**FINALIST, 2022 PROSE Award in Theology & Religious Studies**
An innovative exploration of religion''s influence on communication networks
When Samuel Morse sent the words -what hath God wrought- from the US Supreme Court to Baltimore in mere minutes, it was the first public demonstration of words travelling faster than human beings and farther than a line of sight in the US. This strange confluence of media, religion, technology, and US nationhood lies at the foundation of global networks.
The advent of a telegraph cable crossing the Atlantic Ocean was viewed much the way the internet is today, to herald a coming world-wide unification. President Buchanan declared that the Atlantic Telegraph would be -an instrument destined by divine providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world- through which -the nations of Christendom [would] spontaneously unite.- Evangelical Protestantism embraced the new technology
