Why are you reading this, sinner?

There was a time, not so long ago, when it was believed that we stood on the threshold of a new era of human knowledge. Our children would be far better educated than we were and money would rain down from the heavens. Indeed, real cash was poured upon many with nothing more than an idea and a clever name. This New Jerusalem was to be brought forth by the greatest blessing ever bestowed on mankind: the internet.

The internet even seemed to fulfill a New Age prophecy:

"With the evolution of Man," he [Teilhard de Chardin] wrote, "a new law of Nature has come into force--that of convergence." Biological evolution had created step one, "expansive convergence." Now, in the twentieth century, by means of technology, "the hitherto scattered" species Homo sapiens was being united by a single "nervous system for humanity," a "living membrane," a single "stupendous thinking machine," a unified consciousness that would cover the earth like "a thinking skin," a noosphere," to use Teilhard's favorite neologism.
Tom Wolfe, "Digibabble, Fairy Dust, and the Human Anthill." Hooking Up. 69

Of course it all came to nought. Our children may turn out to be intellectually crippled by relying on the internet, the stock market crashed when people finally realized that some companies had no actual product, and the internet has proven to be the most effective means of disseminating pornography yet conceived by man. And yet, despite the evidence that the internet is inspired by paganism, dangerous for America's youth, and a den of iniquity, Christians who give lip-service to separation from the world use it anyway.

So what say you, David Cloud? Do you and your ilk need to repent? You teach people to "touch no unclean thing." Surely that includes the internet. If musical rhythms are to be forbidden because they suggest sensuality, how much more so should a network which depicts sex in a graphic and debased way be condemned in our churches? To argue otherwise would be to admit that things are not evil by their nature, but only insomuch as they are misused by evil people. I await the carrier pidgeon announcing your repentance.

Category: Gnat-Strainers