The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community (Review)

In: Books and Texts

Commitment:
  • Words: 257
  • Sentences: 10
  • Grade level: 13.3-16.4
  • Read time: ~1.3 min @ 200WPM

30 Oct 2009

Church of Facebook by Jesse RiceJesse Rice is a former worship arts director from California, and he’s just released one of the first books that directly addresses Christian community and identity in the social networking age.

Rice is a great story teller, and he uses his skill to make several scientific, psychological, and architectural experiments into fun-to-read vignettes that he eventually uses to illustrate important concepts about how humans connect and think about themselves. In fact, the book never directly addresses “church” or “doing church” on Facebook. Instead the book is primarily about what more basic human concepts like identity, authenticity, connection, intentionality, and feeling at home, and how those are impacted and reinterpreted online.

He does a good job of surfacing some of the concerns about our always-online world – Continuous Partial Attention, information overload, narcissism, etc. – without sounding alarmist or discounting the entire system. Instead of saying, “The new world is bad and scary,” Rice seems to say, “This is the new reality. Now let’s figure out how to be Christian in it.” He acknowledges the problems, but also connects them to our God-given desires and design and suggests some helpful ways to be Christian online.

I think this might be a good book to calm an alarmist parent who can’t quite grasp what’s going on or deepen the thinking of a young adult who grew up with facebook and hasn’t had a chance to think about how it shapes the way he or she relates to other people.

(update: Scot McKnight also posted about the book this morning)

3 Responses to The Church of Facebook: How the Hyperconnected Are Redefining Community (Review)

  1. Avatar

    John (Human3rror)

    October 31st, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    Did you see my endorsement? Puaha.

    Reply

  2. Avatar

    Jesse Rice

    November 11th, 2009 at 10:36 am

    Hey John-

    Thanks very much for taking the time to read and review The Church of Facebook. I was very encouraged by your words.

    (And thanks, John Human3rror Saddington for the endorsement!)

    Reply

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About this blog

John DyerI'm John Dyer a web developer working on sites like Best Commentaries, Bible Web App, Dallas Seminary. I'm also a seminary graduate and teacher at Irving Bible Church.

This blog is about the the role of technology in the redemptive movement from the Garden to the City. I believe technology is an amazing testament to the creativity embedded in the imago dei, but instead of assuming technology is always a neutral tool, I believe it - like culture in general - profoundly influences us.

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