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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Fickering Pixels - Off to a good start but misses the mark, May 11, 2009
This review is from: Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith (Hardcover)
Marshall McLuhan began his 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, with the following:
"In a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message."
For nearly a half-century now, students of media have been contemplating the repercussions of McLuhan's statement.
In Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith, Shane Hipps attempts to apply McLuhan's thinking to the realm of faith. Hipps seems doubly qualified to tackle the content - a former ad exec for Porsche, Hipps turned his back on the lucrative career, entered seminary, and became a Mennonite Pastor.
Hipps writes with excellent pacing, clear prose, and a good bit of humor. Unfortunately, in this book at least, his focus is lacking at times and nonexistent at others. Entire chapters (although they are short) are devoted to issues that have no relation to the topic of the book at all. The first ten chapters, in fact, are a fascinating application of McLuhan's ideas. After that, however, more chapters than not add nothing to the stated purpose of the book: awareness of the effects of technology on our faith.
In chapter 11 Hipps turns his focus to social media - in his terms "virtual community" - which he claims "inoculates people against the desire to be physically present with others in real social networks". It's at this point that Hipps loses me. He attacks everything from blogs to instant messaging to Facebook and relegates them to the status of cotton candy.
While his concerns are well heeded, in some portions of the book Hipps fails at being a student of modern media and instead becomes a reactionary critic against it.
He describes the digital shorthand of today's teens as "an invisibility cloak to adult eyes" and "a deliberate teen encryption method," claiming that, "those who learn it become like medieval scribes, hoarding scrolls containing sacred information." I can barely resist responding with "LOL."
"Slang," McLuhan says in the introduction to Understanding Media, "offers an immediate index to changing perception... The student of media will not only value slang as a guide to changing perception, but he will also study media as bringing about new perceptual habits."
The main idea of the chapter is that internet technology reverses the order of familial authority by granting young people "startling and unprecedented freedom...the digital space is a land without supervision." This is proven, but his analysis and prescriptions are flawed. To parents struggling to balance digital boundaries with their simultaneous desire avoid their kids being left out or left behind, Hipps reminds them that "digital space is the most anemic form of social interaction available," before saying, "maybe being left out of this is a good thing."
While I take no issue with boundaries and parental authority, if parents are actually capable of keeping their kids entirely free of the damaging effects of social media, surely then a more nuanced and moderate approach is also possible. Similar prescriptions were no doubt giving with the advent of other now common technologies; the automobile for example enabled young adults (and their passengers) to easily travel further from parental supervision than previously possible, where they could get into who-knows-what kind of trouble.
While I sympathize with Hipps' concerns over the separating effects of technology, I cannot take the view that these technologies should be shunned. I cannot endorse the view - nor do I find if verifiable from personal experience - that these technologies intrinsically "inoculate(s) people against the desire to be physically present with others in real social networks".
Digital community can be an enhancement and a supplement to flesh-and-blood community. Hipps has taken the tack of using the habits of the immoderate and abusive to prove that the thing abused is to blame - the same strategy that in previous generations failed at eliminating the moderate consumption of alcohol among Christians.
Sin is still at the root of all abuse and addiction, and faith in Christ and reliance on the Holy Spirit is still the only solution. Creating an awareness of this fact is what will steer both adults and young adults into appropriate and moderate use of their digital resources.
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22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Square Peg Sermons for Round Hole Minds, April 28, 2009
This review is from: Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith (Hardcover)
Shane Hipps second book Flickering Pixels is not merely insightful, it is important. Hipps succeeds in taking some very complex topics--brain function, mass communication, the history of theology--and he packages them in an accessible, truly fresh study for everyone.
It is clear to many that our world has changed in the last few decades. All ages experience conflict and movement, but ours is an age in which fundamental assumptions about knowledge, ethics, and what it means to be human are being radically deconstructed and rebuilt. A primary reason may be that "images and icons are fast displacing words as the dominant communication system of our culture."
This has immediate relevance to a conversation taking place among younger Christians, some of whom push hard for a more empirical experience of their faith--doing radical charity work, creating environments that have mystical feel, emphasizing their body in worship through a primary focus on the sacraments, prayers, worship, and communal experiences with a lessening emphasis on teaching and left brain activities. The conversation in this camp seems to be, "How can we create environments in which our friends encounter and are made aware of Jesus?"
The other camp has becoming increasingly doctrinally focused. This camp emphasizes right thinking and even dogmatic specificity. I heard one such speaker boast on how many young people were coming to his events and leaving with his favorite book of systematic theology in their hands. For this man, this was a huge win. The conversation in this camp seems to be how do we get younger people to affirm a set of beliefs, to dig really deep, and perhaps begin to be interested in and engaging the theology of a Calvin, or Spurgeon, or Augustine.
Shane's book is essential reading for both camps. For the former because such ministries are often working purely from intuition or at best some ethereal post-modern philosophy few of them actually understand. And for the latter because the human beings they think they are communicating with are ceasing to exist. That's right. People now are fundamentally different than they were 100 years ago.
Hipps argues that the media all around us is not simply changing the way we get our news, entertainment, and sports. Computers, televisions, and movie screens "repattern the neural pathways in our brain[s]", and as such, the media through which we get information is reshaping us.
When he speaks to the history of theology, Hipps observes that "[in the Reformation] linear reasoning became the primary means of understanding and propagating faith. This led to a belief that the gospel could be established and received only through reason and facts. Printing makes us prefer cognitive modes of processing while at the same time atrophying our appreciation for mysticism, intuition, and emotion." But as our culture transitions, the flickering pixels are "simply opposed to the pathways required for reading, writing, and sustained concentration." Which leaves us with a real challenge when--those of us involved in teaching--begin to ask what it looks like to communicate to younger, right-brain dominant students.
This is what Shane Hipps' book is about--and it is the beginning of a conversation the church at large must have, for it could be argued that the reason younger generations are absent from most American Christian communities is that such communities are force feeding them square peg messages for their round hole minds. As such, young people on mass are exiting churches, not because they would not devote their lives to Jesus, but because they do not speak the language, do not engage reality, do not understand what is most meaningful in the way most churches present information.
Hipps points out that the center of understanding Christianity for those conditioned by the printing press has been the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John--both theologically robust and filled with doctrine. Hipps rightly notes that for those who succeed in speaking to younger generations that center is shifting toward the synoptic gospels--Mark, Matthew, and Luke--which emphasize parables and the stories of Jesus' miracles and deeds. These gospels are more concerned with ethics and right behavior than propositions or detailed metaphysical arguments. This is a place to begin. Because for younger generations, the vital question "who are you following" is replacing that of "what do you believe." This results from their transformed brains, and the influence of the image based communication culture all around us.
Hipps work is of the epistemic shift taking place in common folks. If our culture continues down this path, right thinking, in general, will no longer be judged according to its logic, it will be judged pragmatically. The question that will be primary will no longer be "is this true" but "Does this belief produce good in our world," and if it does, then we will consider it valuable. We see this now. We are naturally drawn to the teachings of Gandhi, MLK, and the Dalai Lama--not because we know them to be brilliant, but because we know them to be good. The same of course is true of the sayings of Jesus, which continue to have power over even the most secular mind, not because of their potency but because of his example.
Whether or not this is good or arguably self-defeating is beside the point. The point is--it is happening. Arguing against it may be the worst possible step for a church already in decline.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Masterpiece of Today's Obvious, February 8, 2009
This review is from: Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith (Hardcover)
Rare are the books that I read when I find myself saying "yes, that makes perfect sense!" or "my gosh, how have I missed that insight all this time?". This is one of those books.
In Flickering Pixels, Hipps' genius is derived in large part by his ability to contextualize and explain the deeper implications of the seemingly obvious technological realities of today, realities that are much more subversive than I previous understood them to be.
While this book is written primarily for Christian lay persons, I found this informal treatise to be so well rounded and so practically informative that I wouldn't be surprised if it is eventually held in the same high regard as Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death."
This is a MUST READ for anyone who is seeking to better understand the "invisible" and prolific technological forces shaping the essential dynamics of daily living in Christendom in the 21st Century.
Enjoy this easy-to-read, relatively short, incredibly well-informed, at times humorous, and otherwise intensely practical book!
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