Andrew Byers, TheoMedia: The Media of God in a Digital Age, Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013, 252 pages, $25.20. Andrew Byers serves as the Chaplain at St. Mary’s College, Durham University, England. As a Theological Consultant for Codec Institute at St. John’s College, Durham University, he has explored many of the issues addressed in TheoMedia: The […]
Mary Poplin’s “Is Reality Secular?”: A Review
September 8, 2014 By
Mary Poplin, Is Reality Secular? Testing the Assumptions of Four Global Worldviews, Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013, 320 pages, $15.88. “What is truth?” Pontius Pilate asked that question during the trial of Jesus (John 18:38). The quest for truth has been a part of humanity’s journey through time. The ancient Greeks debated the idea […]
J. Ellsworth Kalas’ “Preaching in an Age of Distraction”: A Review
August 11, 2014 By
Preaching in an Age of Distraction, by J. Ellsworth Kalas. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014. 165 pages. As the title and the chapter on “Naming the Age” indicate, Ellsworth Kalas, who teaches homiletics at Asbury Seminary, regards ours as an age characterized by distraction. Somewhat surprisingly, however, he is eager to indicate that distraction is not new: […]
Steve Turner’s “Popcultured”: A Review
July 14, 2014 By
Steve Turner, in Popcultured: Thinking Christianly About Style, Media and Entertainment, takes on the daunting task of exploring the relationship Christianity ought to have with popular culture. Turner is addressing the stream of thought within Christendom that separates Christianity and popular culture. This book is not a theological treatise or a doctrinal handbook, “but it’s essentially […]
Elizabeth Drescher’s “Tweet If You [Heart] Jesus”: A Review
June 9, 2014 By
![Elizabeth Drescher’s “Tweet If You [Heart] Jesus”: A Review](https://secondnaturejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/tweet-if-you-heart-jesus-final.jpg)
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 […]
“Her” & Artificial Immortality
May 12, 2014 By
Her is available on DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow, May 13. View the trailer: Perhaps the most absurd scene in the movie “Her” is when Theodore and Samantha have what we’ll call, for lack of a better metaphor, “phone sex.” This scene is actually the second of its kind in the film. The first, though, earns […]
Lance Strate’s “Amazing Ourselves to Death”: A Review
May 5, 2014 By
Years ago at NBC News, Gene Shalit told me a story about the difficulties of being an arts critic on television. In 1974 he delivered a less than appreciative review of the sentimental Joe Camp movie “Benji,” about a lovable, stray and cloyingly cute mixed-breed dog and his unlikely adventures. As he always did at […]
Derek Schuurman’s “Shaping a Digital World”: A Review
April 13, 2014 By
Writing about technology is difficult. Writing well about technology is more difficult and writing well about technology from an authentically Christian perspective is especially difficult. The problems are numerous: a multiplicity of definitions of technology, a lack of a robust vocabulary to dissect and explore technology, bad theology, an easy temptation to black and white […]
The Seduction of Transparency
February 10, 2014 By
Transparency will make us all moral. Soon we will have the technical means necessary to make all the important acts in our lives traceable. Our power to spot and confront cheating and illegality of all stripes expands constantly. So our attention turns to ethical questions. Given our growing awareness that everything we do is being […]
Ellen Rose’s “On Reflection”: A Review
October 21, 2013 By
Ellen Rose, On Reflection: An Essay on Technology, Education, and the Status of Thought in the Twenty-first Century. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2013 124p $29.95 (CDN) Who Ellen Rose is Professor of Education at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. For slightly more than the last decade, she has taught graduate students and written widely […]
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