Always on: Practicing Faith in a New Media Landscape - Paperback

by Angela Williams Gorrell (Author)

2020 Book of the Year Award, Academy of Parish Clergy

Many of us are "always on"--scrolling through social media, checking email, or searching the web. New media spaces can be sites and instruments of God's unconditional love, but they can also nurture harmful conditions and become sources of anxiety, jealousy, and despondency. Always On provides useful tools for helping students and congregants understand the world of social media and engage it faithfully, enabling Christian communities to address its use in constructive, pastoral ways. The book includes discussion questions and sample exercises for each chapter.

Back Jacket

Social Media Literacy for Christian Communities

"This book couldn't be more timely. More and more our lives and identities are being worked out in digital spaces that are always on. So we are asked to be always on, performing and reforming our identities, seeking likes and retweets to confirm our being. What does this mean for formation into the life and death of Jesus Christ? What does it mean for the pastoral task of building community? Gorrell takes up the challenge in Always On. This is an exciting, deep, and well-written project that promises to get you thinking. Dive in!"
--Andrew Root, Luther Seminary; author of The Pastor in a Secular Age

"A timely and important call to focus on who and what matters even amid the distractions that vie for our attention. Rather than merely asking us to turn off our devices, Gorrell invites us to turn on the possibilities of 'hybrid faithful living' and of caring for others across the digital divide. Highly recommended."
--Craig Detweiler, The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology; author of Selfies: Searching for the Image of God in a Digital Age

"Gorrell offers a compelling Christian vision of the good life within the landscape of new media. She demonstrates that this landscape is neither simply life-negating nor simply life-affirming and that it's possible to nurture a Christian hybrid existence that reflects God's nonviolent and compassionate love for creation today and into the future."
--Deanna Thompson, author of The Virtual Body of Christ in a Suffering World

"Using her background as a pastor, theologian, and new media researcher, Gorrell invites us to consider how new media affects every aspect of our lives and how easily we can find ourselves lost in the process. A helpful, practical book on one of the most pressing and real-life struggles we experience today."
--Chap Clark, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, California; author of Hurt 2.0 and Adoptive Church

"Always On considers how technology and social media impact identity and community formation. Fresh, contemporary, and practical: the language of this book is twenty-first century; the Christian call is first century; the promise of recovering humanity's capacity to bear the image of God in the world is eternal."
--Joy J. Moore, Bethel United Methodist Church, Flint, Michigan

Author Biography

Angela Williams Gorrell (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is assistant professor of practical theology at George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University, in Waco, Texas. She previously served as associate research scholar at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School, where she worked on the Theology of Joy and the Good Life project with Miroslav Volf.