Damian Armana
Hierophany in Nollywood and its Theological
Import.
Religion and media interact on many fronts. However, an overt
rendezvous for the two is in the act of mediation. Religion can be
understood as an experience of mediation. Likewise media usage is
an exercise in mediation as much as art. Every media encourages a
different mode of mediation. In his famous dictum, the media is the
message, Marshal Mcluhan had asserted that media extends the sense
of man, so that when a new media is installed within the fabric of
culture, a new sense ratio is orchestrated. “Nollywood,” as
the Nigerian video film industry is popularly called, has not only
usurped the stage of popular entertainment in Africa but has become
a programming staple establishing itself as the most cherished
media of entertainment. Given the visual character of the Video,
how does Nollywood negotiate with the popular religious worldview
in Nigeria and if theology as Lonergan asserted is reflection on
the religious, what is the theological import posed by the
hierophany in Nigerian video films?
Robert Badillo
Toward a “World Ethos”: From Habermas’
Communicative Reason to Ratzinger’s Communicative Logos to Rielo’s
Divine Constitutive Presence.
This paper takes as its point of departure a new alliance between
faith and reason which developed within the context of the 2004
debate1 between two celebrated German intellectuals of our time,
the philosopher Jürgen Habermas and the theologian Joseph (then
Cardinal) Ratzinger. For his part, Habermas rightly admits the
limits of communicative reason when conceived as “secular reason,”
and argues instead in favor of a “postsecular reason,” one that is
open in public discourse to the religious convictions of faith
traditions. Though Ratzinger acknowledges the desirability of a
presently non-existent “world ethos,” that could serve to unify
“post-secular” societies, as Benedict XVI, in his 2006 Regensberg
lecture, he upheld the significance of the Christian appropriation,
via St. John the Evangelist, of the Greek concept logos
(reason/word), which came to be understood as creative or
communicative Logos, the ground for an intelligible understanding
of God, the created universe and the human being. Given that this
conception of God as creative and communicative is without proper
grounding in the metaphysical tradition stemming from Aristotle,
this paper, in précis fashion, would like to introduce Rielo’s
divine constitutive presence that may serve as ground for the
desired “world ethos.”
Craig A. Baron
The Foundations of Christian Theology in the
Media Age.
Christianity believes Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Risen Lord
and Savior of the world. His life, death, resurrection and
ascension are the central events in salvation history and the
preeminent sources of divine wisdom. This personal faith-encounter
between God and the human being has always been mediated through
embodiment, history, tradition, culture, language, sacrament and
ritual. Consequently, every generation has tried to read the “signs
of the times” and present the Gospel in the most meaningful and
effective way it can given the historical/cultural situation of the
era. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) has reconfirmed the
importance of this endeavor for theology and evangelization and
reaffirmed the belief in the presence and action God in the world
through the Holy Spirit. However, specifically within the American
situation, the advent of postmodernism, shifts in religious
practice away from institutional religion, the re-enchantment of
the world and the many and diverse forms of new media have
drastically altered the situation for the mediation of divine
truth. Moreover, the authority of Christianity has been questioned
and the individual now negotiates personal meaning according to
preference and draws from many varied religious sources in the
construction of individual identity. And media
has ceased to be just technology or instruments in the
dissemination of information, but has become a religious and
spiritual resource (sometimes espousing traditional values,
sometimes criticizing those values, but always recontextualizing
them). The line between the sacred and the profane or faith and
culture is blurred today in a way never before seen. This yields
challenges and opportunities for Christian faith and theology. This
paper explores what this new situation might mean for theological
method, revelation/faith and spirituality. The paper has five
parts. First, a brief introduction is provided to the current
cultural and religious issues. Second, an analysis is offered of
the Second Vatican Council’s document Gaudium et Spes and its call
to read the “signs of the times.” Third, an overview is given of
the role of media in contemporary society. Fourth, an examination
is undertaken of the relationship between media and theology and
what it might mean for method, revelation/faith and spirituality.
Fifth, a few concluding remarks will be shared about the results of
the study especially in terms of the evolving and dynamic
relationship between theology and communication. 1 Ratzinger,
Joseph and Jürgen Habermas, Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason
and Religion, edited with a Foreword by Florian Schuller,
translated by Brian McNeil, C.R.V. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
2006).
Thomas A. Bauer
Believe to Know and Know to Believe:
Communication as the Unit of Difference, Distinction, and
Assimilation. Good Reasons for a Social Theory of
Faith.
The distinction between a theological concept of truth (as a
content of faith – believe to know) and a communicological concept
of truth (as a mode of faith – know to believe) could open a
constructive perspective of (for) a concept of religious variety
and could make it possible to argue that the gift (treasure) of
belief is the diversity of faiths. Even if faith and belief (der
Glaube & das Glauben) according to theological interpretation
in Christian religions has to be taken as a grace and as a good
given to the individual through God’s revelation and given to the
community (ecclesia) as a memory to keep mystery in mind, faith and
belief have a cultural representation about that it is to reflect
as it is done in reference to other cultural emanations: as a
cultural phenomenon of sociality. Even if faith theologically is
interpreted as an enlightenment that cannot be merited, in context
of sociological interpretation faith is a merit and communicational
good, provided by religious systems, that needs the organization of
communication as it needs the communication of organization. The
system relates the cultural programming of the society to a
universe of spirituality that signifies that beyond knowledge of
known (domination, mental ownership) there is a knowledge (notion)
of unknown (search). Knowledge on known matter (physics) follows
other methods of enlightenment than knowledge on unknown
(metaphysics) does. The difference lies between knowledge as a
model proof (Beweismodell) and knowledge as a model of assuredness
(Wissensmodell, Gewissheit). Faith is a cultural habit (habitual
knowledge) and as such it refers to the experience of contingency
and for that (thank God) it opens a hermetically closed system of
logics to a universe of diversity and heresy (choice). Faith and
belief, in its non-denominated interpretation, is the source of
surprise within the frame of construction of reality, while
knowledge is the surprise (discover, demystification) of (for)
sources. That makes faith a cultural resource of completion of
experience of contingency and diversity, generated through
constructs of communication. In such a perspective, one notion of
God, one faith and one (inclusive/exclusive) community of believers
— sociologically spoken — would be a “fascistoid” model (Rokeach
1960: Open and Closed Mind) of religion. If faith is the energy of
mind (inspiration, search) to overcome the system of (ownership of)
knowledge in constructing sense, then religion, as the cultural
system of belief, is (could be) the social (communicational) source
of heresy and diversity and a (communicational) frame of
construction
of metaphysical sense of experience of contingency. In that
context, it will be necessary to discuss the modes of truth: truth
as a model of unity of content (truth of one God) and as a model of
the unification of difference.
Ellen K. Boegel
Soundbites and Sermons: Faith-based politics
in the United States.
How do politicians use the language of faith and religion to
communicate with voters? How do religious leaders use the language
of politics to promote faith-based agendas? This presentation will
analyze the 2008 Presidential campaign to answer these questions
and determine the impact of religion and faith on politics in a
pluralistic, democratic society. Political ads, speeches, debate
performances and Web sites will be assessed for religious content.
Polling data will be analyzed to determine the impact of religious
content on voters. Religious Web sites, public sermons and press
releases from faith-based groups will be assessed for political
content. Polling data will be analyzed to determine the influence
of political communication on adherents and politicians. These
communications will be examined for their congruence with the model
of faith-based political action described in Pope Benedict XVI’s
encyclical Deus Caritas Est.
Francis D. Coffey
Doctrine of Scripture, Augustine’s Semiotic,
and Media.
Augustine’s doctrine of scripture is derived from a semiotic, a
divine semiotic where the word made flesh is sign of the Eternal
Word and Trinity (On Christian Doctrine, I, 13; T. Work, 2002). In
Augustine’s definition of sign, there is clearly ‘a thing which…
causes something else to come into the mind as a consequence of
itself’ (On Christian Doctrine, II, 1) — a dyadic structure — but
with careful attention to his theology, one can also identify a
third element or relation of the sign which is actually working the
correspondence and maintaining continuity between the sign and its
object. This third element is developed in some cases as Christ,
the Inner Teacher, and developed in other cases as the faith of the
Church (Jordan, 191), which has Christ and his place in the history
of creation and salvation as its content, its fides quae. In this
context, then, scripture as the divine word in human words has its
theological character from this incarnational semiotic. If
Augustine’s theology came from a clarification by Ambrose’s
instruction of the way scripture can be both true and figurative
(Confessions, V, 13-14), the undeveloped third relation in the sign
as found in scripture leaves much of the richness and complexity of
language and the role of the reader outside of his account of the
economy of revelation deriving from the Trinity. C.S. Peirce
explicitly specified Augustine’s latent third relation of the sign
(Short, 23). In addition to relations of sign and object, he
distinguished the interpretant relation — to state it precisely —
as that which the reality which is being signed directs as the way
the sign indicates (would indicate) its object. Developing the
explicitly triadic character of the divine semiotic will help
uncover deeper and more extensive significance of Augustine’s
doctrine of scripture. It will help specify how aspects of creation
could be involved in realizing the scripture’s meaning. Moreover,
it will incorporate modern specifications of that human work with
Word which is both the sign following from the divine plan and also
specifications of that plan, especially in its incarnational
character. The performance of the interpretant specified by the
reality signed (the scriptural text in this case) is the critical
element and relation for this mining of Augustine’s doctrine of
scripture. The basic question is what habits of feeling, acting and
thinking would one need to develop in order to uncover what remains
hidden in the scriptural text? Given the scripture’s witness to
what includes and also transcends existential fact and even thought
or symbol, the roles of feeling and aesthetics emerge as pivotal:
how can the feeling, quality, real possibility, the would-be-ness,
which is part of the meaning of the scriptural text, be uncovered?
In a word, it is through the iconicity available in the text (cf.
Peirce, CP, 4.544; Dewey). Given cinema’s and related audiovisual
media’s capacity to de-existentialize and de-intellectualize their
object (Ehrat, 137; 494), they seem particularly well-suited for
forefronting the power of scriptural word for that original — even
primordial force — of quality that precedes fact and concept in
each and everything. In this way, mass media can be a great
resource for the Church’s proclamation of the scriptural witness to
God’s Word in our times, not so much as an instrument of broadcast,
but as one of providing access to constitutive elements of that
Word. The resources that Peirce’s specifications help uncover, each
reinforce, inform and enrich that role of the Inner Teacher and the
Faith of the Church which Augustine forefronts in his doctrine of
scripture. Above all, without resorting to any kind of
fundamentalism, they clarify the kind of immediacy of God’s
presence which is provided in scripture.
Eileen D. Crowley
Theological Reflection on Communal
Co-Creation of Liturgical Media Art.
Since the early 1990s, I have been reflecting upon the intersection
of liturgy and today’s media art and technology as it has been
introduced into worship settings. Through my research, teaching,
articles and books, I have been encouraging churches Catholic and
Protestant to take a communal approach to the creation of what I
have coined “liturgical media art.” From the start, I have been
fleshing out the beginnings of a theology for this liturgical
phenomenon from a Trinitarian perspective. While theology about
communication often deals with the topic as it relates to
individual persons or to mass audiences, I have been musing
upon God’s communication of God’s Self within a communal
worship context and within a communal creative process, what I call
Communal Co-Creation. This process offers the potential to invite
people to participate in a spiritual practice that involves the
creation of new media as the work of the people by, for and in the
work of the people, i.e., liturgy. For this conference, I shall
share these musings and welcome
participants building upon them.
Peter Feuerherd
Male Spirituality in a Media-Saturated
World.
On every sociological indication, from church attendance to
frequency of prayer, men rate well below women in matters of
interest in spirituality. In response, various movements have
arisen among American Christians to counteract this trend, some
with contrasting agendas. What defines being male? Who defines what
is spiritual? And how does this emerging men’s spirituality
movement compare and contrast with the media image of manhood in a
rapidly changing culture?
Deborah Greh
In Search of God in Second Life
(avatar).
This discussion will focus on Second life, a created world
inhabited by over 13 million people. In January 2008, residents
spent over 28 million hours there, so on average about 38,000
residents were logged on at any particular moment; the average age
is 33. With Avatars, Entities with Divine Powers and Celetial
Cathedrals available to anyone with a computer, pursuing God in
Second life seemed a worthy quest. My search began in May 2008. Our
conversation will include an overview of who inhabits this virtual
world, why they are important to consider, how organized religion
is responding to this audience as well as observations from my
personal journey.
Robert Lauder
Revelation and Revelations: God and the
Movies.
Two thousand years ago God’s Word entered the womb of a
teenage girl and the Word became flesh. The Incarnation continues
today in the sense that God is still being spoken and one way that
the Word can be communicated is through film. As Pope John Paul in
his Letter to Artists pointed out, artists imitate God: “Through
his artistic creativity, man appears more than ever in the image of
God, and he accomplishes this task above all in shaping the
wondrous material of his own humanity and then exercising creative
dominion over the universe which surrounds him. With loving regard,
the divine Artist passes on to the human artist a spark of his own
surpassing wisdom, calling him to share in his creative power.” The
art form of the 20th century, and there’s no reason to think that
it will not be the art form of the 21st, is film, which combines
all the other art forms into one. Movies should be taken very
seriously by everyone but especially by the theologians.
Revelation, God’s gracious self-gift, comes to us through mediators
— through nature, through
history, through family and friends, through daily experience and
in an ultimate way through God’s very Word, Jesus Christ. One way
that God’s revelation can come to us is through art and one art
form through which this can happen is film. This paper will make
three points: first what makes film an especially important channel
through which God’s invitation to a love relationship can be
communicated to us, second why and how theologians should take film
seriously and third some examples of what has been done by the
Catholic community with an emphasis on the three films that the
Church in this country has produced and some suggestions on what
can be done in the future.
Phillip Lee
Toward a Theology of Communication
Rights.
This paper seeks to identify ‘pointers’ toward a theology of
communication rights by drawing on the theory and practice of
communication for development, the ‘capability approach’; and the
right to communicate debate. It argues that, if globalization is to
have moral validity, it must bring with it an enhanced sense of
globalized humanity. As such, we must ask if we are willing to live
in a world with disenfranchised people — the ‘new slaves’ of
society. If not, we are obliged by our faith and our common
humanity to take responsibility for the world’s failings. Unless we
work to understand the structures and inadequacies that enable
marginalization and oppression to persist and unless we take action
to change them, we are complicit with injustice.
Peter Lobo
Inter-faith Dialogue as Communication in a
Multi-religious Context: A Christian Viewpoint.
Inter-faith dialogue is rooted in and modeled on the
dialogue and communication found in the very life of the
three-personed God. The intra-trinitarian life as well as the
extra-trinitarian activity of the three-personed God are deeply
dialogical and communicative. God’s inner life is an eternal
dialogue between Father, Son and Holy Spirit so complete and so
perfect that the Holy Three have one and the same divine nature,
although they are distinct as divine persons. God’s outer life,
i.e., his relations with the whole world and especially with
humans, is a creating and saving dialogue born of God’s wisdom,
goodness and love. God constantly converses with humans and invites
them to share in God’s life more deeply. God’s self-communication
with humans brings them the gift of God’s own life and a deeper
relationship with God and with their brothers and sisters in love.
God’s self-communication in love to humans is to be reflected in
the communicative relationship of love (dialogue of love) that
humans have with each other. This is a giving and receiving, a
sharing and caring relationship that brings growth and development
to the human person and the human community and it expresses itself
in the human person’s relationships with God, fellow-humans and the
world, i.e, in religion, social institutions and dealings with the
physical world, that go to make up human culture. At the heart of
human culture is religion. It pervades and affects all the other
relationships of humans and human social groups. There is a
multiplicity of religions that are born from the core religious
experience of a human group and the concrete form they give it in
creed, code and cult. The plurality of religions each with its own
specific scriptures, beliefs, customs, practices and celebrations
providing its adherents with a distinctive world-view, makes it
necessary and imperative for humans to open avenues of
communication with believers of other faiths so as to help them to
break down prejudices, understand each other better, establish
cordial relations with each other,
live in harmony and work in a united way for the growth and
betterment of the whole human community. Inter-faith dialogue can
no longer be optional. It is absolutely necessary for the wellbeing
of the human community. In our times it is a necessity for it helps
to open the doors to deeper communication, fruitful participation
and effective advancement of the human family in peace, love,
harmony and brotherhood. Inter-faith dialogue makes possible
effective communication and collaboration among believers of
diverse faiths in a multi-religious context.
Giuseppe Mazza
Communicate by listening: Announcement,
Consent, Communication.
Our contribution concerns the pertinence of the listening process
to faith announcement and mediation. Against the abuses of both an
ideological rhetoric of proclamation and of a pretentious editorial
magniloquence, a policy of global listening could stress the
primacy of the listening process as a “communicative gesture” in
itself. “Communicating by listening,” pastoral announcement gives
birth to an effective ministry of acceptance and reciprocity. That
also meets the challenge of pairing Christian “absolute” truth
claim with the demanding needs of a shared “creation” of
meaning. In this sense, theology and communication are urged to
converge: faith announcement is always spurred to deal with a
listening process as meaningful relational and empathic agreement
(con-sentire) between interlaced worlds.
Jim McDonnell
The Fabric of Our Lives: Theological
Perspectives on the Internet.
This paper is a first attempt to explore how a theology of
communication might best integrate and develop reflection on the
internet and the problematic areas of the so-called information
society. It examines the way in which official church documents on
communication have attempted to deal with these issues and proposes
elements for a broader framework including “media ecology,”
information ethics and more active engagement with the broader
social and policy debates.
Rose Pacatte
Lights, Camera…Faith!The National Film Retreat as Pastoral
Communication.
At a cocktail party in Washington, DC, in 1999, a priest and a
filmmaker had a conversation about their mutual love for cinema and
spirituality. The idea of an annual weekend film retreat, open to
people of all faiths, especially seekers, grew out of that
exchange. The first retreat was held at St. Pius X Retreat House in
2000 and, as they say, the rest is history. The premise of
the retreat is participation, dialogue and community-building,
rooted in the shared experience of a slate of films selected
according to a theme. The fundamental attitude is one of mutuality
and communication through shared praxis that is, “doing” theology
publically that transforms into spiritual experience. The retreat
is purposefully not preached by one person; the participants “give”
the retreat to one another. The two approaches to the retreat as a
communicating spiritual experience that the founders/ directors of
the National Film Retreat discovered that lend themselves to the
film retreat are theological reflection and cinema divina, based on
the ancient spiritual practice of lectio divina. This electronic
presentation will outline the history of the National Film Retreat,
themes, explore select evaluations, track the development and
challenges of the applied theological praxis, and initiate an
analysis of this pastoral communication project through a lens
derived from Lumen Gentium (16), that God is not “remote from those
who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, since He gives all
people life and breath and all things, and the Savior wills all to
be saved … Whatever good and truth is found among them is
considered by the Church to be a preparation for the Gospel and
given by Him, who enlightens all people that they may have
life.”
Jose Palakeel
What has Athens to do with
Jerusalem!
Implications of transmediatization of Christian Theology from Oral
to Written Culture.
Tertullian asked in the second century after Christ, “what has
Athens to do with Jerusalem?” He was commenting on the progressive
Hellenization of Christianity and Christian theology. We know how
Athens (Greek thinking and philosophy) has changed the course of
theology for ever. There was/is a substantial difference between
what was named oikonomia by Fathers and theologia by the Greek
apologists. One major element in this transition is perhaps
unnoticed till today. Hellenization of Christianity was not just a
change in the language, culture and thought system; it meant also a
change in medium. This paper is an enquiry into the origins of
Christian theology, from a media perspective. Although we find the
presence of a scripture, Judaism was predominantly an oral culture.
Jesus was an oral preacher, so were most of the apostles. As the
Christian faith moved from the predominantly oral culture of
Jerusalem to the literate culture of the Greeks, the theology we
know today originated. The core of the question is has the
media-change affected theologizing? Today’s media studies clearly
suggest that the media is not a mere tool of transmission but is
integral to communication. In this sense, the change from an oral
to literate culture has definitely changed both the method and
content of theologizing.
John M. Phelan
The Shared Urgent Relevance of Communication
and Theology Studies.
To escape the fate of elaborate trivial pursuits, both theology and
communication are urgently called to address the cultural crises of
the young century:
- What is the current state of the world-mind as a whole in so
far as we can grasp it through international opinion surveys and
other technical means?
- What is the condition of the material planet and especially the
biosphere in so far as we can measure it?
- What role does theology have in helping us share understanding,
experience and hope?
- What role does communication, as a set of interlocking cultural
technologies, have in helping us cope with our world and face our
lives?
Theology has developed tools to help us construct coherent
concepts about the meaning of our own existence and existence
itself. Communication is a portmanteau label for the sum of
technologies that connect our minds and the sum of critical
apprehensions about those technologies. These different fields bear
striking affinities in terms of method, purpose and their
historical evolutions. Both endeavors are intimately involved in
promoting and understanding globalization as the ultimate
expression of modernization, the final stages of syncretism, the
culminating challenge of harmonizing diversely originated moral
codes and ethical values. Will we become more — or less — human in
the coming decades? How can these fields combine to help us become
more human in the coming decades when the material world threatens
to turn against our failed stewardship and the darker angels of our
spirit are given access to apocalyptic instruments
self-destruction? Although communication studies are often
pragmatic and secular, they have a potential to work with and
within theologies. Although theology is often mired in the
parochial visions of the pre-modern village, it has been the
pioneer in dealing with diverse cultures and conflicting values. So
let us look at the bare essence of both fields, show their
affinities and apply their separate strengths to grappling as a
common human effort with the challenges facing us and our
societies, both secular and sacred.
Frances Forde Plude
Ecclesiological Dialogue: An Analysis of Pope
Benedict’s Visit to the U.S.
Almost fifteen years ago, in the book The Church and Communication,
I wrote a chapter reflecting that modern interactive
telecommunication technologies were a metaphor for a more
dialogical (two-way) ecclesiology. More recently, in an essay in a
volume honoring Franz-Josef Eilers, I reflected on the role of
dialogue in religion and mediated popular culture. Using these two
chapters as a methodological framework, I analyzed the recent visit
of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States. Concepts considered
include: Häring’s reflections on pluralism and a “listening
church”; The role of religion in the U.S. public square; The role
of interactive media coverage of the
Pope’s visit: blogs, audio downloads, cell phones, etc.;
Communicative scenes where the Pope did not give a speech: meeting
with sexual abuse victims and Ground Zero families; the role of
audience feedback; and conflicts between genuine communion and
bureaucracy/anonymity. The paper concludes with recommendations for
effective papal communication.
Jacob Srampickal
Inter-religious dialogue is for developing
relations, not just for “dialogue:”
A Communication Perspective.
In common parlance inter-religious dialogue is more of a debate
aimed at proving whose religion is superior. In fact in earlier
days the idea was to win the other religions over to make them
accept that catholic religion is the superior and the only and
absolute one. After Vatican II the aim of inter-religious dialogue
changed to dialogue for appreciation and understanding that lead to
respecting other religions, though many catholics don’t accept the
Vatican II position and remain in the earlier state. This paper
argues from a communication point of view that other religions are
equally important and absolute and that all religions seek to help
humans find God. There are several common elements in all of these.
The paper establishes these common elements from Wilbur Schramm’s
later theories on communication, that the very essence of
communication is developing a close knit relations which leads to
communion. In Schramm’s terminology, interactive communication is
for creating better understanding of human conditions based on
interpersonal communication. The paper argues that members of
different religions living in a certain situation need to work
together in common areas of interest like literacy and healthcare
programs, social development and justice issues, media education,
environmental concerns, etc. and thus create an atmosphere of our
fraternal and sisterly exchange, rather than developing
intellectual dialogue to conceptualize theories of religions.
Kathryn Shaugnessy
WWW and God
Web-2.0 or “participatory-Web” communications rely on 2
technological innovations: XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and RSS
(Rich Site Summary, or Really Simple Syndication). The first
innovation, XML, allows the content of Web-based-communications to
be created and displayed in many different formats, the second,
RSS, allows Web-based content to be delivered automatically — via
subscription syndication — to many types of communication devices.
Alone, either function would offer a radical change in Web-based
theological communications — but together they offer revolutionary
change for individual and mass communication because information
can be created, edited, published and distributed in many formats
to many platforms, whether mainframe computer or mobile phone. My
short presentation offers a brief explanation of these two
technological underpinnings of Web-2.0 — based communication
venues, as well as offering some current examples of these
communication technologies in action in Web-2.0 theological
education
and discourse as a springboard for discussion of future uses for
theological communication.
Glenn Statile
Communication, Consecration and the Catholic
Novel.
The birth of the modern novel as a literary genre might also
be said to mark the arrival of what we now commonly refer to as the
Catholic novel. The late Catholic mystic, poet and philosopher
Fernando Rielo held that Cervantes’ great masterpiece, Don Quixote,
represented a counterreformational literary salvo whose main
purpose was to reclaim the soul of mysticism that had once so
permeated the psyche of Catholic Spain. Like the quixotic knight
errant of La Mancha many contemporary theologians might feel as if
they are tilting at windmills when they attempt to transmit the
doctrines of the Church in the esoteric language of traditional
philosophy and theology to the laity of our day. In this paper, I
argue that the so-called Catholic novel is a fitting medium for
transmitting the message of the gospel to the modern world. First,
I argue that philosophers such as Plato and Hegel were wrong to
degrade the theological and philosophical credentials of great art,
at least to the extent that they did. Next, I attempt to establish
a set of conditions which supply the Catholic novel with a
legitimate identity. Finally, I explore the specific way in which
three great Catholic novels successfully can and continue to
communicate and consecrate Christian ideals to a modern audience.
These three novels are: Kristin Lavransdatter; Brideshead Revisited
and Cry, The Beloved Country.
Donn James Tilson
The 2006 Olympics and the Shroud of
Turin: A Confluence of Town, Robe and Media.
The Olympic Games are part spectacle, athletic competition and
promotional venue for various commercial, political and other
interests. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, were no
exception, offering a mediated splash of sport, Sophia (Loren) and
Shroud. This study examines the confluence of the public sector,
religious institutions, particularly, the Shroud of Turin Diocesan
Commission and the Museum “Della Sindone” and media. Particularly,
exclusive global television broadcaster NBC and its U.S. affiliate
stations, in organizing and conducting a campaign to attract
viewers, spectators, tourists, and pilgrims to their respective
shrines using the city’s historic connection with the Shroud as a
promotional hook. Textual analysis of institutional media, e-mail
interviews of key figures and content analysis of media coverage
provide insight into campaign strategies, tactics and messages and
examine results from an advertising, marketing and public relations
perspective. The campaign appears to have been successful in terms
of viewership, attendance and other effects and confirms earlier
studies of devotional-promotional campaigning
in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (Tilson, 2005) and of the U.S.
tour of St. Thérése’s relics (Tilson & Chao, 2002).
James Vanoosting
From God’s Lips to My Ears: An oral
essay on the warranties of a verbal promise and the guarantees of
an incarnational one.
Maria Way
Cartoons and Theology.
“Theology is taught by God, teaches of God and leads to
God,” according to St. Thomas Aquinas, its root means “God-Talk,”
so when we talk about God, as the Evangelical Alliance (http://www.eauk.org – 7.5.08) tell
us, but what we are discussing here is probably the academic
discipline of theology. Communicating this teaching to
“everyman/woman” has in the past been the point at which problems
have been caused by the dots and titles. What one person reads or
understands as theology may be anathema to another’s reading and
understanding. How difficult, then, is the work of the media
producer who has to talk of God, teach about God and hopefully,
lead the viewer/listener/reader to God, without causing the sort of
problems that have in the past stirred up trouble. This is
especially true in a multi-faith world where, despite the
fracturing of channels into smaller and smaller units for
specialist audiences, the media aim to get the biggest audience
possible for their content. This paper will seek to try to analyze
how this might be achieved and asks if such programming does
actually lead to God.
Ana M. Yévenes
The drama at the fictions: a religious
experience?
From the beginning of time, death and pain have been central
experiences that impact on the constructions of the cultures and
religious cosmovisions. In Postmodernity, the tendency is that
people try to evade these experiences. Anthony Giddens calls this
phenomenon “kidnapping of the experience.” Some popular narratives,
in vicarious form, confront the people with death and pain. The
reception of these narratives can be a religious experience.