2. “The greatest danger threatening
faith today ... is not the absence of
information and firm instruction,
but the lack of interest in Jesus
Christ and the failure of our hearts
to be converted. We have knowledge,
and sometimes we even practice. But
our hearts remain untouched.”
– (Babin, New Era in Religious Communication,
32.)
3. Thrust of the paper
Church and Modern Communication
1.2. Renewing the method in theology
4. The Shift in the Idea of Literacy
1. Oral Culture
2. Print Culture
3. Audio-visual Culture
4. Multimedia Culture
5. The Mass Mediated Culture has a
NEW LANGUAGE: AV Language with
fast paced shots, weird images,, colours
NEW CULTURE: appeals to heart than
head; emotional manipulation; communicates at
sub-conscious level
NEW VALUES: democratic and
participatory than hierarchical; no past or
present, only (eternal) present.
NEW TECHNIQUES: form is more
important than content; ground is more
important than image ...
(Palthingal, The Parent, The Televison; and the
Child, 8).
19. Mythical Mind
Primordial Thinking
Relationship
Feelings
Values
Meanings
Cricket
Eating, Sleeping
Coca Cola
If you like cricket,
Drink only Cola
21. Theology and Communication
Today’s Theology is Predomiantly Verbal
(logocentric) or Print Culture
Christianity is (has become) a religion of
“word and hearing”
“Book”
preaching and listening
teaching and doctrine
We “walk by faith and not by vision”
22. Theology and Communication
Tertullian asked “What has Athens
to do with Jerusalem”
Today one may wonder “What can
Jerusalem do without Athens?!”
23. Theology and Communication
But Christianity is not Verbal:
the heart-path is still alive
The Bible itself is a confessional book and a
faith narrative
John speaks of what “we have seen, heard,
touched ...”,
The mystical theology of Dionysius the
Areopagite
Theology of the masses of ordinary
Christians.
25. Common Sense
Intuition
Wisdom
Myth and Symbol
Aesthetic Knowing
Doing – Knowing
Moral – Knowing
Personal Knowing
Loving –Knowing
Feeling – Knowing
Experience
Intersubjective Knowing
Belief
Religious Knowing
Mystical Knowing
Conceptual and Primordial Knowing
Primordial
26. Theology and Communication
Recent Efforts
Lonergan, communication is the eighth
functional speciality in which “theological
reflection bears fruit and without which the first
seven are in vain.
Rahner revelation as God’s self
communication and the theory of Christ as the
Realsymbol of Christ.
Dulles “communication dimension is
inherent in theology” “Theology at every point
is concerned with realities of communication”.
30. Meeting Points between Theologising and New Literacy
1. Construction of Meanings and
Creation of Culture
2. Liminality and Ritual experience
3. The Question of Transcendence
4 Popular Religion and Popular Culture
5. Community
1. Opportunities (Points of Convergence)
31. Meeting Points between Theologising and New Literacy
1. Ambiguities and multivalence or
ambivalence
2. Difficult to find appropriate symbols that
communicate today
3.All authorities and canons- of texts or of
authors - are undermined
4. Proliferation and instant availability of
information = no need of learning
5. Danger of idolatry
2. Threats (Points of Divergence)
32. Theologizing with Insights from
Communication
Features of a Communication Theology
Dogma to Religious Experience
Law of Familiarity: Symbolic Way
Law of Affectivity: Way of beauty
A New Natural Theology
33. Theologizing with Insights
from Communication
Profile of Future Ministers
Theologians (habitus theologicus) and
not theologically informed
Artisans of Faith and not Guardians
Awakeners and not Educators
Seers and not Overseers
Prophets, (lead from idolatry to true
God)
34. Theologizing with Insights from Communication
Necessitates Two Shifts
in the World View
1. Cosmocentric and anthropocentric to
ECOCENTRIC world view (integration of
cosmological and anthropological).
2. Truth and Goodness to
BEAUTY
