Book review: Digital Liturgies

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Friday, October 13th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next: Reviewer Bekah McCallum says a new book can help Christians be more thoughtful about technology.

BEKAH MCCALLUM, REVIEWER: Samuel James is a Crossway editor and contributor to WORLD Opinions.

AUDIOBOOK: Rather than thinking of the web and social media as neutral tools that merely do whatever users ask of them, it is better to think of them as kinds of spaces that are continually shaping us to think, feel, communicate, and live in certain ways. In other words, the social internet is a liturgical environment.

James’s new book, Digital Liturgies, explores how Christians should think about the internet and social media. For James, this is personal.

JAMES: I can distinctly remember times in the recent past where I've heard the words, Daddy, look at me, Daddy, look at this, Daddy, can you do this, and I've just been scrolling on my phone, probably something that wasn't even that important. And to know that there are theological reasons for that, there are biblical reasons for that dynamic.

In the book, James argues that Christians typically emphasize the dangers of content available on the internet, like pornography. But he believes the “liturgy” of our technology can also harm us. The word liturgy is often used in a church setting to mean a pattern or form of worship used week by week. Similarly, the technologies we engage in train us in a particular pattern of thinking.

AUDIOBOOK: The digital liturgies of the web and social media train us to invest ultimate authority in our own stories and experiences as they separate us from the objective givenness of the embodied world.

When you engage in social media or scroll on Pinterest, you are focusing on digital content instead of the natural world around you. That may seem like a quick fix for loneliness or boredom. But the result isn’t as satisfying as we might hope.

AUDIOBOOK: The distraction we fall into quickly morphs into discontent: an anxious sense of impatience with the mundane, quiet, unremarkable parts of life.

According to James, too often people lose sight of the importance of their God-given bodies. People can create social media profiles based solely on their self-perception, even if that perception has very little to do with reality. This reimagining of ourselves is not limited to screens.

JAMES: It's only been in the last few years that the idea that a person could have an identity as the opposite gender has become plausible. And I think that has coincided very closely with the rise of the Internet and the way we understand ourselves not as physical beings with anatomy and kind of a given presence in the world.

James’ diagnosis of the internet seems heavy, but he isn’t a doomsdayer. He doesn’t recommend taking a sledgehammer to every iPhone in sight.

AUDIOBOOK: Even if you could throw away all your computers and smartphones, delete all your social media accounts, and go back to physical CDs and newspapers, your heart would still tilt away from the wisdom of Christ.

We can counteract these liturgies by participating in the worship and work of a local Church community. We can also get outside and spend time with friends and family.

AUDIOBOOK: To be sure, socialization alone doesn’t magically cure lust or help us keep technology in its proper place. But the darkness of addiction, both sexual and electronic, will not abide the sunlight coming through the open window.

Digital Liturgies isn’t long. It’s just under 200 pages. Families with older teens or youth groups might enjoy reading it together. James covers 5 major topics that all of us face online, including questions of authenticity, shame, and meaning. He does deal with the heavy topic of pornography and how pervasive it has become, but he does so sensitively without getting into details.

James did offer some practical tips about getting offline more frequently, but readers might try Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism as a follow-up read. Newport doesn’t share James’s Christian worldview, but he has some great insight about reducing media consumption.

Digital Liturgies by Samuel James isn’t a how-to book. Instead, it helps readers critique how electronic devices mold our thoughts and habits. In response to what the internet says, James wisely reminds Christians who we are according to the Lord.

JAMES: So what that means is that we have to identify these cultural dynamics, these digital liturgies, for what they are, we have to be able to name them. And as we named them, we can take them captive to the mind of Christ, as Paul says.

I’m Bekah McCallum.

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