In his previous books — Culture Making, Playing God, and Strong and Weak — Andy Crouch has shown a remarkable facility for translating theological and philosophical ideas into the language of Christian practice and action. I haven’t mentioned this to him, but I suspect that when Andy confronts a new idea he asks himself, What would life look like if we acted on the belief that this idea is true?
So Andy is just the right person to give us his new book The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place (click the link above for more details). It’s really first-rate: unashamedly practical but buttressed by theological acuity and some really interesting research from the Barna Group on the technological habits of American families. Andy writes explicitly and straightforwardly as a Christian, and some of his arguments will, I expect, have greater force for Christians, but there’s a great deal of wisdom and sound advice here for every family who wants to make reasonable and health-giving decisions about their engagements with technology.
I’m pretty occupied right now by my Anthropocene Theology project, but don’t be surprised if I have a post or two or three about Andy’s book later.