Read Schuchardt’s 8 Theses on Christians and Twitter

Dr. Read Schuchardt outlines 8 principles to guide every Christian social media user’s relationship with Twitter.

Antagonism on YouTube: Metaphor in Online Discourse

There are a few corners of the digital world that I leave unvisited in order to preserve my sanity, namely the dark net, my ex’s Facebook page, and YouTube comments.  Stephen Pihlaja braves the last of these domains in his monograph Antagonism on YouTube: metaphor in online discourse (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).  In six chapters spanning […]

The Joy of Missing Out: Finding Balance in a Wired World

Our technological advancements have one trajectory: up. Up the corporate ladder, up in social status, up and away from our surroundings, our physical demands, from the bore of the everyday. We are headed up, yet the happiest people in the world are the Danes sitting down to have dinner. Editor’s note: The following is an […]

Second Nature: Best of 2014

From all of us at Second Nature, we wish you and your families a merry Christmas and happy new year. For our newer readers or for those who might have missed them, here’s a round up of our 10 most popular articles of 2014. (And if you’re curious, here’s our list from 2013). 10. Screwtape […]

The Screwtape Letters Continued: Technological Progress

My Dear Wormwood: We have succeeded in convincing the vermin that technological progress is the same as moral progress. Our old enemy, that Oxford don, even gave it a name: “chronological snobbery”—or, what is new is good, since it is more “advanced,” “modern,” “up to date,” and so on.  But that old character, who coined […]

Data Privacy and Terms of Service: A Graphic Novel

“What if we’re not getting a fair trade for our information?” asks Josh Neufeld in a new exploration of the bigger questions surrounding data privacy. (Added cool factor bonus: it’s a graphic novel). We’ve gotten used to giving services like Facebook or Gmail access to data about our lives. But as mobile devices have become ubiquitous […]

Jana Marguerite Bennett’s “Aquinas on the Web?”: A Review

Jana Marguerite Bennett, Aquinas on the Web? Doing Theology in an Internet Age, New York: T&T Clark, 2012, 200 pages, $37.20. Like Jesus’ critics who wondered, “Can anything good come out of Galilee?” I often wonder, “Can anything good come out of Ohio?”  But a recent book, Aquinas on the Web? Doing Theology in an […]

Reading List: Ancient Gods, the New Luddites, the NoPhone, & a Threat to the Internet

Google Street View Is Blurring the Faces of Ancient Gods “Ever notice how all the faces are blurred in Google Street View photos? That happens thanks to a privacy-enabling robot. But it’s not a perfect robot. The Google Street View robot not only blurs the faces of humans but also of statues, despite the fact […]

Elizabeth Drescher’s “Tweet If You [Heart] Jesus”: A Review

Tweet If You [Heart] Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation, by Elizabeth Drescher. Harrisburg: Morehouse Publishing, 2011. 190 pages. The decline of American “mainline” Protestant denominations in the latter half of the 20th century is a well-documented phenomenon. Many explanations for the exodus have been given, with theories ranging from the appropriation of liberal […]

Look Up

“I have 422 friends, yet I’m lonely.” This is for all of us who need a reminder to shut our computers and look up from our smart phones, but who respond better to advice when it rhymes. Written, performed and directed by Gary Turk, who describe his video as ” a lesson taught to us through a love story, in […]

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