Feature
Desires & Devices
Charles Williams's Prophetic Warning About the Temptations of Technology by Karl D. Stephan
Every age has its besetting sin. For the United States in the nineteenth century, it was slavery. For the world of the twentieth century, a leading contender was totalitarianism in its guises of fascism and communism. And ever since Abraham, God has raised up prophets to warn his people away from their sins, besetting and otherwise. Besides the biblical prophets, whose words are for all time, novelists have also played prophetic roles through their fiction—Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and George Orwell's Animal Farm come to mind.
It may be too eary to pick a besetting sin for the twenty-first century, but chances are it will have something to do with technology. If we look for a prophetic novel that warns us of the peculiar spiritual dangers of wielding immense power through material objects, we could do worse than take Charles -Williams's 1931 novel, Many Dimensions, as a guide.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on technology from the online archives
more from the online archives
31.4—July/August 2018
Life & Love Are Real Despite Theatrical Illusions by Anthony Esolen
32.3—May/June 2019
on the Implications of Changing the Pater Noster by John M. McCarthy
28.6—Nov/Dec 2015
on the Deepest Longings of the Restless & the Lonely by William Graddy
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
