Adaptation in the Evangelical Church

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Evangelical christians have adapted to radio and publishing in the past. More likely to be early adoptors of media such as radio, and radio especially than other religious groups. One of the inflection points we could identify would be the scopes trial. They decided they wanted to sort of rebrand as active participants in american popular culture.

Paris Marx is joined by Corrina Laughlin to discuss how evangelical Christians have adapted to modern technologies, how churches have emulated startups, the growth of the faith tech sector, and whether there’s anything that can be learned from their tech experiments.

Corrina Laughlin is the author of Redeem All: How Digital Life Is Changing Evangelical Culture. She’s also an instructor of media studies at Loyola Marymount University. Follow Corrina on Twitter at @CKLaughlin.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Corrina wrote an article about why evangelicals are early adopters for The Atlantic.
Pew estimates about 24% of US adults identify as born again or evangelical Protestants.
The 1925 Scopes Trial was over the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools.
Life.Church makes a ton of high production value resources available to churches looking to start up and expand what they’re doing.
The prosperity gospel is a pro-capitalist theological tradition preached by some very wealth pastors, including Kenneth Copeland.

Support the show