What Cell Phones Say

More and more, our culture is shaped by its vast array of technologies. These devices-including televisions, CDs, cars, and computers-usually become taken for granted and then recede into the background of our lives. Yet God calls us to “Test everything. Avoid every form of evil. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). This includes doctrine, but it also includes practices of our everyday life. As salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13), we must not conform to the pattern of worldliness (Romans 12:2; 1 John 2:15-17).

One of these fairly new technological devices, the cell phone, is no longer merely an expensive novelty, but has become part of mainstream culture. Cell phones have brought new ways of relating to others. Twenty years ago, few people talked on the phone in their car, anymore than they washed their dishes there. Today, using car phones is routine.

On the good side, cell phones can add safety and convenience to our lives, if used wisely. They offer ready access to help for those who have to drive long distances or who encounter emergencies. They offer a valuable service to those in some careers, such as real estate agents and doctors. Parents can use them to stay in touch better with their children.

Nothing is inherently wrong with a cell phone. Yet, like every form of technology that becomes part of everyday life, it shapes us and the whole society-for good or ill. And the technology can be abused. People phone as they walk, bicycle, and shop; some even call from rest rooms.

Cell phones ring during sermons, weddings, and even funerals. Worse yet, people answer them. Chatting on the phone while driving is potentially dangerous and annoying to other drivers. Intentionally or not, cell phone users can be rude to others who are made in God’s image (James 3:9).

I know of a pastor who wears a cell phone while leading worship. This communicates that his connection with those who might phone him is as important as his connection with God and the congregation. Yet in worship, our attention should be directed beyond ourselves and toward God. Our connection with others during worship is not through speaking with them, but through spiritual unity in worshipping God together. There is a time to hang up the phone and to look up instead. Worship should be free from distractions (1 Corinthians 14:40). A cell phone can only be a distraction during worship, no matter who wears it.

Making the cell phone an item of clothing (the modern version of the six-shooter) means we prize instant communication with others. We deem ourselves so important to potential callers that we must always be near our phone. This technology encourages us to regard whoever calls us as more significant than the people near us. In line at a supermarket, a man ahead of me was talking loudly on his cell phone. He ignored the checker and had no sense that he was broadcasting a trivial conversation to everyone within earshot. Once I was talking with a pastor about his ill wife when his cell phone rang . . . cutting us off in mid-sentence.

Putting our cell phone above all else disrupts situations and depersonalizes and dishonors those around us. In places such as classrooms, sanctuaries, weddings, funerals, prayer meetings, libraries, and restaurants, cell phones should be left behind or made inconspicuous. Otherwise, we will be tempted to be occupied more with ourselves and distant others than with the people with whom we are meeting. Remaining connected to our cell phone whenever we go is rude. God summons us to bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which includes kindness and goodness-the opposite of rudeness and incivility (Galatians 5:22).

Not everyone needs a cell phone, and these phones should not be everywhere. They should never become a technology of rudeness, but should be used only when mobile communication is called for. And please don’t bring one to a class I am teaching or to a service in which I am preaching!