Chapter 10
In: Protestant Periodicals in Transition
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Abstract
Media, by its very nature, is a moving, living, and adaptable entity. This is no less true for Christian narratives. The power of words, as a media force, that was unleashed by Gutenberg’s press has, in the last generation, become a digital multimedia force. This chapter traces the ways that Evangelical Christians have been at the forefront of media usage to reach souls with the message of salvation and to nurture them in their faith with teaching about Christian living. Much of the impulse for this media growth, it must be noted, was an outgrowth of revival in the church during the First and Second Great Awakenings on the North American continent. Conviction, repentance, and a cry to know God brought fresh eyes to Christian media. Like intertwined threads, literary innovation and Evangelical impulse were inseparable as evangelists, lay pastors, and clergy landed in North America in the 1600s. On foot and on horseback, these visionaries brought Bibles as well as tracts, broadsides, and the early versions of what would later become magazines. Today much of this legacy of biblical narrative is digital. Can something as intangible as digital code, underneath a digital page, be considered biblical truth? Of course.