That Hideous Strength: How Should We Relate to Technology? | Summer C. S. Lewis Series (Lecture 3)

In our third lecture in our series on C. S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy we turn to That Hideous Strength — a modern-day fairy tale about the tower of Babel. We explore its lessons about how Christians should live faithfully inside a technological society. Lewis’s insights are paired alongside Jacques Ellul's The Technological Society, and his claim that the real subject isn't gadgets but "technique" — the drive toward ever-increasing efficiency in every sphere of life. Then we turn to Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants and his idea of the "technium": the vast, interconnected system of machines, culture, and institutions that behaves as though it has a will of its own. Using Ellul as our guide, we examine two things in Lewis’s novel that technology wants: uniformity (the monoculture of Belbury and the inner ring that hollows out Mark Studdock) and automation (the N.I.C.E.'s plan to "clear the place" and manufacture a new type of man). Then Paul Kingsnorth's Against the Machine and John Milton's character of Mammon in Paradise Lost help us see why the project of building a paradise without God's image in man is finally a spiritual one. We close with practices for bearing God's image in a technological world: attending to and cherishing culture in all its particularities. We take note of the motley crew at St Anne's and explore the humble resistance of embracing diversity, sabbath, and godly inefficiency. Recorded August 13, 2026 at Truro Anglican Church in Fairfax, VA. Ryan Shelton (PhD, Queen’s University Belfast) is a specialist in John Milton and the early modern literary cultures of trans-Atlantic Puritanism. He serves as the Director of Worship and Arts at Truro. #CSLewis #ThatHideousStrength #RansomTrilogy #SpaceTrilogy #JacquesEllul #PaulKingsnorth #KevinKelly