It is not a new book. I had to order it used. But what amazed me was how prescient it is, for a book written at the beginning of the Digital Age.
Lochead was, as they say, and "early adopter" of internet possibilities within the United Church of Canada. He was in fact a pioneer of ECUNET back in the day. In his intro he says that the first chapter came to form in 1984. Now I remember 1984. THink Apple IIe. THink DOS. THink those lovely green screens. The only exposure most of us had to modems and inter-computer communication at that time was movies such as War Games. In fact a decade later, when I was doing my first internship, modems and ECUNET/othe internet things and so on were still something very few people were doing (and a 28.8 modem was the top of the line). ANd yet what Lochead describes is eerily accurate to what we have now.
THis was a good book. An introductory book to be sure. But a good read. Lochead raises important questions that still need to be explored, especially as we live into the reality of a social media world. Given that I am still mulling the concept of doing a DMin exploring what it means to be the church in a Digital World I am really glad this book was suggested to me.
