The extensions of our humanity
When renowned Canadian philosopher and communication theorist, Marshall Herbert McLuhan published his most famous thesis, “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” in 1964, his argument was that technology was anything that extended our capabilities as humans.
In his words, “any extension, whether of skin, hand, or foot, affects the psychic and social complex.” In simple terms, the television you watch is an extension of your eyes, the radio you listen to is an extension of your ears and the car you ride in is an extension of your feet. The rationality of this great scholar is in tandem with our philosophy at the Bible Society of Nigeria to galvanise our collective humanity with extensions for the physically challenged to enable them share in the overwhelming love of God and thus, affect their psychic and social complex positively. For the visually impaired, our extensions for sight come in the form of the Braille Bible which has seen us distributing over 1,282 sets between 2013 and 2021 at absolutely no cost to the beneficiaries. This year, our goal is to empower these special people with over 200 sets of the Braille Bible, along with other advocacy initiatives. We are also extending our humanity to the hearing-impaired community in Nigeria with the free distribution of the Sign Language Bible and our Deaf Translation Centre in Ibadan wholly dedicated to curating programmes that help the deaf interact with the word of God. The legendary Mother Theresa once opined, “we ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” Likewise, we are aware that what we are doing at the BSN is just a drop in the ocean; there certainly is much more to be done to extend our humanity to the special people around us. We therefore implore you, our dear reader, to add your own “drop” to this ocean of humanity by partnering with us through your donation. By doing that, we collectively extend our humanity and achieve much more for humanity and God’s kingdom. You can please write a cheque in favour of The Bible Society of Nigeria or pay into our Union Bank account number, 0006624490 and contact us on 08159094111 or via e-mail with sanusi@biblesociety-nigeria.org. We give report twice a year to our partners on progress made for this cause.