Collected

Shorter

Theological

Writings

of

John M. Frame

Theology in the Age of the Internet

Means of communication have changed very rapidly through my lifetime, and for me the learning curve has sometimes been substantial. So I’ve had to choose which new systems to adopt and which to set aside. I did jump on the word processing bandwagon during the 1980s, and I have never regretted that choice. Without a word processing computer, I could not have produced a third of my writings.

E-mail has also been a major source of ministry. I’ve written probably thousands of them on theological subjects, probably at the expense of more generally valuable projects. I intend to cut back on that, since at my age I must focus on the projects in which I can make the greatest contribution. And I have gradually learned ways of saying no to people requesting “feedback” on their theological ideas. But in God’s providence those emails have probably done some good, for some maybe more good than my books.

I have neglected, however, PowerPoint (I still use old-fashioned lecture outlines, to the frustration of my students), cell phones, iPods, PDAs, and so on. Had these devices become available ten years earlier, I would have taken the trouble to master them, but when they did arrive I decided that the trouble of mastering them would be on the whole detrimental to my teaching effectiveness. I feel the same about the elaborate new Internet structure that RTS, my wonderful employer, has developed for posting assignments, grades, dialogues, course materials, and so forth. I will ignore it to the extent that RTS allows me to. Perhaps they will be willing to wink a bit at the inadequacies of a 68-year-old codger.

Eventually some of my writings appeared on the Internet, but only because good friends urged me to post them, especially at www.reformedperspectives.org and www.frame-poythress.org. Reformed Perspectives is part of the Third Millennium ministry, which seeks to get Reformed theology (in English and other languages) to all the nations, using all the new communications. Frame-Poythress is an archive where I hope eventually to house all my writings and those of my good friend Vern Poythress.

Now P&R Publishing, Bits & Bytes, Inc., and my editor and good friend John Hughes have brought me into the world of CD-ROMs, something which, again, I would not have sought out myself.

Despite my cyber-conservatism, I truly delight in the exponential expansion of theological communication possible in our day. When I get an email, it could be from next door, or it could be from Singapore. Sometimes I don’t know where my correspondence is going until I have exchanged several notes. This is surely what God intended when he told Adam to subdue the earth, when he told Abraham that in him all the nations would be blessed, and when Jesus told his disciples to make disciples of all nations. The biblical message has always had a world-wide thrust, and for this task modern communications are a ...