This past weekend I had the privilege to jump on a plane in Harrisburg and fly to Dallas for a conference called the Electronic Gospel. It was a very interesting conference that happened at Dallas Theological Seminary.

It definitely was more of a theology based conference and got me thinking a lot.

The main speaker, Shane Hipps, author of “Flickering Pixels” was basically getting the idea across that the type of media or technology that we use/consume, affects the way we view and live out the Gospel. The main two that affect us are 1) Reading/Writing 2) Visual/Photo/Videos. These two different categories use two different sides of the brain. Our culture, in the past, has been more of a Reading/Writing society. Actually that has been the prominent form of communication for a long time. This causes us to use our left side of the brain more, becoming more dependent on it.

Making us more of a logical, sequential, linear thinkers. Causing us to view and understand the Gospel in the same light.

Compare that to the invention of the photograph in the late 1800’s. Since then our society has become more of a visual society. Yeah, language and letters aren’t going anywhere, but the majority of the media we can consume now is visual. It also tends to have a bigger impact. This type of media using the right side of the brain. Slowly you can trace the change from an overwhelming Evangelical doctrine/orthodoxy/thought to an ever-slowly Emergent/”less orthodox” way of viewing our faith. Hipps this is a difference between right and left brain thought process, and not a difference in actual “theology” which is a right brain concept anyways.

All that to say, it was a very thought provoking conference. Hopefully that makes some sense. So, how do we use the tools at hand today, and what message is it sending. Because the medium is louder then the message.

Thoughts? Push backs? Funny Jokes?