If you have ever surfed you know that a lot of time is spent looking out at the horizon, searching for signs of a wave beginning to take shape. Precious few of us seemed to have been looking at the cultural horizon in the early 2010's as the social media revolution began to take shape. For many, while a vague concern of the impact of digital friendships, and online bullying was back of mind, the gift of effortless communication and connection across time and space seemed almost intoxicating. Today it is clear, one generations social media party has become a new generations socially anxious hangover.

It seems every generation has its own fiery furnace. That is, some threat for refusing to give your obedience and attention (i.e. worship) to the idolatry of the day. In ancient Babylon, for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the empire demanded that they bow down to a ninety-foot statue made of gold. In our day, with 5 of the last 6 U.S. Surgeon General’s nation-wide advisories targeting the social isolation and parental exhaustion connected to the youth mental health crisis, and with a 52 % increase in teen suicide over the last two decades, it seems clear that the threat of the fiery furnace remains today.

Okay, admittedly it is a pretty obscure title for an article…

“Spiritual theology — or maybe I should just say the Christian life — requires dialogue.”

 - Eugene Peterson

Where life in the biological and psychological sense remains common in our digital age, it is Zoe: life abundant, purposeful, and eternal, that grows in increasingly short supply amidst digital Babylon…