How Should Christians Think About Digital IDs, Data Centers, and Digital Surveillance?

First, we need to recognize that those who don’t know Christ are in a difficult situation. The world is broken, and everyone is responding to that brokenness. As Christians, we order our lives according to Christ trusting that his way will allow us to overcome the world just as he did (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 21:7). For non-Christians, the broken world has no clear solution. Because non-Christians do not recognize the basic human problem (i.e., human sin) and solution (i.e., faith in Jesus Christ), they are left only with attempts to control and/or survive in a hostile world. From a theological perspective, we know that when human capacity is unrestrained and unguided by the word of God, it will increasingly diverge from God’s order.

Even if those who are pushing for technological advancements like digital IDs or digital surveillance don’t have pernicious motives, we can be sure that human attempts to control the world won’t fix the world. Often, those attempts will create new problems. As Iain McGilchrist notes in The Matter with Things, “We take the success we have in manipulating it as proof that we understand it. But that is a logical error: to exert power over something requires us only to know what happens when we pull the levers, press the button, or utter the spell…It is hardly surprising, therefore, that while we have succeeded in coercing the world to our will to an extent unimaginable even a few generations ago, we have at the same time wrought havoc on that world precisely because we have not understood it.”

If our predominant way of thinking is pragmatic in nature, it seems likely that we, as Christians, will be tempted to adopt the world’s logic—to prioritize control and efficiency over wisdom and humility.

Second, we must account for those who have pernicious motives. There are people in the world who seek to exert control over others or to use the authority they’ve been given for their own benefit. We should not automatically assume that we understand the motives of those advancing new ideas. There are those whose ambitions and will to power should not be trusted.

As Christians move into an increasingly digital world where being surveilled is easier and maintaining an appropriate private life more difficult, we need to be sober minded. The problems this world poses present complex challenges that can create challenges to Christian witness in a number of different ways. Considering the challenges of the digital from a single point-of-view makes us more susceptible to bad ideas. One such idea involves identifying certain technologies with the mark of the beast.