The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World
From Neoredemptive
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Tex Sample
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Synopsis
Doc's Take
Blah.
I read this book in 1999 when it was almost fresh-off-the-press, and even then it didn't have anything really new to say. Might be useful to those who are stuck a few decades behind the church-and-culture learning curve, but if you're already that far behind, you'll probably have better luck sticking with the retro thing and hoping it comes back into style again.
In a nutshell, Sample is stating the same "digital generation, non-linear thinking, mosaic learning, experience over meaning" stuff that you can find in all of the other mass-market "how to reach the younger generation" books written in the 90s. The one almost-novel contribution is his notion of how digital culture forms its own indigenous language of critique, but even that concept isn't taken much beyond a cursory sketch, and the differences between modern linear critique and the jarring discordian approach to "digital critique" call into question whether they are both flavors of critique or the latter is something fundamentally different (like, say, an "appeal", or perhaps a gentle form of "brainwashing").
You'll be better served reading The Church in Emerging Culture, where you at least get some counterpoints; if you're really daring, you may even want to read some of David Wells' books where he elucidates the sheer destructive power of uncritically adopting the "electronic" values Sample is struggling to appropriate.
