Confidently Christian and an Inefficient God
Double-header episodes on joy, frivolity, embodiment, technology, and why efficiency isn’t a Christian value.
My sincerest apologies, friends. I missed updating SubStack with last week’s Shock Absorber episode.
Which of course didn’t phase you at all because you’re all subscribed to Soul Revival Church on YouTube or your favourite podcasting app, right? … Right…?
Well, for those who wait for this email before digging into the pod, here’s the double-header you’ve been waiting for.
What We Want To Be
With
away, and I sat down with Ethan to discuss Soul Revival Church’s brief viral moment.Recently, Ethan and the late night crew went to the airport to create some “vibe” and welcome people who were coming into the Sydney International terminal. There was no one specific they were there to greet. No bait-and-switch style evangelism. Just pure unadulterated joy, frivolity and fun.
This kind of playfulness has been a characteristic of Soul Revival over many years. One thing that has changed recently is the rise of influencers and content creators, which meant that, unbeknownst to the Late Night crew, their antics were being filmed and ended up on Instagram.
I ask Stu to take us back to the early days of Soul Revival to explain why joyfulness and frivolity have been significant characteristics of the group, and what this tells us about our life in Christ.
Along the way, we also discuss Christianity Today’s piece on the disappearance of church kitchens, and the Rev Dr Michael Jensen’s sermon at the State Funeral of Australian radio royalty, John Laws, CBE.
Check out the full conversations in the links below.
God Is Not A God of Efficiency
Following up this week,
and I sat down to continue own on-again-off-again discussion about technology, AI, and the end of western civilisation. Ok… maybe not that far. But I raise my concerns that our obsession with productivity, AI shortcuts, and digital experiences is quietly dehumanising us, and what we the church can do about it.Coming out of reading The Extinction Experience by
and Digital Liturgies by in quick succession, Joel helps me unpack my gnawing discomfort with digital efficiency. I’m more and more convinced that God created us as embodied, incarnate beings and that this has significant implications for how we engage with technology, productivity culture, and even church.I was particularly disturbed by the concept of “reality privilege”—Mark Andreessen’s cynical argument that digital experiences are better than physical ones for most people. Rosen rightly pushes back on this from a humanist point of view, while James helps with further theological foundations for Christians.
My key musings for this week: that Jesus’ incarnation and resurrection make it clear that the human body—with all of its physicality and inefficiencies—is part of God’s good design for humans. Consequently, the church can be a refuge from the aggressive push toward efficiency and disembodied digital life.
Once again, full conversations in the links below.