Breaking The Digital Spell
Austin Gravley
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A podcast that explores the way technology and media shape our thoughts about God and our neighbor. Available wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube. Visit bio.link.com/digitalspell for extra podcast resources or to support the podcast with a Buy Me A Coffee tip or subscription!
Available episodes
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Oldest first
Feb 7, 2022
SA-8: How Churches Can Break the Social Media Prism
In the last decade, churches have been on the back foot when it comes to responding to changes in the technology and media landscape. There are too many things changing far too fast, and as soon as a trend appears, it ends as quickly as it came. And yet, churches easily feel the worst effects of this rapidly changing landscape: distraction, confusion, and above all, polarization and division among its members. Our pastors and ministry leaders cannot compete with the number of voices available to disciple us, nor the amount of time we spend with them each week. But what if fighting information with information, and tribalism with tribalism, wasn't the only option on the table? What if cutting through polarization and division was less about giving people better information, and more about giving people a better identity? What if many of the solutions posited for polarization and division were solutions that churches - and Christianity - are uniquely positioned to provide? After three episodes of bad news and diagnosing serious problems, now it's time for solutions - and this time, churches have the advantage.
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/how-churches-can-break-the-social-media-prism
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Subscribe to Passing Through Digital Babylon, a Substack of insights and reflections from passing through the digital empire while journeying towards the heavenly city!
Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: breakingthedigitalspell@gmail.comSupport the show
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Jan 3, 2022
SA-7: Internet Trolls and the Quest for the Inner Ring
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/internet-trolls-and-the-quest-for
The amplification of extremists and the muting of moderates. When it comes to social media's impact on American politics (and many other subjects), Chris Bail argues the two biggest effects of the social media prism feed into each other, making political extremists embolden and empowered to troll anyone they can and for moderates to give up hope that nuanced political dialogue and opinions are possible anymore. What drives Internet trolls to be trolls? What gives moderates the impression that discussing controversial topics online is so risky despite being the largest voting bloc in the country? What if both Internet trolls and the average American use social media in completely different ways because they're both looking for the same thing - and what if a Christian writer named C.S. Lewis had something to say about all this more than 80 years ago?
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Buy Me a Coffee and keep Breaking the Digital Spell a high quality ad-free experience! Leave a one-time tip (without making an account) or unlock exclusive content with a $5 monthly membership at buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell!
Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: breakingthedigitalspell@gmail.com
Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell) Support the show
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Dec 6, 2021
SA-6: Distorted Beyond the Funhouse Mirror
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/distorted-beyond-the-funhouse-mirror
When you stand in front of a funhouse mirror, your image in distorted in some bizarre and unusual way. Whether you get huge legs or a giant head, you know a funhouse mirror is not meant to give you a true reflection of yourself the way a normal mirror does. But what happens when a society or culture mistakes a funhouse mirror for a mirror capable of accurately reflecting culture and society around us? What if social media gives us outsized views of polarization, extremism, or other distortions of ourselves while pretending to be a truthful mirror, and what if - unlike a normal funhouse mirror - those distortions we see in social media stay with us even after we've stopped looking in the mirror? What direction do those distortions go, and how do they change how we see ourselves and those we disagree with?
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Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: breakingthedigitalspell@gmail.com
Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell) Support the show
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Nov 1, 2021
SA-5: Stepping on the Glass of Broken Echo Chambers
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/stepping-on-the-glass-of-broken-echo
Political polarization and tribalism are on the rise, and social media appears to be the chief culprit. The ability to customize our social media feeds to only hear the voices we want to hear has lead us into echo chambers of increasingly one-sided viewpoints and unchecked misinformation - at least, that's what cultural wisdom suggests. But is that actually true? What actually happens when people step outside their "echo chambers"? Is information really the driving force behind the rise of political polarization, radical viewpoints, and extreme behavior on social media? Or, as secular sociologist Chris Bail and Christian philosopher James K.A. Smith both argue, are our behaviors and actions driven by something deeper than simply what we think - and how does the Gospel give the church an advantage in addressing polarization?
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Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism" and check out the Polarization Lab!
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: breakingthedigitalspell@gmail.com
Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell) Support the show
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Oct 25, 2021
Can Content Warnings Make Instagram Safer for Kids? (Buy Me a Coffee Member Preview)
When the Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook knew that Instagram was toxic and harmful to teen girls, it lit up a firestorm greater than any of the other stories the Journal would break in it’s “Facebook Files” series. Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs, recently went on to CNN to discuss the Journal’s report and revealed that Instagram would be rolling out several features that will help curb Instagram’s harmful impact on teenage mental health. But will things like warning labels for harmful content or nudges to “take a break” actually make a difference? Is Facebook’s emphasis on problematic content a sincere attempt to fix the issue, or a diversion from the true source of the problem?
Episodes like this are an example of the bonus content you can expect with a Buy Me a Coffee membership to Breaking the Digital Spell. For $5/mo, you can support the podcast and receive extra episodes, commentary, behind-the-scenes previews, and more. Media literacy is the biggest gaping hole in our discipleship, and every dollar of your support (even a one-time tip!) goes towards creating content and (one day) resources that will help close that gap!
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Buy Me a Coffee and keep Breaking the Digital Spell a high quality ad-free experience! Leave a one-time tip (without making an account) or unlock exclusive content with a $5 monthly membership at buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell!
Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: breakingthedigitalspell@gmail.com
Support the show (http://buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell)Support the show
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Oct 18, 2021
SA-4: Should Christians Leave Social Media? A Conversation About Digital Babylon
The Bible gives us a framework for understanding and navigating a world dominated by social media: Christians are to live as faithfully obedient exiles in the midst of Digital Babylon. This is the claim we explored on the prior episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, and we ended the episode open to pushback or objections to this idea. In this bonus episode, Austin sits down with Jacob Cates, executive pastor of Redeemer Christian Church, to talk through some good questions and objections to the “Digital Babylon” framework. Are there other analogies that are more helpful to us? How could the “Digital Babylon” framework be improved? But most importantly: If social media is truly akin to Digital Babylon, shouldn’t Christians try to come out of that empire and get off social completely?
Clarification: many of Jacob's comments on individualism/identity come from Carl Trueman's "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self." As it is with all the books we've featured on BtDS, quoting an author favorably on one point does not mean an endorsement of everything an author says or does elsewhere.
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Buy Me a Coffee and keep Breaking the Digital Spell a high quality ad-free experience! Leave a one-time tip (without making an account) or unlock exclusive content with a $5 monthly membership at buymeacoffee.com/digitalspell!
Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"
“Forget the Echo Chamber - Social Media is a Prism” on FaithTech.
“What Is Media Ecology? A Conversation with Austin Gravley” on YouTube
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell
* Twitter: @DigitalSpell and @gravley_austin
* Instagram: @breakingthedigitalspell
* YouTube: Breaking the Digital Spell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: breakingthedigitalspell@gmail.comSupport the show
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Sep 27, 2021
SA-3: On Esther, Daniel, and Exile in Digital Babylon
The Babylonian exile is arguably the most important event in the history of the Old Testament. Israel's long descent into apostasy ends with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the people of God are forcibly relocated to a pagan nation that they did not want to live in. But the Babylonian exile is more than just a date and time in history - it is a framework, used by New Testament writers and by Christians for millennia, that helps us understand what faithful obedience to God looks like in a sinful world. In this episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at the Babylonian Exile and the lives of Esther and Daniel and how these can help us understand what faithful obedience to God looks like not just in a sinful world, but a digital world - in Digital Babylon. How would applying this biblical framework to our social media world shape our understanding of the world that we currently live in and how we are called to live in it? Like the exiles who asked "how do we live in Babylon?", how do we live in Digital Babylon?
Full episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/on-esther-daniel-and-exile-in-digital
Chapter Divisions
* Part One: The Top of the Rabbit Hole - 1:10
* Part Two: Introducing Digital Babylon - 29:58
* Part Three: The Reality of Exile - 43:23
* Part Four: Engagement in Exile - 51:23
* Part Five: Providence in Exile - 1:16:58
Tanak Order Reading List
* The introduction of "A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament", ed. by Miles V. Van Pelt.
* "Dominion and Dynasty" by Stephen Dempster
* "Know How We Got Our Bible" by Ryan M. Reeves and Charles Hill
Purchase a copy of Chris Bail's "Breaking the Social Media Prism"
Connect with Austin and Breaking the Digital Spell:
* Twitter: @gravley_austin and @DigitalSpell
* Facebook: BtDS Facebook Page
* Email: breakingthedigitalspell@gmail.comSupport the show
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Aug 30, 2021
SA-2: On Students and Brett McCracken's "The Wisdom Pyramid"
Media literacy is the biggest gaping hole in our discipleship. We can feel its effects in our churches and our lives in the same way we can feel the effects of poor financial stewardship or failing marriages in our churches. Plenty of courses and programs exist for churches to address financial literacy and building healthy marriages, but what about for media literacy? The problem has festered for so long feels so overwhelming; it's hard to know where to start! In this episode of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at one particular resource, Brett McCracken's "The Wisdom Pyramid", and report from the field of trying to fill the gap with some high school students - and offer some helpful perspective on why doing something imperfectly is better than doing nothing at all.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
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Aug 9, 2021
SA-1: The Asterisk Year
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/sa1-the-asterisk-year
When 2020 began, none of us factored in the possibility of a pandemic being the defining reality of our year. Our plans and predictions for the world were thrown into chaos, and our sense of "normal" upended overnight as we embraced a strong sense of uncertainty about our future. But how "normal" was our pre-pandemic "normal"? What exactly did Covid-19 change, and how lasting are those changes? How should we think about our confidence in our ability to plan, predict, and control or understand our future in a world armed with tools and techniques aimed at giving us confidence (or dread) about what tomorrow holds? Is there a better way forward?
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
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Nov 20, 2018
S1E13: ...Is To Break The Spell
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e13-is-to-break-the-spell
Our love for the technology and media in our lives has left us held under a spell that leads us to believe there is nothing worth seeing or experiencing beyond the screen in front of our face. On the season finale of Breaking the Digital Spell, we look at what it means to live our lives with the digital spell broken.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
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Nov 13, 2018
S1E12: Conclusions, Part Two
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e12-conclusions-part-two
We live in a world defined by the Internet and the technology and media it has created. How does this change the way we think about God and the way we love our neighbor? “In Conclusions, Part Two”, we come full circle as the season begins to come to a close.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
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Oct 30, 2018
S1E11: A Tale Of Two Realities
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e11-a-tale-of-two-realities
No matter how much we might use television or the Internet to escape the real world, the screen size and location always leaves a little bit of the real world in our peripheral vision. VR takes that peripheral vision away and replaces it will a full digital world that could offer us what our real life can’t.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Oct 23, 2018
S1E10: The Useful Distraction of Smartphones
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e10-the-useful-distraction-of-smartphones
Smartphones are incredible useful. They’re also incredibly distracting. They can help us manage our lives and distract us from our lives at the same time. How does this change the way we think about God?
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Oct 18, 2018
S1B2: Surviving Elections On Social Media
Earlier this week we looked at social media's impact on us by offering us a limitless amount of content to consume. That content often gets nasty around election seasons - is there anything we can do to mitigate that nastiness and survive the toxicity of social media during election season? In this BONUS episode of Breaking The Digital Spell, we look at three practical ways to help us get through the ugliness of online politics during election season!
For more information about Breaking the Digital Spell and for supplemental content related to each week's episode, like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @DigitalSpell. Wherever you're listening to this, please consider subscribing and leaving a review, and sharing the episode with your friends!
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Oct 16, 2018
S1E9: Social Media's Content Waterfall
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e9-social-medias-content-waterfall
Social media promises the ability to consume an endless amount of content thanks to timelines, algorithms, and a whole host of other technological forces designed to keep us up-to-date, informed, and connected with everything going on in the world. There is more content uploaded each day than our minds can comprehend -just how much of this can we consume each day without experiencing any negative effects?
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.
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Oct 9, 2018
S1E8: Fire! Wire!
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e8-fire-wire
We've spent the past several episodes talking about the social and intellectual environments - the mediums - created by new technology and media. But what about the machines themselves? What role do they have to do with this? What about the digital text we now consume as a result of these machines? Is there a difference between reading digital text and reading printed text? If there is, what impact does that have on us - on society?
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Oct 2, 2018
S1E7: Conclusions, Part One
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e7-conclusions-part-one
How did television and the Internet change the way we think about God? In this episode, we come to some conclusions, and one of these conclusions paves the way for the digitally driven world we live in today.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Sep 25, 2018
S1E6: The Internet's New Community
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e6-the-internets-new-community
When the Internet became readily available and adopted in the 90s, we had no idea what changes it would bring to our world. In many ways, we are still trying to fully asses the scope of that change even to this present day as the Internet continues to evolve and change. Even in the early days of the Internet, however, one thing was clear: our idea of "community" would never be the same again.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Sep 20, 2018
S1B1: Good Television and Bad Writing
In this BONUS episode of Breaking The Digital Spell, we take a look at some of the good things about television and some of the ways where advances in print/oral communication have made the world worse. We've been pretty harsh on television up to this point - now its time to give it some credit.For more information about Breaking the Digital Spell and for supplemental content related to each week's episode, like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @DigitalSpell. Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Sep 18, 2018
S1E5: Walking By Faith And Sight
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e5-walking-by-faith-and-sight
"If the delivery is not the same, then the message, quite likely, is not the same. And if the context in which the message is experienced is altogether different from what it was in Jesus’ time, we may assume that its social and psychological meaning is different as well.” - Neil Postman.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Sep 11, 2018
S1E4: Television's Terms of Engagement
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e4-televisions-terms-of-engagement
How do you read a book? How do you watch television? How we engage a medium tells us what that medium values - and when it comes to television, it values something completely foreign to the world before it: discourse not through words, but through images.
This episode was originally released on August 27th, 2018.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Sep 4, 2018
S1E3: In The Beginning Were Words
Episode Manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e3-in-the-beginning-were-words
How have changes in technology and media changed the way we think about God? In order to answer this, we must go back to the beginning, and in the beginning...were words.
This episode was originally released on September 3rd, 2018.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Aug 28, 2018
S1E2: Between Optimism And Pessimism
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e2-between-optimism-and-pessimsim
In thinking about technology and media, its hard to know where to start when considering their effects on our lives. In this episode, we look at three general responses to technology - optimism, pessimism, and ambiguity - and how these responses can help us make sense of the good, bad, and ugly of technology and media. T
The New York Times article about Amazon: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html
This episode was originally released on August 27th, 2018.
Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley.Support the show
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Aug 28, 2018
S1E1: To Ask The Question...
Episode manuscript: https://digitalbabylon.substack.com/p/s1e1-to-ask-the-question
Breaking the Digital Spell is not about convincing you to throw your MacBooks out the window, pack your things, and move to the middle of nowhere, free from any technological influence whatsoever. Nor is it about instilling a fear of the device you’re currently listening this into, as though there were some big, grand conspiracy to turn you into some mindless lemming. Instead, Breaking the Digital Spell is a podcast about asking questions about the technology and media we take for granted, and honestly assessing the full range of impact they have on our lives and theology. For more information about Breaking the Digital Spell and for supplemental content related to each week's episode, like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @DigitalSpell. Produced by Austin Gravley and Andrew Akins. Hosted by Austin Gravley. Mixing/music by Andrew Akins. Additional vocal talent from Melissa Gravley. Support t…
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Aug 11, 2018
S1E0: Season One Preview
For this first season of Breaking the Digital Spell, we are going to look at how changes in technology and media - from the printing press to television, from television to the Internet, from the Internet to social media and beyond - change the way we think about God and what we think about when we think about God. With the help of thinkers like Neil Postman, Nicholas Carr, Alan Noble, and several others, we are going to examine how we got to the digitally-driven world we live in today, and how we think about Christianity in light of the changes this digitally-driven world brought. Some of these changes are good. Some of them, not so good. But we won’t know what to do about it until we start asking questions.Support the show
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