Technology and Faith

At LEM, we believe that the Spirit of God works in and through our vocations to technical fields of research, learning and teaching.  As with any vocation, our specialized knowledge and skill brings with it a responsibility to be faithful and honest stewards of the resources and information with which we are entrusted.  Given our unique setting as a faith community within an internationally renown technological institute, LEM takes a special interest in the intersection of spirituality with technological development.  From advances in neuroscience that help us better understand the experience of freewill, to the life and death ethical choices that civil and environmental engineers make every day, to how we at MIT can help communities in the developing world improve their quality of life using appropriate technologies, the importance of bringing these two fields into dialogue has never been greater. 

This theme weaves its way throughout our ministry, through sermons, Bible studies, our discipleship group, and our service projects.  Over the past two years, LEM has sponsored an extended mission and service project called FloodSafe to develop a flood warning system in a rural river basin near Tocoa, Honduras.  In addition, LEM also supports the work of the Technology and Culture Forum, an MIT organization dedicated to promoting discussion of the ethical implications of scientific and technological innovation.
           
Two additional resources on the issue of faith, science and technology are:
Covalence: a Lutheran Journal  of Faith, Science, and Technology