Flickering Pixels

By Shane Hipps

Zondervan; 208 pages; hardcover

Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith is a new read by Shane Hipps, a pastor and speaker who came out of the advertising field, where he gained some great insight on media and how it impacts our lifestyle.

The author takes a new look at media that is outside of the norm you typically read on this topic. He takes painstaking effort to illuminate to us that it isn't necessarily what the media is saying (or showing) that affects us—instead, it's the device, or means, of transporting that shapes us.

To illustrate his point, Hipps provides the example of how the invention of the printing press permanently affected church culture. He explains that, originally, the early church simply had a wide-open space for standing; the linear arrangement of pews did not exist. After the printing press, however, church seating began to mirror the page of book, with two columns of straight pews and an aisle down the center. The author's point is that it was not what the words actually said that made a huge difference in how we ended up doing church—it was how the words were formatted in print that did.

Hipps goes on to explain that it was also the printed word in a systematic format that caused people to start caring about systematic theology, with less of an emphasis on the stories of Christ. From there, the author takes us to our current setting with TVs, the Internet and cell phones, and how we have become a very individualistic society because of these modes of communication.

This is a slow-start book with a disjointed ending, but the main meat in the middle makes this a great read for pastors, as we are in fact an extension of this media culture.

How to get this resource

This book is available at your local Christian bookstore, or at your favorite online book retailer.

Reviewed by: Joseph R. Fehlen, pastor, South Everett Foursquare in Everett, Wash.