In a world where every aspect of our identity will be…

“In a world where every aspect of our identity will be completely customizable, celebrating a received identity—given by God to be his human image-bearers, made with flesh and bone, male and female, for the cultivation of the world—will be radically countercultural. But it will also be lifegiving. The anxiety of self-creation is already crippling Gen Z and Millennials.

The church may be the last place that accepts you as you’re made, not as you’re projected.”

@ianharber and @patrickkeithmiller from their article “How to Prepare for the Metaverse” featured on @thegospelcoalition

Personally - I’m 100% sold on virtual and augmented reality. I can already see a future (in office work and tech at least) where we don’t actually ever go into an office. VR already allows for amazing collaboration spaces; infinite whiteboards, infinite attendees, dynamic and inventive communication tools, totally customizable workspaces, while removing the requirement that we all gather in a building somewhere. I don’t the think the hardware is there yet but we’re one breakthrough device from it being so.

But as pointed out in this article - we are entering a world where our physical traits and attributes, the things that God specifically created in us, are becoming totally malleable. What does that look like as a society and more specifically the church? What happens when a “modern workplace” looks more like hundreds of people in rows of slightly reclined chairs plugged into the network of their employer? Granted, for some this is absolute freedom - their physical limitations make working at physical location difficult or impossible. But at what point do real experiences and interactions become novel and out of reach because the friction to enter in VR is so low?

So many questions, I pray we are able to get ahead of them before we find ourselves left behind them. 🤔