“We Are Also Virtual”

A review of The Digital Disciple: Real Christianity in a Virtual World by Adam Thomas.

Review by Will Fitzgerald.

I used to have a phone; now that I have a cell phone, it’s a wired phone. I used to read books; now that I have electronic or e-books, they are now physical books. I used to just live my life; now that I can interact with people for hours at a time virtually, I now have a real life. Almost anything I can do in real life, I can now do virtually: gossip, flirt, work, be entertained, check in with people, buy and sell. For Adam Thomas, the young author of Digital Disciple: Real Christianity in a Virtual World, living virtually is not optional; it is part of who we are now. He writes (in what is, I believe, the most important sentence in his book): Not only are we physical, emotional, and spiritual people, we are now virtual people. Thomas has always had a computer, and it has always had some sort of connectivity to the wider world of what we now call (with lowercase ‘i’) the internet. The question is, how do we live virtuously as disciples who are virtual as well as physical, emotional, and spiritual?

Thomas’s book does three things. First, it acts as an introduction to “the Tech,” Thomas’s term for the set of computational and communication technologies that have made our virtual lives possible. Second, it discusses the disadvantages as well as the advantages of the Tech. Third, it suggests ways that we might live virtually.

Read the rest of this review on Englewood Review.

The Digital Disciple:
Real Christianity in a Virtual World.
Adam Thomas.
Paperback: Abingdon, 2011.
Buy now:
[ Christianbook.com ]
[ Amazon.com - Kindle ]