How is Facebook and Twitter and our online habits changing us?

This continues to be an unresolved question that presses for clarity, and it's a question

I've been meaning to ask Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh.

Bruce is a historian and the James M. Houston professor of spiritual theology at Regent

College in Vancouver.

In my research on the life and theology of John Newton, I depended on his groundbreaking

research, which was published in his landmark book, John Newton and the English Evangelical

Tradition.

Bruce joins us now over the phone.

Bruce, you're a historian focused on the spiritual life, and you are willing to address

how technology influences the Christian life today, and for the next three days, I want

to focus on this and bring your very unique perspective to it all.

So we of course live in this age of technological advance with all of its glory and all of its

conveniences and all of its consequences, digital communications, technology like email

and texting and social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

All of it is relentless, it seems.

So how do you think this culture of digital technology harms or hinders the spiritual

life of the Christian today?

You know, that's a really, really important question in many ways, it's an important

insight, it's a question of our time, and I wish there was more writing being done

and more thinking being done about this.

My colleague Craig Gay is working on a book on this subject, and I am really looking

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