From Torrey alum and Scriptorium Politics editor Rachel Motte:
There’s still time to get your essay in for the Evangelical Outpost/Wheatstone Academy blog symposium. Read about it here.
There are some pretty amazing prizes available, so you don’t want to miss this. We’re asking for blog posts on the following question:
If the medium affects the message, how will the Christian message be affected by the new media?
It’s a huge question, and we look forward to a wide variety of responses.
Perhaps the most significant affect of the new media on the Christian message is one that isn’t always immediately obvious. Thanks to new media technology and distribution methods, today’s parents enjoy an increasing freedom largely unheard of for generations: we have a chance to return the home to its rightful place as the center of family life.
Last year, for example, I helped edit a New York Times bestseller—at my kitchen table. I was able to earn money to help support my family, boost my career, and still be home to watch my then one-year-old daughter take her first steps. Thanks to new technology, there was no reason for me to do my work in an office—no need to put my baby in daycare. As the new media continues to expand, more parents will find similar opportunities to combine work and family life in the home. The digital revolution is helping to reverse some of the negative effects of the industrial revolution, and the cultural implications are promising.
The industrial revolution took work, and therefore parents, out of the home. This daily fragmentation of the family helped splinter the larger society. (For more on this see Nancy Pearcey’s excellent book, Total Truth.) I can’t undo this societal damage, but I and others like me can resurrect the place of the home in family life much more easily because of the new media.
Thanks to the economic opportunities provided by new media, my daughter and an increasing number like her will grow up happily integrated into their parents’ personal and professional lives, because both work and family can be securely anchored in the home.
As the family goes, so goes the culture. A return to the home as the center of family life will, in the long run, help create stronger, more stable families who will be well-placed to communicate and live out the message of the Gospel. This is a powerful way in which the new media has a chance to affect the Christian message.
We look forward to reading your thoughts about Christianity and the new media—send your essays to eosubmissions@gmail.com .
Rachel Motte
Wheatstoneacademy.com