Sport new all of sort through all of the prompts, all of the interruptions, all of the things tugging at our attention, and how do we sort out whats urgent perhaps from what matters . Host you write jesus was more than a carpenter, he was a techie. [laughter] guest indeed. Well, its funny, you know, Everybody Knows in a sense that jesus was the son of a carpenter. They dont realize that that greek word for carpenter is actually the word tecton. So it could be, you know, as we enter this new century that we will come to think of jesus as more than maybe somebody, you know, good with his hands, a handyman type of person, but was he more of a builder . Was he more of a designer . Was he more of an engineer . Maybe if we want to understand what jesus looks like, we maybe need to look not to the front of the auditorium, but to the back of the auditorium. Maybe hes that person with a flashlighting and always figuring out how to tweak things and fix things. Host are are we idolizing technology . Guest ooh, do we idolize technology . I think when i allow it to be the first thing that i interact with in the morning and the last thing that i do at night, ive allowed it to order my day. You know, the monks actually invented the clock as a way of the mechanical clock as a way of ordering our days so that we would understand theres a time for work, and theres a time for prayer, and theres a time for food, and i feel like now were allowing our smartphones to sort of dictate the hours of our day. And i wonder if our relationship is a little too intense . Its our closest companion, and do we need to turn it off occasionally . To take back the power in our lives, perhaps to power down in order to power up . Host do you power down . Guest yes. You know, our family, i think, loves to leave our phones behind. I mean, we live here in california, and so the temptation might be to take that phone to the beach. But isnt that supposed to be time away, time apart . You know, time to think, time to not be interrupted . Time to wander . Isnt there a need for space in our lives to, i guess, make room, to be surprised by whats in front of us rather than this thing thats sort of telling us whats next. Host is that tough to do . Guest oh, its very hard to separate ourselves from technology. You know, i have an assignment in class where i ask the students to put it away for 24 hours, to have no, you know, no cell phone use, put away their computers, their laptops, even their television set. And it almost drives them crazy. Theyre like how can i possibly do this . My parents are panic, theyll wonder what am i doing, where wm i . They might begin that activity feeling very haired, but they harried, but they might do a weeks worth of homework in one afternoon because they suddenly are able to concentrate on one thing rather than being fragmented and distracted by many things. Host are there students who cant do it . [laughter] guest well, all the students are supposed to do it. I dont know some of them confess how hard it is, you know, and that they might have speak sneaked a peek and kind of, you know, picked up a little bit of update when they heard that click. But what i find is they end up kind of remarkably relieved, a little bit freed by this thing that is always beckoning them. And i think they start to wonder if it was, if its the possibility of recovering a bit of an electronic sabbath, you know . Putting a pause on our lives on a regular basis. Host craig detweiler, is it possible to be a good christian and still very techfocused . Guest oh, i certainly hope so. I mean, i am. I mean, im on facebook, im on twitter, you know . Nobody sort of interacts with social media more than i do. And yet im just trying to help us to refocus, to appreciate the genius of the igods, of people like steve jobs and the engineers at google and mark zuckerberg. They have redefined our world in amazing ways. Theyve helped us solve the problems of abundance, of too much information, of too many songs, of too many friends, you know . Theyve helped us, you know, bring order to the chaos of our world. And be and yet life still feels a little chaotic. So i guess im trying to challenge all people not necessarily just people of faith, but all people to question what degree would make technology an idol and perhaps realize the limits of what it can and cant do for us. Host you point out in here, and i just want to know the significance that both steve jobs and jeff bezos didnt though their real fathers. Why do you bring that up . Guest yeah. Its an interesting thing, you know, you have such talented n a sense superior and driven people behind these companies, you know . Why is it that apple and that amazon, you know, the visionaries behind those companies were so relentless and restless in their pursuit . And, yeah, its interesting that both besos and jobs didnt know their b with ezos and jobs didnt know their fathers. I feel like, in a sense, theyve become our fathers now, the fathers of technology, and just had this relentless pursuit to be at the top, to be number one. I respect them, but i also wonder at what point theyll be satisfied, at what point will they be happy. Host you have a subchapter in here called the problem with like, the Facebook Like. What is the problem . Guest well, one thing with the Facebook Like is that theres really not a dislike button. So all the time even if you have bad news to share, peoples only option is to sort of like it and say, yes, i agree, you lost your job. Hey, i like no, not supposed to like that. What do i do, you know . It sort of forces you to headache all your to make all your news positive, you know . Even if its something bad, you have to frame it in a way that people say, oh, i like that. And i think thats a little bit of a problem when you sort of limit Human Emotions and possibilities in a certain kind of way. Perhaps thats the power of the hashtag that allows us to, you know, comment on this thing that might be bad and to to sort of, you know, play with it a little bit. But its interesting, yeah, the software of facebook itself sort of forces you to be positive and share something that deserving a thumbs up, it deserves a like. Host as a College Professor here at pepperdine, is technology interfering with teaching . Guest every teacher, i think, wrestles with what to do with technology in their classrooms. I mean, the students, if theyre taking notes on their laptops, theyre also getting those updates, theyre getting that twitter feed, you know . And so you are constantly competing for their attention. Even in an exam type of situation, right . The possibility of students, you know, accessing their information via their cell phone maybe under their desk, its very high. The temptation to cheat, i think, is ever present. So one way ive dealt with it, im teaching media and yet i allow no media in the classroom, you know . No laptops, no cell phones. They have to be fully present both to the discussion and to each other. So i might use media on the scream, right . I might have a laptop thats bringing up powerpoints and slides and showing videos, but i dont want them fragmenting themselves out there. And yet when it comes time for exams, theyre allowed to have all media access possible. Host why . Guest because therell never be a time in their workplace where theyre cut off from those resources. And so to test them by saying what can you remember from your head or what have you memorized is not actually a real test. The moment kids are in, they have access to all questions. So how can you sort through too many options in a limited time frame . Isnt that the challenge of a workplace now, right . Given all the options, how do you sort through thing, how do you read carefully, how do you analyze, how do you make wise decisions given almost too many options . Host craig detweiler, you close igods with the question, is technology enslaving us . Whats the answer . Guest i guess we will come to see technology as, like smartphones, as something every day. Its already moving into glass, right . Google glass. I think well come to see it like a fork, like a spoon, like a pair of glasses. It wont be anything special, but at this point its so captivating, its so magical that i think we can give ourselves to it a little too boldly and up critically. And so my book igods is an effort to push pause long enough to just think and gain a little perspective, gain a little distance, make sure that those tools designed to serve us are not enslaving us. Host so the books kind of a warping shot across the bow . Is that a fair way of putting it . Guest i think igods is a deep appreciation for the people who have created these technologies. I appreciate how theyve helped us to manage abundance and too much, but its a chance to say be careful that you havent placed too much faith in technology and ascribed too much magic to something that is really meant to serve us rather than to drive us. Host igods is the name of the book, how technology shapes our spiritual and social lives. Craig detweiler of pepperdine is the author. Visit booktv. Org to watch any of the programs you see here online. Type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. You can also share anything you see on booktv. Org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. Booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. Booktv. Org. The help of our cable partner, media come, booktv also spoke with bill friedricks in des moines about real deal. Bill knapp won the highest civilian award in the state of iowa. Other iowans include grant wood, norman borlaug, so its a huge award in iowa. It was a long day for bill, and after the award there was a reception for him at terrace hill, the governors house. And bill sat down in a chair this is an old house, right . Bill sat down in this antique chair, and the first lady, christy vilsack, came over and said, bill, do you know whose chair youre sitting in . Thats f. M. Hubbel estuary. I happened to be talking to him, and it seemed to me the perfect statement, right . It was the 19th, 20th century businessman tipping his hat to the 20th, 31st century 21st century man. Bill knapp hes had a huge impact on des moines in several ways. First of all, bill knapp probably better than anyone, better than anyone ive heard of can envision a piece of land and imagine what its future can be. With that he also seems to have this amazing sense obviously where development is moving, which direction the city is moving. So over the last 40 years, bill has been buying land on the periphery of the city, and as Development Moves that way, he develops that land or sells it and makes a lot of money. Hes been very significant on the periphery of the city in doing that since the 1960s. He became very interested in Downtown Des Moines in 1977 when he bought the hotel savory which was a Dilapidated Hotel down here in Downtown Des Moines. He spent millions remodeling and refurbishing it, and that tied him into the Downtown Des Moines community with a group of businessmen in the Des Moines Development organization who realize that the only way to encourage more Development Downtown was to put together other parcels of land and encourage other developers. So they began buying up land and selling that to developers. And bill knapp was probably the leading purchaser for that organization, so he played a big, big role in bringing capital square, which is a big building down across from the savory. He played a big, big role in bringing downtown housing into the area in the 1980s on when there wasnt much downtown housing. So bill brought in the Civic Center Court apartments, he was responsible for bringing in the plaza condominiums, a highrise luxury development. Hes played a big, big role downtown. And recently theres been a new Organization Called the des moines Redevelopment Company which has been doing the same thing, buying up properties, trying to get developers to come in and redevelop those properties. That des moines Redevelopment Company, which was pretty much bills idea, is now involved with the new ymca, its involved adding on the courthouse annex, and its involved in a Big Convention hotel in Downtown Des Moines. Bill knapp was this kid on the farm in southern iowa who hated farming, couldnt wait to get off the farm. He joined the navy at 17 right when he graduated in 1944. He taught in the pacific for two years. He actually was a Landing Craft pilot that took troops back and forth to oak that withdraw in 45 okinawa in 45. Came back to