Since the day of his creation, man has been tasked to take dominion over the works of nature, using his godlike reason and creativity to fashion tools to enrich the world and actualize its hidden potencies. But since Genesis 3, this calling has been perverted by our desire to transcend our own natural limitations and be as gods. Our technologies reflect both that original calling and that idolatrous striving, as well as a means by which, in God's mercy, we seek to ameliorate or roll back the curse of the fall--relieving the pain of childbirth and making the soil more fruitful. Today, as our technological making has been harnessed to a modern ideal of freedom as self-expression and breaking boundaries, the idolatrous dimension of technology has loomed large, turning our quest for freedom into a road to slavery. In this lecture open to the public, Dr. Brad Littlejohn will seek to offer a theologically-rich diagnosis of our current technological condition, and why our every attempt to use technology to enhance freedom seems to end in greater unfreedom.

Brad Littlejohn (Ph.D, University of Edinburgh) is a Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), where he helms a project for renewing an authentically Protestant contribution to American civic renewal. He is also the founder and President Emeritus of The Davenant Institute, where for ten years he helped create resources and courses to form Christian leaders in wisdom to navigate our increasingly challenging cultural moment. A leading voice in Protestant ethics and political thought, he is the author or editor of nineteen books, including The Peril and Promise of Christian Liberty (2017) and the forthcoming Called to Freedom: Retrieving Christian Liberty in an Age of License. He is a weekly columnist at WORLD Opinions, and publishes widely in other journals including First Things, National Affairs, American Affairs, Plough, Mere Orthodoxy, The American Conservative, Ad Fontes, and more.