Existing Literature on Faith and Technology

I am just going to leave some of my favorite quotes from various authors I read and how they influenced my thinking. I highly recommended starting with these books if you are interested in learning more about the intersection of faith and technology.

Elizabeth Drescher in her book, “Tweet if you ♥ Jesus,” spoke of the opportunities and challenges presented by the emergence of new digital social media. She exhorted church leaders and lay leaders to participate in the Digital Revolution (her definition of the emerging culture) by way of “nurturing and sustaining the Christian Church as a force of spiritual and social transformation.”

Meredith Gould in her book, "The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News in New Ways," challenged pastors to embrace social media in very practical ways. She acknowledged that social media could never replace face-to-face, in-the-flesh meetings with people but that they could serve as an “extension of a pastor’s personal presence” as well as ministerial reach.

Justin Wise was particularly helpful in his observations about the role of the local church. He stated:

"It used to be that one would have to go to a local church on Sunday morning to receive religious instruction from an individual, usually a white, middle-aged male in the role of pastor, priest, or reverend. The stated nonverbal message in these environments is classic supply and demand. The pastor is supplying something the congregation needs (religious instruction in a communal setting). It is entirely a one-way street. Pastor speaks, congregation listens (Wise, "The Social Church: A Theology of Digital Communication" 94).

Wise believed that social technologies such as social media and the Internet had changed the role of the church in society from "possessor and dispenser of religious/spiritual knowledge" to a "communal hub that sends and receives members, empowering them for the work of the ministry."

Toni Birdsong and Tami Heim in their book "@stickyjesus" stated that one of the biggest cultural changes was that people were “migrating” more and more online and using technologies such as connected devices to do so. It seemed imperative for the Christian witness to learn to live and communicate their faith in these new locations even if it meant going to “foreign lands with peculiar names like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Plaxo.” Gould likened the fast-moving stream of tweets found within the social media network Twitter as “stumbling into the largest living room on the planet, one filled with often brilliant, sometimes absurd but always engaging, commentary and conversation.”

Finally, I read a few scholars who attempted to address the changes mentioned by Justin Wise. Keith Anderson in his book, "The Digital Cathedral: Networked Ministry in a Wireless World" proposed the imagery of a “digital cathedral” as a new paradigm for understanding the role of the church in this new culture. For Anderson, this idea of the Digital Cathedral was a deliberate shift from the tendency to define “church” as a building or organization. His call was for a more “expansive and holistic” picture of the church that empowered faith and ministry including online spaces and places.

Keith Anderson also wrote a book with Elizabeth Drescher entitled, "Click 2 Save: The Digital Ministry Bible." They offered several very practical ways that ministry could occur within this new emerging culture (which they call the Digital Age). They advocated for an embrace of “Digital Ministry” which served as both a ministry philosophy as well as missional praxis. They defined it as, “Digital ministry is the set of practices that extend spiritual care, formation, prayer, evangelism, and other manifestations of grace into online spaces like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, where more and more people gather to nurture, explore, and share their faith today.”

Dwight J. Friesen looked at the changes to our emerging culture through a theological lens. He incorporates and uses the language of technology and ties it back to faith. He said:

"We’ve lost sight of God’s networked kingdom. We need corrective lenses... At the height of modernity we saw individuals; we saw separate organizations and standalone institutions; and we actually thought that when we split an atom, a church, or a marriage, the relationship ended. Today we know that we were mistaken. We are seeing with increasing poignancy that separation and division is not the deepest truth of life. Rather, we are beginning to see that underneath the guise of division is an even deeper connection that cannot be severed (Friesen, "Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks" Kindle Location 250).