Flickering Pixels gets a review

We've written about Shane Hipps more than once on this blog, so I was interested to hear what his new book, Flickering Pixels: how technology shapes your faith, was like. The reviews on Amazon.com seemed pretty positive, and then, in my email box this morning, the latest Next-Wave Ezine arrived - with a review of the book by John La Grou. I hadn't even realised La Grou was a Christian when I wrote about him on one of my other blogs a day or so ago, so it was interesting to see his bio at the bottom of the review:

A husband, father, and lifelong technology enthusiast, John built crystal radios at 7 years old and by the end of high school had created most of the electronics for a professional audio recording studio. In his 20’s he helped start what is today the world’s third largest computer company. His Silicon Valley offices added virtual networking in 1986 and never looked back. John and his bride Cynthia also helped establish the first Silicon Valley Vineyard community and are currently developing Compathos, a non-profit, on-line philanthropic resource. John co-edited volume one the award-winning Wikiklesia Project and gave a 2009 TEDTalk on a new life-saving technology developed by one of the companies he co-founded. John also chairs a software consortium whose licensed algorithms are used on over 100 million audio CDs produced each year, while his audio hardware is found throughout the world in leading recording studios and concert halls. He currently serves on college and university technical advisory boards and is a student of life, energy, and sustainability (JL at JPS dot NET, Twitter @johnlagrou).

After all that, you'd expect him to know something about technology. And of course he does, which makes him an apt person to review Hipps' book. Regrettably, he finds the book wanting in many ways. "As a thoughtful work of practical theology, Flickering Pixels is a treasure and worth the price of admission alone. But where Pixels shines in a generous spirituality, I believe it suffers in objectivity and balance towards technology. ....does the author have sufficient technology experience to make an authoritative analysis? More importantly, does Pixels offer a balanced analysis of the way technology can negatively and positively shape faith and spiritual community? On both counts, I feel that Pixels misses its target. "

He goes on to quote a number of examples of Hipps' 'grand conclusions' on technology, which are offered without qualification: “Our digital diet sedates the left brain, leaving it in a state of hypnotic stupor”or “The technology of writing, regardless of context, weakens and destroys tribal bonds and profoundly amplifies the value of the individual” to mention only two.

After this review, I don't think I'll be putting Flickering Pixels on the top of my reading list. Which is a pity; it could have been great.

Shane Hipps responds

Just to keep you up to date with an ongoing conversation on virtual community that we began several posts ago, in which Shane Hipps said in a videoed interview (shown on the Out of Ur blog) that he didn't think virtual communities were real communities. This was responded to by Scot McKnight a few days later, and since then Hipps has replied, trying to expand on his video interview, in which, rightly, he said he was struggling to get across something for which he only had a few minutes and little preparation.
As he says in the most recent post: First, my language in the video was less nuanced than it might have been in written form. That is my tendency in a spontaneous oral interview. I will try to be more precise here.
As always the comments are full of insights, such as the following from Phil someone:
We are getting so far from the truth that I am finding it hard to believe what I am reading. The Father did not send a book, or a CD, or an article, or a music album, or a recorded sermon: He sent a Person, His Son, and said, "As the Father sent Me, into the world as a person, even so in the same way I am sending you." Paul echoes this: "You know what kind of MEN we proved to be among you." God COMMANDS us to not forsake the assembling of ourselves--not our blog posts or websites or Facebook locations--but ourselves TOGETHER. Church happens with people, together, in His name, where He agrees to come too! When will we get it???

More on Virtual Community - and Top Blogs

At the risk of pointing you too often towards the Out of Ur site (though it is regarded now as one of the top Christian blogs), I just want to follow up on the last post in which Shane Hipps talked about virtual communities not being 'real' communities.
Scot McKnight has written a brief but sensible response to this - and, as always, the comments that follow the post are well worth a look.

In regard to the 'top' blogs, Matt and Madeleine Flanagan have given a very up-to-date list of the top New Zealand Christian blogs. The Flanagans give the reasons behind the rankings, based on the stats from two other sites: Half Done and Tumeke, neither of which are familiar to me. In fact, only three of those listed below are ones I've heard of previously. Plainly I'm not moving in the right blog circles!

1. NZ Conservative
2. Something Should Go Here, Maybe Later
3. The Briefing Room
4. MandM
5. Kiwi Polemicist
6. Say Hello to my Little Friend
7. Put up Thy Sword
8. Samuel Dennis
9. Contra Celsum
10. Star Studded Super Step

It would be interesting to spend an afternoon checking out these blogs to see what they've got to say. And for those with absolutely nothing else to do, check out Kent Schaffer's 60 Top Christian Blogs from around the world.

Shane Hipps

The video clip below is part of an interview Out of Ur did recently with Shane Hipps. I don't know much about Hipps except that he's the author of a book due to be released this year called, Flickering Pixels - how technology shapes your faith, and that somewhere along the line he realized he was spending his life working diligently to perpetuate consumer culture and promote values that ran counter to his most deeply held beliefs.
In this brief clip (about 4 minutes) he points out two things.
1: that you can't really have 'virtual' community. The virtual negates what community is about. He lists four points relating to community:

a. communities have shared history
b. they have a sense of permanence, which gives history
c. they have proximity: people get together with each other
d. they have a shared imagination of the future.

For Hipps, only the last of these four has a possibility in virtual terms: it gains future fast, but loses the other three in the process.

2: the second life site is, for Hipps, a disembodiment of the Gospel - as were radio and tele-evangelism before it.



I suspect you won't entirely agree with Hipps, and four minutes isn't long for him to make his case, but he's worth considering, all the same.