This week’s episode of the White Horse Inn radio show featured an interview with Grove City College Media Ecology professor T. David Gordon. Gordon is the author of two books that are of special interest to this blogger and will be hopefully to his readers also. The books are Why Johnny Can’t Preach (2009) and Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns (2010).

Why Johnny Can’t Preach is “an analysis of shifts in dominant media forms and their effects on the sensibilities of the culture as a whole. Many of those shifts have profound, and unfortunate, effects on preaching.” About Gordon’s newer book, Why Johnny Can’t Sing Hymns, the publisher’s website has this to say:

Changes in music have affected the way we think, the way we worship—even the way we are able to worship. We are steeped in a culture of pop music that makes other genres seem strangely foreign and unhelpful. Worship has become a conflict area, rather than a source of unity.

T. David Gordon looks at these changes in worship and not only examines the problems, but also provides solutions. They are solutions of great importance to us all—because how we sing affects how we live. Dr. Gordon not only shows the problems, he also provides solutions – it’s important, because how we sing affects how we live.

The White Horse Inn blog has also posted additional resources on the current phenomenon of media distraction and its effect on our minds, as Christians or otherwise, let alone culture at large (see blogpost here).