Brain Power

Even as I booted my laptop to write this review, I was captured alive by the power of the unending internet, seducing me to click on such links as “Christian woman making two grand from home working part-time on the computer” and a video of Rick Warren discussing his position on traditional marriage. Ten minutes later, I now powerfully reclaim my day’s agenda, thanks in part to Shane Hipps’ Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith.

Shane not only addresses the internet in this powerful book, but the entire Print Age, tracing the effects of such media as the written word, photography, radio, and television. But this non-fiction read is by no means dry. It actually goes down like a delightful chocolate milkshake, one I didn’t want to put down and didn’t want to end. I look forward to a second glass.

Every believer and follower of Christ will walk away from this read with an expanded mind. Evangelicals might note Hipps is a Mennonite and his beliefs are woven in the fabric of his work. However, shaping the readers’ mind theologically is not his goal, and any occasional theological difference I may have encountered while reading did not distract me from our shared purpose –awareness. We agree on this main point – if Christians are to walk successfully in this new age, we must become aware of the forces of the age in which we walk.

Hipps’ work fulfills its back-cover promise to awaken readers, opening eyes so that nothing looks the same again. It has stamped my thinking with a permanent reflective question, “Am I responding solely to the hands of the Potter, or am I resigning to the spinning forces of our culture?”