theo|digital

A text, then, is a communicative act with matter (propositional content) and energy (illocutionary force). … It is important to acknowledge that authors may intend to communicate complex, multilayered intentions.

There is an instructive dialogue in the opening pages of The Hobbit. The scene is Gandalf’s first visit to Bilbo Baggins:

“Good morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it…

“What do you mean?” he [Gandalf] said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”

“All of them at once, ” said Bilbo. And a very fine morning for a pipe of tabacco out of doors, into the bargain.”

A bit later Biblo uses the same locutionary act [Chris:  words] with a very different illocutionary intent [Chris:  purpose]:

“Good morning! We don’t want any adventures here, thank you!”

“What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!” said Gandalf. “Now you means that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”

I love it.  From Vanhoozer’s First Theology: God, Scripture and Hermeneutics, 178

It’s confirmed, I’ve definitely got some beefs with Dr. Schuchardt. But his scriptural redux here is even more clever than the first. Laughed out loud.

If you like, go back and watch the entire video, and you’ll notice he quotes the very mentor I thought he was likely to be following—Neil Postman—who is the father of the school of media ecology that tends to focus on the negative effects of media.

His negativity I think colors the quality of his analysis. For instance, trying to speak against mediated communication, he draws three rules for ministry from Jesus:
1. You have to be there
2. You have to speak in as un-mediated a manner as possible
3. You have to do the work of the gospel

Regarding the New Testament: for starters, what of the centurion’s daughter—healed in the absence of presence being a model of faith! Or Paul’s epistles to the churches? Are we to think that his ministry impact was diluted by the scribes, scrolls, and messangers? Hopefully not—Christianity is actually based on a doctrine of mediation: revelation in Scripture.

Further, are we intended to look at the examples of mediation in a pre-modern, craft literate society and these are normative for today? In this case, cars are no longer appropriate for ministry, I’d think.

I suggest that it is rhetoric without substance to say that God has not spoken to someone via e-mail or a TV screen, therefore God does prefer digital media. With things like Facebook only about 4 years old, aren’t we jumping the gun a little (the printed book has had 500 years, the manuscript about 3,000). But this wouldn’t be my biggest concern. It would be that Dr. Schuchardt might consider an audible voice of God would be considered unmediated (God doesn’t have vocal chords: sound waves and air are most certainly God communicating through something else), but further that “direct” communication from God is privileged over mediated communication. This is true of some more extreme versions of Pentecostalism, but I don’t think fits standard, for instance, Protestant language which would see the Word and Sacraments as the primary realities of God’s communication and action. Both real, but both mediated by the stuff of humanity and creation.

To speak of “contextual theology” today typically calls to mind one of two possible approaches to theology and culture, distinguishable by both their roots and their intention. In fact, though they share the same label, they’re not often found in the same seminary walls.

Evangelical seminaries are likely to locate the discussion in the missiology department, where examination of culture has an evangelical impetus. With roots in the successes and failures in the nineteenth century Western missionary societies, these approaches are primarily praxilogical, discussing custom and ritual and global cultures. Anthropology and sociology are engaged for their descriptive powers, and synthesizing theologians like Paul Hiebert and Steven Bevans are referenced, in an effort to understand the incarnation and communication of the gospel especially in non-western environment.

Mainline seminaries, on the other hand, are likely visit contextual theologies as an invited critique on the Western hegemony of the academy. The approach is postmodern and plural, and builds on the foundational stones of liberation, feminist, and black theologies, citing Gustavo Gutierrez, Mary Daly, and James Cone. In intention, these voices are studied to rectify a missing voice to marginalized people groups, a segment that is destined to continue its expansion even beyond Womanist theology, minjung theology, Queer theology, Carribean theology, etc.

Each approach maintains some suspicion of the other, not least because of their perceived (and not without cause) position as liberal or evangelical approaches. But both share in common a marginalization in the standard theology classroom. The implicit assumption? The accepted stream of Western theology is neutral, generic, and context free. Of course, nobody wants to say this explicitly, but that course titles allow “Feminist theologies” or “African Christologies” but not “European Reformed Theologies” or “Germanic Pre-Modern Doctrine” underscores the point. The Frankfort school’s Herbert Marcuse helpfully speaks of “repressive tolerance” to describe a hegemonic system that allows minority views with open arms, but in treating them as such uses them as evidence to reinforce the dominant view. And Dutch Catholic Frans Wijsen reinforces that even today contextual theologies are treated like “exotic fruits to supplement their traditional Western theological dishes.”

If these two approaches were to have more than just casual interaction, one might imagine they’d band together on a protest march with slogan posters held high: “All theologies are contextual theologies!”

Jesus Creed has a good discussion yesterday and today on the increasingly harsh tone of a small group of younger Reformed voices Scot McKnight is referring to as the “neo-reformed.” Some of these have gotten to the point where they tend to accuse non-confessing Reformed evangelicals as being heretics. I’ve previously here expressed frustration about the same, although I’ve been rather less gracious than Scot. The discussion includes the question of why this has been attractive to a certain set of the younger generation, and how the inerrancy of scripture figures in.

Related, one commenter linked to a great article by theologian John Frame (Reformed Theological Seminary ) who surveys 21 theological controversies within the Reformed world in the last century, and the resulting repetitive denominational splits. He ends with an appeal for better tone and historical view, but titles his plea as “An Unrealistic Dream!” Sad.

Political moral insight is a law unto itself, independent. Such values are nature, reason, law. They are considered autonomous in that they are thought to be known otherwise than through revelation or worship. … Ordinarily the definitions of such concepts do not seem to be dependent on faith or on Jesus, although maybe we hold them to be vaguely supported by nature or “nature’s God.” In any case, we do not expect “worship” to tell us more about them. … The duties they lay upon us are different from what Jesus calls us to do. For example, a banker is called to save money or to lend it with interest, not to give it away or to lend it without interest. A soldier in battle is not supposed to love the enemy.

John Howard Yoder was a Christian Anabaptist theologian and ethicist. I’m reading Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World for my course this term:  Christian Ethics.

(Photo is one of mine:  the National Archives in Wash DC in Feb 2008).

“Body” is an ancient image for the human community. When I use it as a modifier, it pins down the awareness that each member needs and serves each of the others, that the whole is more than all of the parts, and that the interdependence of all is structured according to an already given plan, flexible and able to grow, but neither chaotic nor infinitely negotiable.”

John Howard Yoder was a Christian Anabaptist theologian and ethicist. I’m reading Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World for my course starting this term:  Christian Ethics.

I believe that this concept of a distant, primarily unknowable God is at the heart of postmodernism. The major proponents of postmodern approaches to human communication rarely contend that there is no higher power. They simply assume that such a power cannot be known intimately by human beings, since sacred texts are presumably just as prone to deconstruction as any other texts.
…
The more I study Hebrew and Christian traditions, however, the more struck I am by the ways that these monotheistic faiths incorporated deconstruction within their understanding of ultimate reality. I make no joke when I say that the account of the fall from grace in the beginning of the book of Genesis can be “read” as both an explanation and description of the cosmic disconnect between symbol and referent. From what I can tell, Adam and Eve represent the first postmodernists as a result of their alienation from God. Ashamed of their disobedience, they feared both self-revelatory and God-revelatory discourse.

Quentin Schultze, “The God-Problem in Communication Studies” Journal for Communication Research 28 (March 2005), 13-14

Dr. Lindy Scott formerly the Director for the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College writes an article toward “A Biblical Perspective on the Current Immigration Situation.” His first theological point is that God is the owner.

God places humanity (both male and female) on earth to take care of the creation. In no way is humanity the absolute owner of the earth. All people have the calling to represent God on earth as stewards or administrators, and as such all will give an account of their stewardship to God.

Therefore, Biblical teaching does not totally agree with an extreme form of capitalism where the individual is the absolute owner of “private property” nor with an extreme form of socialism where the state is the absolute owner. Within both “isms” humanity, both individually and collectively, is called to use the earth according to divine principles. The Spanish phrase “Mi casa es tu casa” (My home is your home) captures quite nicely the spirit of Biblical teaching.

I’m still reading what implications he draws for immigration policy in the United States. Read the full article.

“One purpose of this chapter is to situate today’s Christian theologian by calling attention to the church’s global context and to remind us that no language or culture has a monopoloy on God, the gospel, or theology.  This is an important and timely prophetic blast against the monstrous regiment of systematic theologians, in whose company I count myself.

It is undeniable that the church has entered a new era.  … The reign of the sovereign knowing subject, and of universal method, is coming to an end. …  But does it necessarily follow that systematicians must go the way of the Elves, whose time had ended, setting sail (appropriately enough!) toward the West?”

Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer, writing in typical Smile: It’s Theology! form. His chapter is in Globalizing Theology, co-editied by one of my current professors, Dr. Craig Ott.

So another part of my quest to start corralling my research is really still rather exploratory. I haven’t done any study in the doctrine of scripture, and I have a feeling that there are some related concepts to theology and communication that I need to understand. Unfortunately my attempt to do a directed study in this area hasn’t yet worked out, so out of necessity, I’m looking into thing on my own.

One suggestion to me from Scot McKnight was Telford Work. I haven’t yet read his book on the area, but I just finished reading a paper he recently gave entitled, “Are We Reading The Same Bible?” (fulltext: pdf) which not only was insightful, but caused me to laugh aloud.

Work makes the point that not all evangelicals speak about scripture the same way. And he has Christian bookstore prices to prove it.

Since at least Irenaeus and Athanasius the Bible has been an ultimate narrator locating us and all things in its story of creation, judgment, and redemption. Many evangelicals have drawn deeply from this ancient vision… [Families who see themselves within the Bible’s cosmic family tree can inscribe their whole family genealogy in the Keystone Family, Faith and Values Heritage Edition Bible (Fireside), available from Christian Book Distributors for $35.99.]

A similar but distinct type sees the Bible as a treasury of truth that teaches facts about God and the world… [Zondervan’s NIV Study Bible($31.99) supplies pages and pages of maps, charts, footnotes, artistic renderings, and cross-references that highlight and contextualize its archaeological, philosophical, and ethical material.]

Many find their own story in Scripture, making the Bible a mirror of personal life experience. Augustine was one pioneer in reading the Bible to gain self-understanding… [The Extreme Teen Bible (Nelson, $17.99) features forty profiles of young Bible characters and 250 study notes for life guidance; the Women of Color Study Bible (Augsburg, $28.99) offers a different range of figures to identify with.]

He’s got nine in all. Genius.