My latest: the rise of digital lectors, in CT

My April 18 Christianity Today column was called “Biblical Literacy in a Postliterate Age.” Last week, on May 8, CT published my follow-up, titled “Digital Lectors for a Postliterate Age.”

I’d always intended a sequel, and later this summer I may write a final column to complete a loose trilogy of reflections on Scripture, literacy, and technology in the church. This latest one covers a range of creative responses to postliterate believers, seekers, and drifters, from the Bible Project to Father Mike’s The Bible in a Year podcast to Jonathan Pageau and the Symbolic World to Alastair Roberts and many others. I call them “digital lectors,” readers and expositors of Scripture for a digital—which is to say, a postliterate—age.

In between the two columns, there were a couple noteworthy interactions with my claims about the state of biblical literacy (and literacy in general) in the church. The first was a conversation on the Holy Post podcast between Skye Jethani and Kaitlyn Schiess; you can find it on video here, starting around minute 33. The second was a response from Jessica Hooten Wilson (whom I quote in the piece), in a piece on her Substack called “The Post-literate Church.” Both engagements are friendly, thoughtful, critical, and worth your time. I’m grateful to all of them for their reflections.