Programming note: I am a couple days late in sending this (the episode released on Thursday), but I wanted to post this here as is my custom. Have a great weekend!

My guest today is Nick Ripatrizone. Nick is a writer for The Millions, culture editor for Image Journal and author of the new book Digital Communion: Marshall McLuhan’s Vision for a Virtual Age.

Marshall McLuhan was a "prophet of the digital age," whose prescient writings about "electronic man" in the 60s and 70s anticipated the effects that new media such as television and what he called "electric circuitry" would have on individuals and society. (The tech-oriented "Shaped by Tools" vertical of The Post-Evangelical Post is named after the McLuhan axiom "First we shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us."

Ripatrizone's book explores how McLuhan's religious convictions (he was nominally raised Protestant in Canada, and converted to Catholicism during early adulthood) and outlook informed how he saw the world.

This is a really fascinating conversation and I hope you'll check out Nick's book, as well as McLuhan's, after listening.

Follow Nick on Twitter and buy his book via your local bookstore or Bookshop.org (affiliate link).

Exvangelical is a production of The Post-Evangelical Post, LLC. Support this show and all of Blake's work at $4, $6, or $8 per month at postevangelicalpost.com and get ad-free podcast feeds, access to the supporter Discord, and subscriber-exclusive posts. 25% of net revenue from subscriptions is donated.

McLuhan's books:

The Medium is the Massage

Understanding Media

Listen to The Medium is the Massage album on Spotify.