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How does the future look to us? Well, clearly we realize we now live in a world of screens, from the microcosmic universe of to smartphone . . . to the imposing vigil of the multiplex giants, looming over us in Imax and 3-D--more "real" than real--and to all the screens in between, from computers to iPads, to muted, high definition flat-screens pouring out images in homes, restaurants, banks, businesses, schools, doctors' offices, and hospitals, and on and on everywhere we turn. We cannot change this reality, so what these Christians, and so many like them are doing is trying to find ways to redeem what we put on these screens: what message we are sending out in word and image to the watching world.
So, clearly, our task, whether we have been called to create or not, is to join these artists as "screen redeemers," assisting the Holy Spirit in reconciling the world to God (2 Cor 5:18-19) through helping the pervasively influential means of the media adjust its goals to the mission of Jesus Christ.
About the author
Jeanne C. DeFazio holds an MA in Religion from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She is currently an Athanasian Teaching Scholar at Gordon-Conwell's Center for Urban Ministerial Education in Boston and a co-author with Teresa Flowers of
How to Have an Attitude of Gratitude on the Night Shift (2014) and co-editor with John P. Lathrop of
Creative Ways to Build Christian Community (2013).
William David Spencer is Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Theology and the Arts at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary's Boston Center for Urban Ministerial Education. He is the recipient of twenty one awards for writing and editing and is the author of several hundred articles, reviews, poems, stories, and thirteen previous books, including his latest, the urban adventure novel
Name in the Papers.
