Book Review: Tim Challies | Jesus Creed

I've got a new book review up today over at Jesus Creed.

We've got another early blip in the inevitable flurry-to-come of theology meets digital technology. Christian blogger Tim Challies offers The Next Story: Life and Faith in the Digital Explosion, released April 2011 by Zondervan. Challies, a web designer in Ontario, runs on the Reformed side of the track, but generally speaks to a broad evangelical audience. His book feels penned to the same--pastors and thoughtful Christians should find it accessible, thoughtful, personal, and grounded.

Challies frames the book in his own experience living with glowing screens both day and night. "Is it possible that these technologies are changing me?" he wonders. To discern, he invites us to consider our own use of technology and add two additional facets: critical investigation and biblical theology. The triad of experience, theory, and theology carries through the book, even structuring the application points in his helpful chapter summaries and reflection questions.

The Right Questions Just a brief glance over the table of contents tells me that Challies has spent some time working in my favorite world of media ecology. If the Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman references weren't an early clue, his chapter categories are consistent with anyone thinking carefully about the digital world we find ourselves in: Mediation/Identity, Distraction, Informationalism, Truth/Authority, Visibility and Privacy. Pastors should jot down the list; Challies is addressing the right questions and we need more to follow his lead.

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