Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has warned that Christians are not ready for the moral and social challenges that are going to come along with technology and shared how parents can help prepare their children for what lies ahead.
In a video posted on the Gospel Coalition website, Dr. Moore made his comments in response to the question, "What moral/social issue on the horizon might be most surprising to Christians?"
"Many Christians are probably not ready for some of the moral and social challenges that are going to come along with technology, especially as technology is further and further integrated into the human being and into the human person," Moore responded.
He used the issue of pornography in explaining how the internet has drastically changed society in just a few years: "In the 1990's and early 2000's, many Christians felt as though they were winning on pornography simply because there were convenience stores, for instance, that were no longer carrying pornographic magazines," Moore said. "What they didn't see coming down the pipe, though, was a digital world that would make pornography ubiquitous with an illusion of anonymity in a way that has destroyed lives and destroyed churches."
While we don't know exactly where technology is going, it is of the utmost importance to be prepared for the future: "If we're not thinking ahead of time about what it means to be human, about what it means to be created in God's image, then when technology starts to develop, we're going to be taken off kilter," Moore contended.
Thus, while it is certainly important to address social and moral issues in the culture from a Gospel perspective, Moore believes it is also crucial to teach children and adolescents what it means to apply the Gospel to issues that we are yet unable to comprehend.
"I think, for instance, about the transgender conversation," the theologian explained. "There are adolescents in our churches all over the country and in other parts of the world who are having to make decisions no previous generation had to make decisions about before: 'Am I male or female? Am I a boy or a girl?'"
He added, "Those are the sorts of questions Martin Luther never had to answer. We need to be giving a grounding of what it means to be made in God's image, what it means to be reconciled to God through Christ in a way that can answer these technological developments, whatever they are in the future."
In an earlier podcast, Moore shared his thoughts on how Christian parents can best address transgender issues with their children and better help them develop a biblical perspective on the subject.
"I think the worst thing we can do when talking to our kids about sex in this current environment is to give the impression that there's something we're afraid of," he said.
"We have a Word to give. So, if we give our children the idea that somehow we're not willing to talk to them about these issues, or that the idea of talking about these things freaks us out, then we're not going to disciple the next generation."
Because such issues are sensitive, Moore says it is imperative that parents use age-appropriate language when teaching children about what's happening in the culture around them and present them with a "positive vision of a Christian view of sexuality grounded in the picture of Christ and the church and the Gospel."
