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.
Corrina Laughlin teaches media studies at Loyola Marymount University and holds a PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
"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
210 pp.6 x 9
9780520379688$29.95|£25.00Paper
Dec 2021