visible idols, hidden trust: rethinking restoration in a digital world
why our longing for the past can limit us—and how renovation asks us to risk faith in what we cannot yet see.
When the ancient Israelites returned from exile to rebuild their ruined city, they faced not only broken walls, but also a crisis of identity and purpose. The biblical figure Ezra, a priest and leader, found his people struggling to hold onto their distinctiveness after years away from home. According to the account, Ezra was devastated to learn that many had intermarried with neighboring peoples, fearing this would erode their spiritual foundations. In his grief, he "tore his tunic and cloak, pulled hair from [his] head and beard and sat down appalled," later praying, "I am too ashamed and disgraced, my God, to lift up my face to you, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens." (Ezra 8-10)
This story, as explored in a recent sermon by Patrick Boatwright at Oaks Church, goes beyond ancient laws or rituals. It epitomizes the deep, sometimes desperate, human longing to restore what feels lost—to return to a sense of purity, safety, or original purpose. But as Boatwright pointed out, Ezra's zeal for restoration raises a crucial question for us today: Is true renewal found in recreating the past, or in having the courage to build something new? This tension between restoration (a yearning for an idealized past) and renovation (the risk and trust required to move forward) is as relevant now as it was then—especially as we navigate our own moments of rebuilding, whether in faith, community, or the technologies that shape our lives.
Yet, our natural human tendency is toward restoration—toward what is familiar, what feels original. Renovation, by contrast, requires a leap of trust: trust that what is being rebuilt can become something better than the "brick and mortar" of what we know. In the digital age, this crossroads is especially acute. Social media feeds, once altars to our own preferences and self-mythologizing, have become so familiar that we now distrust their potential for genuine human flourishing. The very tools we built to reflect ourselves have become objects of suspicion, and our nostalgia for the "original web" or analog experiences can mask a reluctance to trust in the possibility of meaningful renovation.
“All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame” (Isaiah 44:9) The faith of Israel is against making God visible. A visible God is, in truth, not a God. It is an idol. Thus it stands opposed to one of the most fascinating preoccupations of man – making God visible! – Three Mile an Hour God by Kosuke Koyama
Koyama's warning is not just about religious idolatry, but about a universal human impulse: the desire to make the invisible visible, to turn what is mysterious or sacred into something tangible and beautiful. In our age, this often plays out in design and technology. We are tempted to believe that by perfecting the aesthetic—the visible form, the skeuomorphic surface—we are revealing the underlying truth or value. But the visible is not the same as the covenantal.
This is especially evident in the tools we use for creative work. Digital platforms often mimic the look and feel of older, analog tools—folders, desktops, canvases—because these forms are comforting and familiar. But when we cling to these visible forms, we risk confusing the "clothing" of creativity for creativity itself. We proxy a tool’s pricelessness in how closely it resembles what came before, yet we often overlook what it enables us to do, discover, or become.
A recent conversation about spatial interfaces and collaborative tools like Figma brought this into focus for me. Is the goal to preserve the artifacts and workflows we know, or to foster a creative process that feels more natural—even if it breaks from digital conventions that mimic the past? The temptation is to let the visible, the familiar, stand in for the hidden value: the actual experience of creativity, collaboration, and discovery.
The challenge, then, is to discern when the visible form is serving the deeper value, and when it is obscuring it. Are we building tools that help us encounter and cultivate what is hidden and meaningful, or are we just making the surface more attractive and familiar? The tools we use inevitably shape us—sometimes more profoundly than we realize—guiding not just our actions, but our habits of mind and even our sense of self.
Yi Ning Chiu, reflecting on her experience with online platforms, writes:
How had I embedded myself in platforms that promised connections with other people, but simply refracted my own views back to me as if every person I knew was merely an accessory to my opinions? How had I convinced myself this kind of myopic self-affirmation was a good thing? And how had I missed the fact that the self-absorption encouraged by my online environment was a form of advertising, and that I had fallen for it completely? - "Like & Subscribe for a Chance at Eternal Life" by Yi Ning Chiu
Chiu's introspection is particularly resonant. Our technological tools, especially the platforms we inhabit, can subtly guide our interactions, potentially leading to echo chambers or a skewed sense of connection. The "feel" of the tool—its design, its algorithms—can become paramount, perhaps more critical than the genuine human connection it's meant to serve or the deeper transformation it enacts upon our thought and craft. The tool itself starts to feel like home, potentially obscuring the need for a more profound renovation of our approaches and our understanding of authentic community.
Boatwright's insight that we need to trust something higher than ourselves to guide true renovation—a voice that would say "trust me so that I can teach you how to rebuild better than brick and mortar"—feels particularly apt here. It implies that genuine progress requires a perspective beyond our immediate reactions, ingrained preferences, and the allure of mere skeuomorphic familiarity. It's a call to trust in a process that can guide us towards a renovation that is not just superficial, but transformative. The rebuilding of the wall in Nehemiah's time, for instance, was a monumental task accomplished, yet it didn't fundamentally transform the hearts of the people; they reverted to old habits. This mirrors a concern about creation sometimes running away from itself if not guided by a deeper wisdom.
As we navigate an era of rapidly accelerating technology and the externalization of knowledge, the circumstances of rebuilding—whether wisdom, community, or creative practice—can feel daunting. Livelihoods, relationships, and entire industries are being reshaped, and it's tempting to reach for what's familiar or to leap toward the new without reflection. But beyond the surface of our design choices—whether they echo the past or break from it—the deeper question is: what habits of heart and mind are we cultivating? Do our tools invite us into deeper engagement, or do they lull us into passivity?
Ursula K. Le Guin, in contrasting deep reading with passive viewing, highlights the value of active engagement:
Besides, readers aren't viewers; they recognize their pleasure as different TV goes on, and on, and on, and all from that of being entertained. Once you've pressed the on button, all you have to do is sit and stare. But reading is active, an act of attention, of absorbed alertness-not all that different from hunting, in fact, or from gathering. In its silence, a book is a challenge: it can't lull you with surging music or deafen you with screeching laugh tracks or fire gunshots in your living room; you have to listen to it in your head. A book won't move your eyes for you the way images on a screen do. It won't move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart in it. It won't do the work for you. To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it-everything short of writing it, in fact. Reading is not "interactive" with a set of rules or options, as games are: reading is actual collaboration with the writer's mind. No wonder not everybody is up to it. - "Words Are My Matter" by Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin's distinction between passive viewing and active reading is crucial. Her insight underscores the value of deep engagement over superficial consumption. Our rebuilding efforts in this technological age must resist the allure of tools that promise to do all the work for us, potentially diminishing our own capacity for attention and thoughtful collaboration. If rebuilding is focused solely on circumstances, such as frictionless convenience, it becomes a hollow exercise, neglecting the deeper human need for meaningful engagement and the often challenging, yet rewarding, journey of creation and understanding.
To move forward with courage and discernment is to hold open the tension between past and future, letting it inform how we design, create, and live with our technologies. What matters most is not the form our tools take, but whether they invite us into deeper wisdom or simply reinforce our longing for comfort. True transformation requires a kind of betrothal—a willingness to be guided by something beyond our immediate preferences, to look past the visible and familiar, and to let our hearts be reshaped alongside our tools.
Perhaps the most courageous act of renovation is to trust in what cannot yet be seen, to resist the urge to idolize the visible (Hebrews 11:1-3), and to allow for the possibility that what is being built—if we trust the process—may be more meaningful than anything we have known before. In a world obsessed with restoration, may we have the courage to trust in renovation.
Many thanks to Patrick, Yi Ning, Annie, Kisuk, Henry, and James for the gracious inspiration and feedback in writing this!
Really great stuff, Josh!