# The Cross and the Machine  ## Metadata - Author: [[Paul Kingsnorth]] - Full Title: The Cross and the Machine - Category: #articles - Document Tags: [[favorite]] - URL: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2021/06/the-cross-and-the-machine ## Highlights my nation was surviving on spiritual credit, and that it was coming close to running out. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gz1zx2v4davsmjj1pmb7zn1j)) We would remake Earth, down to the last nanoparticle, to suit our desires, which we now called “needs.” Our new world would be globalized, uniform, interconnected, digitized, hyper-real, monitored, always-on. We were building a machine to replace God. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gz20fbydd5mn697h5zqhc2m8)) Following the rabbit hole down, I realized that a crisis of limits is a crisis of culture, and a crisis of culture is a crisis of spirit. Every living culture in history, from the smallest tribe to the largest civilization, has been built around a spiritual core: a central claim about the relationship between human culture, nonhuman nature, and divinity. Every culture that lasts, I suspect, understands that living within limits—limits set by natural law, by cultural tradition, by ecological boundaries—is a cultural necessity and a spiritual imperative. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gz21bck20wjxt24nk52sqy74)) The story I had heard a thousand times turned out to be a story I had never heard at all. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gz219ykx854fzwkwcab5xy38)) I saw that the teachings of Christ were the most radical in history, and that no empire could be built by those who truly lived them. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gz21f53kc48b1xg37bk8d3yn)) Home is beyond time ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gz21hjqfhgjb0j69dbs96nza)) the Cross or the machine ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gz21kb2r0nfgmpnqwq5zpw74)) ## New highlights added June 11, 2023 at 9:21 PM Everything was unchanged, and everything was new, and I knew what had happened and who had done it, and I knew that it was too late. I had just become a Christian. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2nj4hkvbz2m4ajth0q83wke)) ## New highlights added June 13, 2023 at 9:21 PM I didn’t know back then that the Christian story is the story of our rebellion against God. I didn’t know that by taking part in that rebellion I had become part of the story, whether I liked it or not. I didn’t know, either, why Christians see pride as the greatest sin. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2vd4c9gt1mbw951fv1kb2t7))