Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age
Ebook
We live in a world full of shiny distractions, faced with an onslaught of viral media constantly competing for our attention and demanding our affections. These ever-present visual "spectacles" can quickly erode our hearts, making it more difficult than ever to walk through life actively treasuring that which is most important and yet invisible: Jesus Christ. In a journalistic style, Tony Reinke shows us just how distracting these spectacles in our lives have become and calls us to ask critical questions about what we're focusing on. The book offers us practical steps to redirect our gaze away from the addictive eye candy of the world and onto the Ultimate Spectacle—leading to the joy and rest our souls crave.
Top Highlights
“For this project, spectacles is confined to its second meaning: a moment of time, of varying length, in which collective gaze is fixed on some specific image, event, or moment. A spectacle is something that captures human attention, an instant when our eyes and brains focus and fixate on something projected at us.” (source)
“In this ‘age of the spectacle’ (as it has been called4)—in this ecosystem of digital pictures and fabricated sights and viral moments competing for our attention—how do we spiritually thrive?” (source)
“What’s important to see in this project is that self-sculpting and self-projecting make social media an irresistible spectacle because we become the self-molded star at the center of it all. As a result of these cultural shifts, we each feel the shift from being to appearing. Our self-made images—our digital appearings—become everything.” (source)
“On this question I largely agree with Mike Cosper, who said that ‘chasing religious spectacles only makes sense in a disenchanted world. If we’ve primed ourselves to live in a world where God doesn’t show up, then we have to figure out how to make something happen on our own.’” (source)
“Why do we seek spectacles? Because we’re human—hardwired with an unquenchable appetite to see glory. Our hearts seek splendor as our eyes scan for greatness. We cannot help it. ‘The world aches to be awed. That ache was made for God. The world seeks it mainly through movies’” (source)
“Thirty years after Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to
Death, Tony Reinke’s Competing Spectacles takes the
impact-analysis of modern media to new levels: a new height and new
depth. New height, because Christ crucified, risen, and reigning is
brought into the discussion as the Spectacle above all spectacles.
New depth, because the focus is not on what is happening to
politics, but what is happening to the human soul. The conception
of this book is not cavalier; it is rooted in the profound biblical
strategy of sanctification by seeing (2 Cor. 3:18). The spectacle
of Christ’s glory is ‘the central power plant of Christian
sanctification.’ Ugly spectacles make us ugly. Beautiful spectacles
make us beautiful. Reinke is a good guide in how to deflect the
damaging effects of digital images ‘in anticipation of a greater
Sight.’”
—John Piper, Founder and Teacher, desiringGod.org;
Chancellor, Bethlehem College & Seminary; author, Desiring
God
“Tony Reinke has proven to be a wise guide for Christians
through this era of technological whirl. Now with this accessible,
sagacious book, he has done so again. This book shows us how to
pull our eyes away from the latest viral video or our digital
avatars of self and toward the ‘spectacle’ before which we often
cringe and wince: the crucifixion of our Lord. That’s the spectacle
we need.”
—Russell Moore, President, The Ethics &
Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention
“Tony Reinke has the prophetic knack of helping us see the truth
about ourselves and our world. In these pages—as illuminating as
they are disturbing and challenging—he stands in the tradition of
the spiritual masters who have understood that the city of
man’s—and woman’s—soul is often attacked and destroyed through
eye-gate. But Competing Spectacles not only diagnoses our
distorted vision; it prescribes spectacles that give us
twenty-twenty spiritual vision. Essential reading.”
—Sinclair B. Ferguson, Chancellor’s Professor of
Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary; Teaching
Fellow, Ligonier Ministries
“As a millennial who desires to abide in Christ while
simultaneously engaging culture, I found this book incredibly
helpful. The world seeks to captivate our attention through an
endless stream of distractions, but Reinke encourages us to revive
our hearts to the spectacle of Christ. I walked away encouraged to
gaze upon the glory of the gospel, knowing it will reverberate
through me and empower me to walk in Christlikeness.”
—Hunter Beless, Founder and Executive Director,
Journeywomen podcast
“Your time is limited. But you live in a world where digital eye
candy, viral videos, national scandals, and social media are
limitless—a world that competes for every split second of your
attention. And you must train yourself both to focus and to ignore.
Both are gospel skills in a battle between the diversions of our
present age and our citizenship in the age to come. Every
generation of Christians has faced this struggle, but never in a
media-dominated culture like ours. So how can we meet the
challenges and avoid the pitfalls of our day? Leaning on Scripture
as the lens through which we view this digital age, Tony Reinke
communicates in brilliantly lucid prose a proposal for how we can
glorify our unseen Savior in this world full of sensory
diversions.”
—Bruce Riley Ashford, Professor of Theology and
Culture, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; coauthor,
The Gospel of Our King
“If this book helps readers to digitally detox and to unplug
from all sources of media that threaten to drown us in noise and to
rob us of the capacity to attend to the things that truly enable us
to flourish as human beings, then it will only have begun to do its
good work. Take the spectacles of God’s two books, Scripture and
Creation, as John Calvin once called them, and learn to resee your
life as God sees it. Take and read! Taste and see!”
—W. David O. Taylor, Assistant Professor of
Theology and Culture, Fuller Theological Seminary
“How to navigate the Christian life in a media-saturated culture
feels more confusing than ever. Tony Reinke provides a dose of
desperately needed clarity. Combining careful research with
relevant application, this book is for anyone who wants to be more
discerning and critically engaged in our culture—which should be
every Christian!”
—Jaquelle Crowe, author, This Changes
Everything: How the Gospel Transforms the Teen Years
“Tony Reinke issues a grace-filled and prophetic call to examine
ourselves as we navigate through a world of endless entertainment,
spectacle, and distraction. Are we bored with Christ? Have we
become suffocated by the superficialities of our society’s
spectacles? Do we crave the freeing and fresh winds of spiritual
fervor that come from gazing upon the life-transforming beauty of
Christ and his Word? Pick up and read—at your own peril, and for
your soul’s delight.”
—Trevin Wax, author, This Is Our
Time
“Decades ago, Malcolm Muggeridge helped us notice something: the
Bible came down to us not through Dead Sea Videotapes but through
Dead Sea Scrolls. Nor could videotapes have brought us the
Word. Now today, with similar insight, Tony Reinke helps us notice
something: beyond the media images daily surrounding us, tempting
us, intimidating us, and defrauding us, Christ the Word welcomes
us. Competing Spectacles can guide us back to reality,
honesty, and calm, as we lift our eyes humbly to the Crucified One
and pray, ‘Please show me your glory.’”
—Ray Ortlund, President, Renewal
Ministries
“Tony Reinke offers a succinct exposé of the threat that our
image-saturated society poses to faith and to wisdom. Just as the
noisiness of modern life so often prevents us from hearing God’s
voice, so mass-mediated images blind us from seeing Christ in the
church, in the world, and in the face of our neighbor. Reinke’s
warning is that of the watchman who sees ‘the sword coming against
the land.’ We’ll do well to heed his message.”
—Craig M. Gay, Professor, Regent College; author,
Modern Technology and the Human Future and The Way of
the (Modern) World
Product Details
- Title : Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age
- Author: Reinke, Tony
- Publisher: Crossway
- Publication Date: 2019
- ISBN: 9781433563829