"the two-thirds world might be more concerned about the
technology of food production and the impact of technology on
employment, the creation and deletion of jobs."

The report includes abundant examples:

* In Uganda, television informs, educates, entertains, but
tea-picking machines "make people jobless" and computers and
information technology "bring loss of neighborliness."

* In Sudan, genetic and medical experimentation is thought to be
"potentially immoral in that they manipulate human life."

* In East Asia "there are financial crises brought on by
technology when investors can move in and out of markets quickly
leaving workers without jobs."

* In India, where half of the population cannot read or write,
language-specific technology leaves half the population out, yet
television means that even "people in the most conservative rural
areas are impacted by the values of the west." 

However, says the report, the new technology, the "pervasive
presence of information," can also be liberating. "New ideas
cannot be kept out and this has served to promote and extend
democratic ideals. Tyrants and dictators cannot carry out their
totalitarian rule in secret."

The technology of war - sale and deployment of arms, atomic
testing - were another concern, especially since today "it is
possible to learn how to make an atomic bomb on the Internet."  

The bishops conclude their report with a theological and a
practical challenge.

"Our dominion over the earth has been at its best a reverent
stewardship . . . at its worst [it] has despoiled the earth . . .
enslaved and destroyed people," they write. 

Concluding that technology, like power, is never morally neutral,
the bishops write, "From the perspective of the gospel,
effectiveness is judged by whether the poorest end up with jobs,
food and water." They suggest pertinent questions to ask in order
to make moral decisions about use of technology. "Is the power
appropriate? Does it preserve and enhance or does it destabilize?
Is it ultimately manageable and controllable? Is it accessible to
all and does it produce benefits available to all?"

Finally, they make a recommendation: Establish a commission
through the Anglican Consultative Council to track technological
developments, reflect theologically and ethically on them and
keep bishops and leaders informed. Do this, they ask "through the
very technologies we have been discussing: e-mail and Internet
conferencing." 

The subsection proposed three resolutions adopted by the
Conference. The first, on nuclear weapons, calls upon governments
and the United Nations to urge a halt in their production,
testing and stockpiling and a prohibition of nuclear war. The
second calls for a commission on technology and ethics. The
third, on landmines, calls for ratification of the Ottawa
Convention and funding from all governments for mine clearance
programmes. 

For further information, contact:

   Lambeth Conference Communications
   Canterbury Business School
   University of Kent at Canterbury
   Telephone: 01227 827348/9
   Fax: 01227 828085
   Mobile: 0374 800212

   http://www.lambethconference.org