God’s Presence in a World Without God: Doing Theology in Silicon Valley

[Michael Dunn]

Abstract - God’s Presence in a World Without God: Doing Theology in Silicon Valley

To facilitate God’s presence in a secular world requires the church to find a way to bridge the gap between the sacred and secular. Does a Jesus culture or people of God culture need to be a religious culture? As the secular irreligious become followers of Christ they add a new-found religiosity as they adapt to Christian culture.

Acculturation to a Christianized lifestyle is motivated in their effort to separate from the world. A polarization occurs where the world is viewed as bad and the church is viewed as good. The consequence of separating the sacred and the secular has the effect of displacing believers from their cultural context and makes it difficult to do theology in a way that makes sense to the secular world. “God with us” means that God in Jesus meets us in our context. Incarnation provides the message to reach those outside the faith.

This paper will examine specifically the Silicon Valley context: the people, the significant issues, communicating the gospel and the implications for the church in the 21st century.  Silicon Valley references the San Francisco Bay Area. But there are “Silicon Valleys” in every major urban area. Whether “Silicon Alley” in Manhattan or the “Silicon Hills” of Austin, Texas, or the tech centers of Santa Monica, or Raleigh, or Atlanta or Bangalore, or Hyderabad, or Shanghai, the tech community crosses every border as it follows the sun around the globe.