Dr. Autumn Ridenour, Gordon-Conwell’s Mockler Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, released Restlessness and Belonging: Augustinian Wisdom for the Digital Empire, available from Baylor University Press. Building on her scholarship in Augustinian ethics, moral theology, and spirituality, Dr. Ridenour explores how modern digital culture encourages people to consume experience rather than live it, transforming human attention and identity in today’s so-called “attention economy.”

Engaging with Augustine’s theology of ordered love, Ridenour interprets today’s technological systems as places that form desire, character, and community, and that require careful theological reflection. Although creation itself remains good, she warns that digital platforms can undermine human relationships and divide attention when technological innovation is pursued apart from wisdom. The vision Augustine had of rightly ordered love, Dr. Ridenour suggests, offers a framework for understanding how Christians might faithfully use technology.

Restlessness and Belonging ultimately offers a call for a renewed moral vision in an age marked by technological excess. By interacting with Augustine’s theology of presence and virtue, she encourages readers to reimagine belonging and agency beyond digital mediation—learning to use technology wisely rather than be consumed by it.

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