That being said, I think the mass production of the written word has led to some of the individualism Hipps describes in this chapter. Written or oral, reading and studying the Scriptures was a communal activity prior to general availability of printed Bibles and high percentages of literacy. Some churches still have something similar to communal Scripture in Sunday services or Sunday School, but the emphasis in many of them is to be introductory with the main study done individually (in my experience anyway).

That's why I like what you're saying about our new ability to hear teaching and "go to church" without ever leaving our homes or meeting with other people. How has that happened? What can we possibly do to promote community in an environment of individualism? Huge questions.

Hipps has illustrated this by pointing out that in cultures without printed word there is no way to store information or knowledge outside the mind. The community maintains knowledge by the community retaining it through repetition. Because of the printed word, and maybe more because of video technology, the church is no longer a community of believers.

The early church gathered to retain and share knowledge through oral repetitions. Certainly there was writing, otherwise we would have the Bible today. Those writings were read, discussed, and ultimately shared through gatherings of people.

Today we gather in churches to listen to one person expound on the Scripture; but, there is no discussion. No one is required to remember what is spoken so it can be shared with others. We can simply give a tract and move on — if even that much is done.

The gathering of believers has become an individual endeavor. An introvert, like myself, can be content to stay at home and skip the social aspects of the Sunday morning gathering. After all, we can listen to someone talk on the television, radio, or Internet.

Interestingly, as a writer (a solitary profession), I still must depend on connection with people to share my product.

More than subliminal messages of the medium, I think the point is what has the change of medium done to the Western culture.

Maybe the subliminal message of this chapter was subliminal messages and I missed it.

And as far as your second paragraph, I see your point there, too. To be honest, I would not notice those underlying messages most of the time. I imagine most people would simply accept the words that were spoken and not realize the hypocrisy occurring. Some would argue that that's why they're called "subliminal" messages, but I think there's a point where things like that just go unnoticed completely.

I'm not sure what you mean by your third paragraph. Could you clarify?

And now I might go search and see if I can find studies on the effectiveness of subliminal messages…

Mr Subliminal doesn't exist in the real world. Yes there are underlying messages, "give to the poor" (but we will send you a glossy magazine and 20 mailings a year). Or we believe that education is important (so we build a new football statium but don't fund the AP science trip). Or we believe missions are important and have someone speak about it about once a week (but only 1 percent of our church budget goes toward funding missions.) Those messages are not so much subliminal as messages that are just too uncomfortable to talk about because it reveals a little too much about us.

I still think that Hipps hurts his message by hyperbole. If he would tone down his arguement and make it a bit clearer with more definitions I might agree with him more.