Is Technology Neutral, or Does It Carry a Theology?

Christians often default to treating technology as a tool that can be used well or badly. The framing has surface appeal but misses the deeper reality. As Albert Borgmann argues in Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life, devices are not simply means to neutral ends; they reshape the practices, relationships, and patterns of life that surround them. A wood-burning stove is not just inefficient heating — it is a “thing” that gathers a household around shared work. A central thermostat is not just better heating — it is a “device” that delivers a commodity (warmth) while dissolving the practices that the stove sustained.

To say every technology carries a theology is to recognize that adoption is never just functional. Each tool we adopt subtly answers questions about what matters, what counts as flourishing, and what kind of people we are becoming. Christian discernment requires reading those answers and testing them against Scripture and the character of Christ — not to reject technology wholesale, but to use it without being uncritically used by it.

Key Takeaways: Reading the Theology of a Technology

Scholar: Albert Borgmann’s distinction between devices and things.

Diagnostic Questions: What practices does this technology dissolve? What does it teach me to want? Whom does it form me into?

The “So What”: Christians who treat technology as neutral will be formed by its hidden theology while assuming they are simply “using a tool.”

James Spencer, PhD, is a theologian, author, and host of the Thinking Christian podcast, where he writes and speaks on Christian formation, political theology, and technology. He holds a PhD in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and completed the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He serves as President of the D.L. Moody Center in Northfield, Massachusetts, as adjunct faculty in Wheaton College’s MA in Leadership program, and as an Associate Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Christianity.com, and Sojourners. His forthcoming book is Discipleship and Discernment in the Digital Age (InterVarsity Press, Fall 2026). Learn more at jamesgspencer.com.