A dialogue session by Margunn Serigstad Dahle at the Third Lausanne Congress, Cape Town, 2010. It was the fourth in a series of dialogue sessions led by Margunn and Tony Watkins.

1. Women, Identity
and the Media:
Key Challenges
for Christian Integrity
Dialogue Session
Saturday 23rd of October 2010
Margunn Serigstad Dahle

3. Popular media

4. ”The popular arts reflect
a society that they help
to create.”
(William Romanowski)

6. ”No story exists neutrally
as raw entertainment
without reference to
cultural beliefs and values”
(Brian Godawa)

9. SEX AND THE CITY

11. ”Can I have both?”
(Christina
in Grey’s Anatomy)

13. • Media;
Mirror
and Mould

15. • Am I beautiful enough?
• Am I clever enough?
• Am I efficient enough?
• Am I rich enough?
• Am I happy enough?
• Am I successful enough?

19. GA om drømmer

20. Key issue: TRANSFORMING
OUR UNDERSTANDING
OF OUR IDENTITY

21. Hva står du for?

22. ”Integrity simply means
not violating one's own
identity.”
(Erich Fromm)

23. • CREATION – original identity
• FALL – distorted identity
• SALVATION – restored identity
• HOPE – complete identity

24. Engaging our cultural context
• Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of
God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this
is your spiritual act of worship. Do not
conform any longer to the pattern of this
world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind. Then you will be able to test
and approve what God's will is—his good,
pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom. 12:1-2)

25. • God’s mercy,
contrary to
self-help

27. • ”as unto the Lord” –
contrary to
”as unto ourselves”
and
”as unto other people”

31. ”Human beings don’t have any
core identity any longer.
Their only identity is what can be
found as image in the eyes of
others”
(Erling Rimehaug)

32. Madonna – the icon
of postmodernity

33. Do I have to change my I tried to be a boy
name? I tried to be a girl
Will it get me far? I tried to be a mess
Should I lose some I tried to be the best
weight? I guess I did it wrong
Am I gonna be a star? That’s why I wrote this
song
MADONNA,
American Life This type of modern life
(2003) Is it for me?
This type of modern life
Is it for free?

34. • ”be transformed” –
contrary to
secular and
false, religious
”self-
realization”

37. • ”testing and approving” –
contrary to
withdrawal and
assimilation

39. Engaging
our cultural context,
- as Christ’s disciples
and witnesses…

40. From a biblical perspective:
• Affirming elements of
truth
• Challenging elements of
deception

41. 1. CSI: Miami
2. Lost
3. Desperate Housewives
4. Te Voy a Ensenar a Querer
5. The Simpsons
6. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
7. Without a Trace
8. Inocente de Ti

42. External identity…

43. ”Clothe me
by
seeing
me…”

44. The bottom line: IDENTITY
• “You are what you present
yourself as and what others see”
• “You are whom you are with”
• “You are what you live out”
• “You are what you possess”
• “You are what you achieve”
• “You are what you experience”

46. • “We don’t see it,
because we see with it…”
(Os Guinness)

47. Perspectives / foundations
• Worldviews are like glasses. We
interpret the world through them. They
are like the foundations of a house: vital
but invisible. . . .
47

48. • Identity
• Calling
• Intregrity
• Counter-cultural lifestyle

49. Lifestyle…

51. Calling…

52. GREY’S ANATOMY

56. Beliefs…

57. • Focus on ”pick and mix”-religiosity
(if any)
• Focus on ”what’s in it for me” in
terms of religious beliefs (if any),
especially linked to selfrealization.

58. Typical worldviews
• many traces of popular postmodernism:
– relativism, subjectivism, individualism and
hedonism.
• traces of three other secular worldviews:
– secular humanism, naturalism and
existentialism
• some traces of civic religion, folk-religiosity
and New Age.

59. Key points of contact
• a longing for identity
• the inner qualities as more important
than image
• the reality of friendship
• a longing for an afterlife
• questions about who God is (if He
exists)

60. Key points of tension
• Relativism
• Subjectivism
• Individualism
• Hedonism
• Secular humanism
• Naturalism
• Existentialism

62. Which views of women are
most common in the soaps
that are popular in my
context?

63. • How to develop biblical models
for female identity and integrity
that speak authentically and
relevantly both to our local
cultural contexts and our
”glocal” media contexts?