Paperless God
“The Death of the Book,” by S. David Marsh, is not, strictly speaking, a religion story. Yet by virtue of its location — Mars Hill Review, one of the best Christian lit magazines around — and its language, it is. “Current death-of-the-book doctrine,” writes Marsh, “is canonized in the horse-and-buggy analogy: as the horse and buggy fared […]
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Theology geeks will recognize Marsh’s allusion to the death-of-God, reports of which were greatly exaggerated during that intellectual movement’s 1960s heyday. Media geeks, meanwhile, will find much to meditate on in Marsh’s passionate defense of the written word. “It’s not a matter of horse and buggy against the automobile,” argues Marsh. “It is a matter of the automobile with the airplane. Both meet important needs in vital and effective ways in their own right.”
One of those needs being — for Marsh, at least, one suspects — a Bible in every home, a New Testament in every motel room. Marsh’s essay is in some senses to 1980s report by The Center for the Application of Technology to Biblical and Theological Studies, which gleefully forecast the days of virtual scripture. The Revealer excepted, of course, those days are yet to come.
In the meantime, read more, and ponder the fate of faith in a paperless world.
And if the spirit so moves you, question the future of “The Gospel in Cyberspace.”