Disciplines Technology Studies Technology Studies

Redeem All How Digital Life Is Changing Evangelical Culture

by Corrina Laughlin (Author)
December 2021
First Edition
Hardcover
$85.00, £71.00 Paperback
$29.95, £25.00 eBook
$29.95, £25.00
Title Details

Rights: Available worldwide
Pages: 210
ISBN: 9780520379688
Trim Size: 6 x 9

About the Book From Our Blog About the Author Reviews Table of Contents Awards Related Books

About the Book

Redeem All examines the surprising intersection of American evangelicalism and tech innovation. Corrina Laughlin looks at the evangelical Christians who are invested in imagining, using, hacking, adapting, and creating new media technologies for religious purposes. She finds that entrepreneurs, pastors, missionaries, and social media celebrities interpret the promises born in Silicon Valley through the framework of evangelical culture and believe that digital media can help them (to paraphrase Steve Jobs) put their own dent in the universe. Laughlin introduces readers to “startup churches” hoping to reach a global population, entrepreneurs coding for a deeper purpose, digital missionaries networking with mobile phones, and Christian influencers and podcasters seeking new forms of community engagement. Redeem All reveals how evangelicalism has changed as it eagerly adopts the norms of the digital age.

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About the Author

Corrina Laughlin teaches media studies at Loyola Marymount University and holds a PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Reviews

"Laughlin’s deft navigation of diverse scholarly literatures makes this volume a useful and appealing one for a variety of uses and audiences. . . .Redeem All is an important profile that arrives at a key moment in the negotiation of evangelical identity."—Reading Religion

"[A] wonderful, contributive scholarship that will lead to better understandings of the virtual and physical lives of American evangelicals today."—California History

"Redeem All is an in-depth examination of evangelical engagement with digital affordances. Its profiles of evangelical tech geeks, entrepreneurs, online missionaries, and feminists are a welcome corrective to the misconception of an evangelical monolith. Rather than focusing on Trumpvangelicals, the book reveals nuanced believers willing to rethink aspects of their theology, including systemic racism and sexism, to meet the current moment."—Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion, University of Southern California

"In this engaging and sophisticated work of cultural analysis, Laughlin does a masterful job of showing the complex ways in which technology and social media impact American evangelicals' thoughts about salvation and redemption in the twenty-first century. Based on original research with Christians who proselytize, worship, work, and communicate using everything from VR technology and Bible apps to Twitter hashtags and online chatrooms, Redeem All demonstrates how and why examining such a 'digital habitus' matters for scholarly and popular discussions about modern Christianity's connections to capitalist logics, racial and gender biases, and even popular conspiracy theories. This book will help readers to reconsider much of what they think they already know about Christian practices and beliefs in a digital age."—John L. Jackson, Jr., Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Church: From the Megachurch to the Start-up
  Church
2. The Start-up: The Culture of Faith-Tech and the
  Promise of Redemptive Entrepreneurship
3. Media Missions: Proselytizing on the Electronic
  Frontier
4. The Influencers: The Rise of Evangelical Influencers
  and the Potency of Popular Parochial Feminism on
  Social Media
5. Racial Reckoning and Repair: The Urgent
  Conversation about Race on the Black Christian
  Podcast Circuit

Conclusion

Glossary
Notes
References
Index

Awards

Nancy Baym Annual Book Award, Association of Internet Researchers
Religious Communication Association Book of the Year Award 2022, Religious Communication Association