Mediaculture

Mediaculture first appeared in the Feb. 17, 1998, issue of a new magazine called The Mennonite. In that column I outlined the purposes of the column and wrote, “We swim in an ocean of media and culture without thinking about it or analyzing how it might affect us.”

Shane Hipps, pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church in Phoenix, Ariz., in his new book, Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith (Zondervan, 2009, $16.99), has a similar message. He warns about the power of media and our need to be aware of that power: “Our lack of awareness is what empowers the media to bully us.”

In this readable and helpful book he tries to increase our awareness of media’s power. He draws much on the work of media pioneer Marshall McLuhan, who made the popular observation that “the medium is the message.” McLuhan also pointed out that we need not be slaves to media as long as we’re willing to pay attention.

“Media and technology have far less power to shape us when they are brought into the light and we understand them,” Hipps writes.

Hipps, who worked in advertising before he became a pastor, writes in an engaging style. His short chapters have catchy titles such as “Mr. No-Depth Perception,” “Dyslexia and Deception,” “A Thousand Feelings” and “The Dimmer Switch.”

He presents various technologies with understanding yet cautions readers about their effects. The book is not an academic treatise that deals in complexities, however, and at times it comes across as too simplistic. For example, he repeats the point that the printed word led humanity into left-brained thinking until the image finally released us to be more right-brained.

And while I tend to agree with many of his warnings, I’d like to see younger readers interact with him about the effects of digital social networking, which, he writes, “inoculates people against the desire to be physically present with others in real social networks” (his emphasis).

While Flickering Pixels can serve as a primer on the effects of technology, Hipps goes on to point out its relationship to our faith and our faith communities. For example, in a chapter that shows how “printing breeds a strong preference for categories,” he warns against black-and-white thinking. “Jesus didn’t tell us to make believers,” he writes. “He called us to make disciples, and disciples are followers and students of the way of God. Followers learn to change their beliefs as they walk.”

Hipps addresses areas that face Christians, members of churches. He discusses how email leads us away from dealing healthily with conflict while Jesus told us to go to our brother or sister.

Hipps also includes insights he has gained as he moved toward the Mennonite church. He mentions lessons he’s learned about humility, peace and community (in a chapter called “Y’all”).

The book is full of pithy wisdom, perhaps none more concise and inclusive as these three sentences: “Stay awake. Look beneath the surface of things. And learn to bend.”

Flickering Pixels would make a good focus for a Sunday school class or small group. It’s a book that can help us swim in our mediaculture.