Who Needs a Resurrection When We Have Technology?

Recent advances in technology mean that we can enhance nearly every aspect of our humanity, or at least we think so. Athletic performance, cognitive capacity, moral improvement, and longevity are all being hacked or tweaked in hopes of being stronger, smarter, and younger. Some seeing aging and death itself as engineering challenges. In this context, what does “resurrection” mean? How do we live in the hope of gracious transformation when surrounded by technological enhancement?

Ron Cole-Turner holds the H. Parker Sharp Chair in Theology and Ethics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His research interests center on theological anthropology and are shaped by two questions: where have we come from and where are we going. He is the author of The End of Adam and Eve: Theology and the Science of Human Origins and the editor of Transhumanism and Transcendence: Christian Hope in an Age of Technological Enhancement. He is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and the author of the infant baptism hymn, “Child of Blessing, Child of Promise.”