Moving Toward Communication Theology
By Frances Forde Plude
[This was published in Media Development, Vol LVIII, March 2011.]
In a transborder world we are challenged to integrate intellectual arenas that have long been their own isolated ‘turfs’. This paper reflects upon interfaces among media, religion, and culture. I examine how theology may be reconstituted as these three areas interact and evolve. I propose that theology is enriched when suffused by communication studies and I cite specific trends emerging. We might view the theological enterprise through a communication/culture lens, helping us to see many dimensions of theology in new ways.[1]
In a heavily mediated culture, communication studies can play a central role as a systematic hermeneutical principle as theology evolves within today’s digital culture. This suggests that, under the rubric of hermeneutics, Communication Theology brings a distinct perspective from a defined position to the theological enterprise. Communication studies (including media, but not limited to media), works it systematically as an interpretive principle.[2]
I am sharing here the growth of analytical frameworks currently helping theologians to engage communication studies (more systematically than in the past), as they elaborate the conceptual meaning of faith. This also allows communication and cultural studies scholars to engage with the perspectives of theologians. Such engagement can help theological insights inform and enhance a digital culture rather than appearing to be anachronistic within the culture. I also offer specific examples of the growth of Communication Theology content, methodologies, and some concerns and difficulties as we look through this lens or engage communication as a hermeneutical principle. Finally, I offer a few recommendations based upon a decade of theological engagement and several additional decades of both theory and practice in the church-and-communication field.
Theology Perspectives
Theology is faith, seeking understanding. This is generally done from a given position and with a defined perspective. This has given rise to various ‘schools’ of theology.[3] Augustinian Theology was positioned in Platonism with a Roman/biblical perspective. Thomistic Theology’s perspective was Aristotelian, with a patristic perspective. Counter-Reformation Theology was positioned within the Reformation with a perspective that was defensive and legalistic.
In recent times Liberation Theology has positioned itself among oppressed people; its perspective values the dignity of the human person, with rights including freedom and justice. And Feminist Theology’s position has moved within women’s experiences with a perspective that critiques male-dominated interpretations of theology, history. and culture.
In this context, Communication Theology is defined as viewing theology from a position within today’s culture, a culture largely ruled by digital communication emphases. This perspective seeks to understand the divine presence and action in the varied dimensions of this communication culture. Communication Theology sees various cultural forms (music, image, symbol, ritual, etc.) as modalities of communication, as mediations of culture through communication and digital technologies.
Theologians wishing to reflect upon Communication Theology may:
attend to communication dimensions of their specific theological discipline; or
focus on the interpretive dynamics involved in communicating the fruit of their theological reflection effectively to today’s public which resides in an electronic culture; or
choose to position themselves within a communication-studies culture and elaborate a theology (an understanding of God, God’s presence, and God’s action) that arises from that communication/culture base.
There are interesting ways this can unfold. The theologian Francis Sullivan, S.J. sees ecumenism, historically, as a communication exercise.[4] Years ago Avery Dulles, S.J. stated: “The Church is communication.”[5] The broad issue of Christ and culture was examined thoroughly by H. Richard Neibuhr in the early fifties.[6] Walter Ong, S.J wrote a number of years ago about media and the state of theology in the journal Cross Currents, an essay which appears as a chapter of the book Media, Culture and Catholicism, edited by Paul Soukup, S.J.[7] Another significant example is a book by theologian Richard Gaillardetz entitled Transforming Our Days: Spirituality, Community and Liturgy in a Technological Culture.[8]
If we imagine circles of theology, popular mediated culture, and pastoral communities of faith, we can see they are already overlapping. However, from a Communication Theology perspective, they are moving more and more on top of each other – becoming ‘one big set of things.’[9]
Some of the methodological issues within Communication Theology are:
acknowledging experience as a theological resource and criterion
reading texts (especially communication/culture/media texts) in revisioning ways
utilizing the hermeneutic of both suspicion and retrieval
seeking mutuality in communication forums
critiquing language issues (across continents and gender).
As mentioned above, some theologians have already touched seriously upon communication concepts. Häring asked what it means for theology that communication is constitutive in the mystery of God. Lonergan’s eighth functional specialty is communication. David Tracy deals with communication and culture. Some feel that all of theology is communication; this view tends to be voiced by communication specialists rather than theologians.[10] However, theologians have not systematically re-conceptualized theology in the light of communication studies (as they have done in Liberation Theology and Feminist Theology). How can this literature and pastoral activity be supported?
I suggest we include a wide range of communication theory and practice in Communication Theology and not limit ourselves solely to mass media studies or cultural studies. For example, most communication theory courses cover structural and functional theories of communication, rooted in the organization of language and social systems. Cognitive and behavioral communication theories, coming out of psychology, focus on the individual. Another genre, interpretive theories of communication, includes phenomenology and hermeneutics. A fourth genre would be critical theories of communication with their commentaries on society and social practice, like Marxism and feminism. Finally, there are interactional theories of communication – viewing social life as a process of interactions. I am personally comfortable in this last category, because of my interest in dialogic communication and the reality of interactive technologies like the telephone, computer networks, the Internet, the World Wide Web and individualized media like blogs, My Space, and similar talk-back forums.
The terms ‘media’ or ‘mass media’ refer to only a small segment of the field of communication studies. I believe the interactions among media, religion, and culture can be enriched by a theological renewal that systematically integrates insights from among the many different genres of communication theory – all of communication studies and not just media studies.
This statement springs from my own doctoral studies at Harvard and M.I.T., and from several decades of personal experience in the areas of commercial television, work in church communication, and a position in the academic world – as well as a number of years working at the Communication Theology task. I realize the whole field of communication studies introduces a broad perspective; it may seem difficult at times to focus. However, the richness of this communication-studies breadth can match the broad scope of theology specialties.
Theologians are a research and development resource for churches – a sort of ‘think tank’ where new models and paradigms are conceived and constructed. The Second Vatican Council occurred in the Catholic Church primarily because creative theologians were re-thinking concepts in the decades before the Council. And even as the bishops met during the Council sessions, each evening in Rome – over wine and pasta – the theologians were goading the bishops into bold new statements about religious liberty, about the church in the modern world, about biblical understandings and the renewal of worship. This is an example of the practical impact of theological interaction that is both creative and sound.
Personally, I do not think we will ever get most congregations, church leaders, seminaries or the academy to value and utilize the rich resources of communication studies (or even media studies) into their thinking and practice until we have integrated many facets of communication studies into theology. It will be most helpful if theologians themselves systematically conceptualize such integration – a dynamic Communication Theology arising from inside theology.
This deep and widespread theological integration has not taken place widely even where there are fine religious training programs in communication studies. Graduates of theological programs of study acquire knowledge of the communication field. However, they return to their localities and find the theology and practice of their religious institutions view communication (mass media and digital culture, in particular) as something apart from church policy, religious experience and theology.
Liberation Theology, as a case in point, proves there are very practical consequences when theological thought inflames practice at the grassroots level and when, in return, this real-world experience transforms theology. Solid classics written in the field of Liberation Theology have articulated principles that could not be ignored either in seminaries or in senate chambers.
Feminist Theology also represents a vital revision of the fundamental themes and methods of theology. Of course, not all theologians or church leaders are comfortable with these new fields. However, as the theorizing and literature mature and the grassroots action continues, creative development occurs in theology, in religious institutions and in pastoral practice.
Communication Theology: A Partial Chronology
A series of seminars sponsored by the Gregorian University in Rome began over two decades ago and provided one foundation for Communication Theology development. Every two years theologians and communication and cultural studies scholars and practitioners came together for a week of reflection. These seminars focused on fundamental theology, philosophy, moral theology, ecclesiology, religious film, and popular culture – always reflecting on these topics through a theological/communication/cultural studies lens. The U.S. publisher Sheed and Ward issued these volumes, along with other titles,[11] in their Communication, Culture and Theology series.
Another contribution has been a series of symposia held annually for almost a decade at the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA). With the support of CTSA and the U.S. Association of Catholic Communicators, Father Bob Bonnot and I have coordinated these sessions, held each year at the CTSA convention. In each seminar a major theologian addressed a topic and other theologians and communication experts interacted. A pre-planning session was sometimes held four or five months before the convention. A small group of theologians and communicators would gather to help the CTSA presenter-theologian see his or her topic’s varied interfaces with communication studies.
These CTSA convention sessions have addressed issues like: ‘Narrative and Communication Theology in a Post-literate Culture;’ ‘The Mystery and Task of Self-Communication in Trinitarian Theology;’ ‘The Theology of Preaching;’ ‘New Models of Reception Theory,’ and ‘Music as Theology in a Digital Age.’
So there have been on-going symposia in various locales including Rome and within a major theology professional association in the U.S.
Another important component of a developing Communication Theology consists of programs of study that integrate theology and communication studies. Examples are the Gregorian University and the Salesian Pontifical University in Rome. Pierre Babin’s program in France trained more than a thousand pastoral agents from 110 different countries and conducted over 500 sessions in Africa, South America, Asia, Australia, and Europe. There are programs at the University of Edinburgh and in London and programs established in Asia. Rev. Joseph Palakeel heads an innovative Communication Theology project that includes seminary course work, pastoral practice, and training programs in India.[12]
In the U.S., Ohio has seen two programs in Dayton. The Pastoral Communication and Ministry program at the University of Dayton has grown under the leadership of Sister Angela Ann Zukowski. And the graduate program in media and ministry, developed by Tom Boomershine at United Theological Seminary trained many individuals. Slowly there is a developing interest among other academic institutions in Communication Theology. I have taught Communication Theology at Notre Dame College in Cleveland. A creative syllabus on “Christianity and Communications in Contemporary Culture” was developed by Tom Boomershine for United Theological Seminary students in Dayton. And Sister Angela Ann Zukowski has taught Communication Theology both in the U.S. and abroad, both in person and online. It is certainly appropriate to develop this type of course material for international online delivery. And linked Web sites could systematically share Communication Theology materials for easy global access.
An encouraging development is that a growing number of graduate and doctoral students in theology at various international institutions are linking together online[13] for dialogue as they take courses and select research topics looking more and more like Communicative Theology. These inquiries are coming out of theological programs of study, rather than from the communication field. This is a significant breakthrough; it may indicate a sea change in theological studies. Much of this work is being done by a new generation of theologians who will impact this field – renewing it – as they mature into productive scholars and practitioners. Here is a partial list of research areas I have seen under discussion online:
media education in religious congregations of women; spirituality and communications; case studies of mainline church involvement in electronic communication; the development of religious media theory in communication studies; biblical faith and cultural change;. worship and the arts; pastoral practices for the new digital culture; communication and religious conversion among refugees; liturgy as communication and narrative theology.
Communication Theology Case Studies
It will be helpful to cite other writings or projects that seem to me to be taking us toward Communication Theology. The first three are examples of theologians reaching out quite deliberately toward the riches of communication and cultural studies. And the fourth, the Common Ground project in the U.S., represents a dialogic process that borrows heavily from communication studies.
The work of theologian Robert Schreiter has forged a bold integration of theology and communication and cultural studies. Schreiter, who served as President of the Catholic Theological Society of America, attended many of the Communicative Theology seminars we organized at CTSA. He notes:
There has been an important shift in perspective in theology in recent years. …much more attention is now being paid to how … circumstances shape the response to the gospel… (This) shift in perspective… first became evident in regions where Christianity was relatively new … in parts of Africa and Asia. There was a growing sense that the theologies being inherited from the older churches of the North Atlantic community did not fit well into these quite different cultural circumstances.[14]
In several of his recent books, Schreiter reflects on various aspects of communication: codes; cross-cultural communication; intercultural communication flows; intercultural hermeneutics; semiotics of culture; and new technologies.
In his departing presidential address at CTSA, Schreiter focused on the development of doctrine in a world church. He spoke of a shift of the epistemological axis from a propositional format to Revelation as event or encounter. He noted we are moving from an egocentric to a sociocentric church. Schreiter mentioned a specific challenge – that emerging communication technologies represent a new opportunity to be dialogical and theological within local cultures.
Another Communication Theologian has been an inspiration for me personally for many years. Thomas Boomershine has ministered in New York City and is a respected biblical scholar – a professor for many years at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. More than anyone I know, Tom Boomershine articulates urgently that ‘changes in communication systems have been directly correlated with periods of major change in churches… (Churches) have entered into (each) culture and mastered the new communication technology of the age, often being the leaders in the culture in appropriating and developing that technology.’[15]
At a religious education meeting in California (held in the shadow of the Walt Disney and Hollywood enterprises), Boomershine reminded us that Jesus used oral culture, the early church appropriated Hellenistic written culture, and churches appropriated print culture (printing bibles, building educational institutions to empower people with literacy). However, he notes that today’s electronic culture is completely dominated by corporate enterprises and churches remain often outside of this digital culture. Even worse, churches seem unaware of the cause of their ineffectiveness. Instead the culture is literally owned by Hollywood, the Silicon Valley, Wall Street and Madison Avenue. This is the first time in their history, Boomershine notes, that churches have not appropriated the dominant communication system to serve people.
Boomershine defines our current electronic culture as the complex of cultural forces emerging in association with the development of electronic communication technologies. Like ‘oral culture’ and ‘literate culture’ these terms are shorthand for the cultural characteristics associated with the dominant and organizing system of communication in a culture. He notes that literate culture, where most churches still reside, is characterized by: hierarchical systems of social organization; abstract thought; books; the centrality of philosophy and empirical science; lectures; and reading and discussing Scriptures as a central religious practice.
Boomershine contrasts all this with electronic culture – today’s dominant global culture. This is characterized by: learning by participation and interactivity; the centrality of experience; high inter-ethnic interaction; multimedia; social networks; rapid technological change; transformation of the roles of women and, therefore, of men; and instant global communication. In a personal conversation with Boomershine about Communication Theology, he noted some profound concerns:
Theology, as a discipline, as a body of literature, is primarily a literate culture.
A fundamental issue for Communication Theology is: how do we interpret the Christian tradition in post-literate culture?
What are the basic orientations of thought/meaning in an electronic culture?
The bible needs to be re-conceived for an electronic culture.
The role of the theory of Christian communication in an electronic culture may need, at least in part, to be located outside of the academy, because it is wedded so completely to print culture.
There are some legitimate concerns:
Is the Communication Theology ‘movement’ mainly policy driven – primarily an attempt to influence church leadership?
Is it inappropriate to parallel Communication Theology with liberation and feminist movements since they are prophetic voices on behalf of oppressed groups and Communication Theology is, instead, a different kind of hermeneutic?
Should we simply let theologians continue to address communication and cultural concerns without trying to ‘systematize’ this? Are theologians capable of doing this systematic construction?
I am confident the above concerns can be addressed in a thoughtful and systematic way as this field of thought matures.
Faced with these challenges, let me introduce another map of the Communication Theology area. Daniel Felton speaks of an ‘unavoidable dialogue’ between theology and communication.[16] Felton’s work specifies five such interfaces:
Theology and Communication – where theology borrows theories, methods, and models from communication studies to reflect upon religion
Systematic Theology of Communication – seeking to build a theoretical, theological study of communication within the sphere of systematic theology
Pastoral Theology of Communication – where one emphasizes practice in a theology that has appropriated communication theory and cultural studies
Christian Moral Vision of Communication – addressing moral dimensions of communication practice and policy making; and
Communicative Theology – a communication-oriented theology.
As individual theologians reflect upon these varied types of interfaces, each might find one more amenable than others for their conceptualizing. My own personal preference is for a theological framework that takes our global dialogic culture seriously. From this perspective theology is systematically informed by communication, both in its process and its content.
I believe Communication Theology will be systematically and self-consciously developed in the next decade or two. A body of Communication Theology literature is emerging. I have listed some helpful works at the end of this paper. One of the first was Paul Soukup’s fine review of the literature published in 1983. Soukup undertook a serious review of recent work in Communication and Theology, published in Cross Connections (2006) edited by Srampickal, Mazza and Baugh and cited in the bibliography below. Soukup reviews work within a number of categories: pastoral theology; applied theology; applying theological categories to communication; using communication tools to analyze religious texts; examining communication as a context for theology; using communication content (film, television, music) to prompt religious reflection; and using communication constructs to inform theological reflection.
One final on-the-ground example. The initiative entitled ‘Common Ground’ exemplifies communication dialogue. This was a process with significant implications for the U. S. Catholic Church and can be modeled globally. Begun under the leadership of the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the Common Ground mission was to initiate many different projects, tasks, and communities of dialogue within the Catholic Church. It was not, itself, a project, with a specific task to be completed; it was, rather, a stimulus for many different discussion forums.
The statement inaugurating the initiative is entitled ‘Called to be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril’ and is reprinted in America magazine (August 31, 1996). There was a powerful response to this call for dialogue among Catholic Church members who are often polarized and divided. Within a few months there were almost four hundred thousand copies of the statement in print and it was featured widely in the media. In its early stages almost two thousand people downloaded the statement electronically. It has now been translated into many languages.
Some people are uneasy fostering discussion about the church’s authoritative teaching. Some felt this would resort to bitter debates rather than healthy respectful discussion. Cardinal Bernardin responded:
…the premise of our statement is that many serious disagreements that exist among Catholics do not necessarily involve dissent in the sense of a clear departure from authentic teaching. The statement recognizes the legitimacy, even the value, of disagreements when the discussion takes place within boundaries.[17]
Many national organizations and universities sponsored Common Ground events of their own. Such initiatives integrate theology and communication in a very practical and grassroots ways and they operate from a communication perspective that values interactivity.
Some Strategies
I believe Communication Theology will emerge systematically and with strength when a number of foundational theology classics are written for the field (or produced in various artistic forms) just as we saw this happen in liberation and feminist areas of theology. Many of these works will be authored by theologians familiar with cultural studies and communication specialties. The works of Joseph Palakeel in India (2003, 2007), and Brad Hinze in the United States (2006) are some examples. Some authors will be younger theologians – themselves comfortable products of a digital age – who can think outside of the conceptual ‘boxes’ of the past.
Financial support needs to be organized for such projects, to hold additional conferences, perhaps to initiate web activity, to plug into religious educators, seminary faculty and leadership conferences – to see if Communication Theology begins to solidify as its own conceptual field. A significant step is the decision to publish several collections of key Communication Theology writings for use in seminaries and lay pastoral training programs. This will put significant Communication Theology writings at hand easily for theology-building and for pastoral practice. This commitment was made at a Communication Theology conference sponsored by the Gregorian University and held in Rome in September 2007.
It is probably healthy to have Communication Theology grow organically, project by project, book by book, image by image, event by event, rather than to be designed and coordinated structurally ‘from above’. This would fit the look and the feel of a nonlinear digital age.
Many faith communities need to integrate these ‘signs of the times’.
Bibliography
Bernardin, J. and Lipscomb, O. (1998), Catholic Common Ground Initiative: Foundational Documents, New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company
Boomershine, T. Christian Community and Technologies of the Word, unpublished manuscript
De Feijter, I. (2006), The Art of Dialogue: Religion, Communication and Global Media Culture, London: Transaction Publishers
Farrell, T. J. and Soukup, P.A. (1994), Communication and Lonergan: Common Ground for Forging the New Age, Kansas City: Sheed and Ward
Häring, B. (1982), ‘Ethics of Communication,’ in Free and Faithful in Christ, New York: Crossroad
Hinze, B. (2006), Practices of Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church: Aims and Obstacles, Lessons and Laments, New York: Continuum
Martin-Barbero, J. (1993), Communication, Culture and Hegemony: From the Media to Mediations, Newbury Park: Sage
Palakeel, J. Ed. (2003), Towards a Communication Theology, Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation
Palakeel, J. Ed. (2007), The Bible and the Technologies of the Word, Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation
Plude, F. (2001), “Communication Theology,” Special Issue of Catholic International, Vol. 12 No. 4, November, Baltimore, Md
Plude, F. (2003), “Communication Theology (An Annotated Bibliography)” in Mediating Religion, Mitchell, J. and Marriage, S. Eds., New York: T & T Clark
Schreiter, R.J. (1997), Constructing Local Theologies, Maryknoll: Orbis
Soukup, P.A. (1983)., Communication and Theology: Review of the Literature, London: World Association of Christian Communication
Srampickal, J. et al, Eds. (2006), Cross Connections: Interdisciplinary Communications Studies at the Gregorian University, Rome: Editrice Pontificicia Università Gregoriana
Tanner, K. (1997), Theories of Culture: A new agenda for theology, Minneapolis: Fortress Press
Additional Readings
Mitchell, Jolyon and Marriage, Sophia, Mediating Religion: Conversations in Media, Religion and Culture, New York: T & T Clark (a Continuum imprint), 2003
Soukup, Paul A.; Buckley, Francis J; Robinson, David C., “The Influence of information technologies on theology,” Theological Studies, v. 62, no 2 (June 2001, p 366-77.
References
[1] The use of the lens metaphor was suggested in conversation with Jane Redmont, a contributor to the development of Communication Theology.
[2] The suggestion that communication provides a new hermeneutical principle in theology was first suggested by Paul Philibert, O.P. See New Theology Review, (1995), pp13-20.
[3] I am grateful to Rev. Bernard Bonnot for articulating these perspectives. Some of his work appears in New Theology Review (February 1996).
[4] See Sullivan’s essay ‘Ecumenism as Communication,’ in P. Granfield, Ed., The Church and Communication (Sheed and Ward, 1994).
[5] See A. Dulles, ‘The Church and Communications,’ in The Reshaping of Catholicism (Harper & Row, 1988) for a more complete development of the communicative thought of Dulles.
[6] H.R. Neibuhr, Christ and Culture (Harper & Row, 1951).
[7] See also: B.E. Gronbeck, T.J. Farrell, P.A. Soukup Media, Consciousness and Culture: Explorations on Walter Ong’s Thoughts (Sage) and W. Ong, P.A. Soukup, T.J. Farrell, Faith and Contexts, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 (Scholars Press, 1992).
[8] (Crossroad, 2000) See my analysis of the Gaillardetz work in National Catholic Reporter, December 8, 2000, p.17.
[9] When Jerome Weisner, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wanted to convince supporters of the need for a Media Lab at MIT, he used three similar circles, explaining that computers, cable/broadcast TV and telephony were merging into ‘one big set of things.’ The famed Media Lab was thus created and MIT planned for another Media Lab in India.
[10] This is the view of Franz-Josef Eilers who has published numerous communication and culture books and is a noted church communication specialist. My concern is that, while viewing all of theology as communication is desirable, even appropriate, this is not the perception of most theologians or the public. It would be helpful if all theology incorporated gender awareness also, but it has taken the articulation of feminist theologians to move toward this. Perhaps communication theologians can help us accomplish the total integration Eilers articulates.
[11] In addition to the books mentioned within this chapter, the Sheed and Ward Communication, Culture and Theology series includes titles such as Imaging the Divine: Jesus and Christ-Figures in Film; New Image of Religious Film; From One Medium to Another: Communicating the Bible Through Multimedia; and Communicating Christ to the World. The series, re-named “The Communication, Culture and Religion Series” is now published by Rowman and Littlefield. Recent titles include: Engaging Technology in Theological Education: All That We Can’t Leave Behind; Seeking Goodness and Beauty: The Use of the Arts in Theological Ethics; and Communication, Media, and Identity: A Christian Theory of Communication.
[12] For details of these programs, see http://www.theologicon.org/html/uniqueprogram.htm.; http://www.theologicon.org/html/courses_training.htm.
[13] One such group formed during the Third International Conference on Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Edinburgh in 1999.
[14] Constructing Local Theologies, (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books), p 1.
[15] These concepts are used with Boomershine’s permission.
[16] ‘The Unavoidable Dialogue: An Examination of Five Types of Relationships Between Theology and Communications,’ Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Theology, Gregorian University, Rome, April 1989. Felton summarized his content in Media Development, October 1989, pp 7-23.
[17] Catholic Common Ground Initiative: Foundational Documents, (N.Y. The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1999). In the U.S. the Odyssey cable TV Channel broadcast twelve programs featuring Common Ground discussions. Seven videotapes – with discussion guides for local groups were available. The significance of communications interactivity is also acknowledged in the document Aetatis Novae issued by the Pontifical Council for Social Communications in 1992. See also the Plude and the Pottmeyer chapters in The Church and Communication, edited by P.Granfield (Sheed and Ward, 1994).