Technology and Spiritual Formation - Bibliography (in process)

(The Lutheran Home, in Monroe, MI)

(I'll be giving a 90-minute seminar on April 11, 2026, 11 AM EST. “Christian Integrity and Discernment with Social Media.”  $5. Register HERE.)

Here are books I have used to help me better understand the relationship between technology, culture, and Christian spiritual formation. 

A note: Linda and I watched "The Social Dilemma" on Netflix. Helpful. Well done. Concerning. Frightening.

Adam Alter, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked.

Aiken, Mary, The Cyber Effect: An Expert in Cyberpsychology Explains How Technology is Shaping Our Children, Our Behavior, and Our Valuers, and What We Can Do About It. 

Mark Bauerlein, ed. The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking

Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future

David Baggett and Jerry Walls, God and Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning

James Barrat, Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era

Albert Borgmann, Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology

Danah Boyd, It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens

John Brockman, ed. Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI

John Brockman, ed. What to Think About Machines that Think

Harold I. Brown, Perception, Theory and Commitment: The New Philosophy of Science

Alan Burdick, Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation

Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Heidi Campbell, Networked Theology: Negotiating Faith in Digital Culture 

Nicholas Carr, The Glass Cage: How Our Computers are Changing Us

Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

Carr, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart

John Cheney-Lippold, We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves.

William Davies, The Happiness Industry

Craig Detweiler, iGods: How Technology Shapes Our Spiritual and Social Lives

Jacques Ellul, Presence in the Modern World: A New Translation

Ellul, The Technological Society

Amitai Etzioni, Happiness is the Wrong Metric: A Liberal Communitarian Response to Populism

Franklin Foer, World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech

Donna Freitas, The Happiness Effect: How Social Media is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost

Howard Gardner and Katie Davis, The App Generation

Craig Gay, Modern Technology and the Human Future: A Christian Appraisal

Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukionoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. 

Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays 

James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky, Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality

Don Ihde, Philosophy and Technology: An Introduction

David Kaplan, ed. Readings in the Philosophy of Technology

Larson, Eric. The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can't Think the Way We Do.

John Lennox, 2084 and the AI Revolution

Tim Lewens, The Meaning of Science: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

Raymond Martin. The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: An Intellectual History of Personal Identity

Adam McHugh, The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction

Carl Mitcham, Philosophy and Technology: Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Technology

Moreland, J.P., Scientism and Secularism: Learning to Respond to a Dangerous Ideology. 

Richard Muller, Now: The Physics of Time

H. Richard Neibuhr, Christ and Culture.

Newport, Cal, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life In a Noisy World. 

Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

Pellegrino, Edmund. Human Dignity and Bioethics. 

Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business 

Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Powers, William, Hamlet's Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age

Tony Reinke, 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You

Christine Rosen, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human In a Disembodied World

Schuurman, Derek. Shaping a Digital World: Faith, Culture and Computer Technology 

Jacob Shatzer, Transhumanism and the Image of God: Today's Technology and the Future of Christian Discipleship

Roger Scruton, On Human Nature

Christian Smith, What Is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up

Mari Swingle, i-Minds: How and Why Constant Connectivity Is Rewiring Our Brains and What to Do About It

Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity

Taylor, The Secular Age

Sherry Turkle, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other

Turkle, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age

Jean Twenge, iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy - and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood - and What That Means for the Rest of Us

Twenge, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement

Jose van Dyck, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media

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My Books

 Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (co-edited with Janice Trigg)

Deconstructing Progressive Christianity

31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship

31 Letters to the Church on Praying

The Great Invasion: 31 Days of Christmas