The Challenge Of Change In The Catholic Church
By Frances Forde Plude
[This paper was presented at the Women’s Seminar in Constructive Theology at the Catholic Theological Society of America, San Jose, California, June 8, 2000. It is designed to aid theologians seeking to adapt the study of theology to a mediated culture which transmits change rapidly. The paper discusses the change process and its challenge for organizations – including religious communities.]
Change as a Constant
Why does everything keep changing? How do we know whether a specific change is good or bad? And how do we cope with the rapid pace of change today? Seeking answers to the above questions, we should first reflect upon a different question: How does the process of change occur? This question leads to other process questions. How do new ideas (or habits, or products) become adopted? Who provides leadership in the process? How are the consequences evaluated?
The term “adoption” has parallels in both religious studies and communication studies. In theology the term used is “reception”. The theologian Richard Gaillardetz, in Teaching with Authority, notes: “God’s word for a particular community fully emerges within the community only as the fruit of a lively conversation between the questions, concerns, and preoccupations of a particular community...” (p 241). Communication scholars in the field of reception studies analyze how audiences do meaning making as they view and internalize video content and other varieties of popular culture.
Trying to understand change can be disturbing in the context of religious belief. We hope for eternal truths as a foundation for our world view and our individual and group relationships. When we experience shifts, especially radical shifts, in ideas or practices we’ve long held dear, then what happens to this foundational system? How do we reconstruct some solidity in our daily life and in our future hopes?
As an experienced communication specialist, and as someone who consults regularly with Catholic Church leadership, I have often analyzed how communication messages flow within church structures. These communication and cultural change dynamics occur and interact within and between local, national, and international church settings. Today’s global context involves rapid change of ideas, structures, and technologies, along with the challenge of radical diversity of cultures, ethnic enclaves, even local theologies. I propose here that we desperately need an understanding of how the change process works to manage change and diversity effectively. This essay offers background and case studies to help us manage change in the 21st century – in a digital global culture.
After studies at Boston College, and graduate study in theology, my life as a television producer led me to doctoral studies at Harvard University and MIT – to study the impact of new communication technologies and networks on organizational structures and on public policy. For two decades I have served as a college professor at several universities and have served as a consultant to U.S. government agencies, including the U.S. Congress. I have worked with the leadership of various religious denominations as these church members, including the U.S. Catholic bishops, have grappled with communication technology changes. I am a member of a small international think tank that meets with communication scholars and practitioners in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
I would probably be considered a “change agent” – an individual who is comfortable exploring new ideas and methods. However, I am also grounded in tradition and have solid respect for appropriate authority and leadership. My comments offer perspectives, rather than final answers. This material draws upon my own years of research and experience in media and in other areas of communication research and practice, such as linguistics, persuasion, organizational and interpersonal communication. These ideas also build upon social science research dealing with the change process.
How Innovations Get Diffused
The communication scholar Everett Rogers has written the definitive compilation of this research and his book is entitled Diffusion of Innovations (4th edition, 1995). Most of the principles about innovation diffusion in this text are explored fully in the Rogers work and I draw from it freely. However, before moving to the concept of change, it is important to reflect further on the matter of process. (Much of this essay probes the change process, rather than exclusively proclaiming what should be changed.)
A current analyst of change and its dynamics is Michael Hammer; he calls it “reengineering”. Hammer’s books and workshops are transforming the way organizations, including corporations, view their structures and tasks. This is what “change management” is all about. In fact, Hammer says, we must focus on process instead of task to be purposeful, deliberate, and amenable to good management in organizations. His point is that any organization is fractured and cumbersome when individuals focus only on their own little piece of work (task). Clients are sent from one department to another for solutions because no one understands the whole picture; people do not see or “own” the total process.
Hammer points to huge corporations (Sears, IBM, and General Motors) that became clumsy dinosaurs, unable to change because they were broken up into thousands of individual tasks or departments. In a global economy, widely varied and competitive, groups must view their organizations and outputs holistically – with the wider process perspective involving individuals from many areas working together in a seamless manner.
In his book Beyond Reengineering Hammer offers specific details for a process-centered organization: how personnel are restructured; how leadership is redefined; how communication systems must be redesigned; how incentives work. Hammer says we are often ineffective because “… our people are performing tasks that need not be done at all to achieve the desired result and because we encounter agonizing delays in getting the work from the person who does one task to the person who does the next one.” (p. 5) He adds: “… our problems lie not in the performance of individual tasks and activities, the units of work, but in the processes, how the units fit together into a whole” (p 6). So, first, in dealing with the challenge of change, we must view it as a process – to be dealt with and managed from the process perspective. Our management of change is, thus, basically grounded because we are viewing the horizon instead of simply individual particulars inside the change landscape.
I want to insert here that I see these processes and changes within the Catholic Church taking place in a graced environment with the world and various communities of humanity guided by the Wisdom of God. However, grace builds on nature; our stewardship requires that we utilize our own gifts in enlightened and collaborative ways to build the concepts, structures and processes that foster responsible change.
I should also note that when we reflect upon institutional change we are sometimes speaking about religious groups as organizational structures. This may be quite different from, though related to, viewing church as communities of faith-filled people.
The Inner Dynamics of the Change Process
To begin at the beginning, we need to look at the Rogers definition of diffusion of innovation and examine some of the components of that process. We can then proceed to some generalizations emerging from the research in this field. It will be helpful, also, to review the impact of two different factors on the continuum of change: organizational structures and communication networks.
I will, finally, offer recommendations and suggest strategies for understanding the change process as it relates to the Catholic Church. My own knowledge and experience in communication studies is of value here since information-exchange, a communication dynamic, is an essential part of the change process.
Note that I am not dealing with the content of any specific change. I am not suggesting what should or should not be changed. I am, instead, urging that awareness of the change process can be beneficial for church leaders and followers as we all deal with the realities (and the cultural diversities) of change dynamics.
Rogers defines process research as “data gathered and analyzed that seeks to determine the time-ordered sequence of a set of events” (p 192). As of 1995, the date of Rogers’ latest compilation, there were about 4,000 innovation diffusion research studies, done over a period of 40 years. Rogers notes that almost no other field of behavioral science research represents more effort by more scholars in more diversified fields of knowledge.
The Value and Limitations of Diffusion Research
Why has so much work been done on the question of how innovations are diffused? First, there are very practical payoffs when we learn how the change process works. Secondly, the pace of change in the modern or postmodern world is increasing rapidly and we are battered by the need to understand and manage this change. Thirdly, this is a concept that can be applied in many different fields – medicine, marketing, sociology, and psychology. These applications offer a solid pragmatic appeal inviting wide support for the research.
Another factor is that innovation diffusion research has played a significant role as developing nations have struggled to introduce modern ideas in order to “grow” themselves economically and in other areas such as health and social programs.
This research has explored many aspects of change. Some examples:
How do the opinions of leaders affect the rate of change?
Who interacts with whom in the change process?
What kinds of communication channels are most effective?
What are the consequences of innovations?
How does the change process differ in varied cultural settings?
There are some problems in this research. There has tended to be a pro-innovation bias in most studies, an over-dependence on a new idea “fix”. In addition, often the research interviews take place after the diffusion process has been completed and there may be problems with the accuracy of the memories; there is a need for more “photographs” of the diffusion process while it is underway. And there is some instability in the research; similar studies sometimes come up with varied results.
Occasionally prestige associated with a new idea propels the innovation, rather than a real need for change. Continual software upgrades in the computer world may reflect this. A firm’s marketing skills and profit motives may even push for unnecessary change. However, change can also be propelled by the simple desire of consumers to appear innovative. There is a deeper issue also. It is easier to pinpoint change among individuals rather than to diagnose underlying dynamics within systems. Rogers asks: “Why do we study the poor rather than the non-poor to understand the origins of poverty” (p 109)?
How Change Occurs
How does the change process work? As early as 1903, a French judge, Gabriel Tarde, noted about change: “(There is) a slow advance in the beginning, followed by rapid and uniformly accelerated progress, followed again by progress that continues to slacken until it finally stops.” Analysts call this the S-shaped diffusion curve: a paradigm shift.
That’s how change looks from the outside. Inside, the process has some defined steps.
The knowledge phase: people seek information and process it
Attitude formation: this is a “feeling” stage
The decision stage: individuals decide to adopt or not
Implementation: the innovation moves forward; and
Confirmation: the decision may (or may not) be continued.
Often re-invention occurs; an innovation may be changed, especially when it is introduced into a new setting. In educational institutions, for example, there may be local pride of ownership so educators will adapt an innovation in some way, sort of “tweaking” it so it looks like they have tailored the innovation to their own local setting and needs.
Personnel in the Change Process
There are identifiable roles within the change process. The key player is known as the change agent. Among the most effective change agents have been agricultural county extension agents – individuals associated with land grant colleges who promote innovative ideas among U.S. farmers.
How does the change agent role work? These individuals often develop and promote the need or the desire for change. They establish an information-exchange relationship between the resource system (the Agriculture Department) and the client (individual farmers). The change agent diagnoses problems, creates the intent to change in clients, and helps translate that intention into action. The change agent often stabilizes the adoption process and thus helps the client to keep renewing the change decision. At this point the clients become their own change agents. Feedback from the client is critical so the change agent often has a foot in both worlds, that of the resource system and the client. Sometimes the change agent needs to prevent too much adoption when individuals or institutions want to continually absorb new ideas that are not prudent.
Another player in the change process is the opinion leader. Rogers notes: “Opinion leadership is the degree to which an individual is able to influence informally other individuals’ attitudes or overt behavior in a desired way with relative frequency”. Obviously change agents are successful to the extent they work with opinion leaders who often are not innovative themselves. In fact, opinion leaders cannot be too innovative, or they are too far out in front of their followers. In this way they can lose their ability to influence opinion.
Another key role in the change process is the early adopter – for example, a farmer who incorporates a new idea and this acceptance by one individual moves his peers to adopt the change.
To summarize, some of the things we know about the change process. Change agents promote innovation by working with opinion leaders. The adoption starts out slowly (with early adopters) then the pace of change accelerates until it levels off (the S-shaped curve). The process has identifiable stages: obtaining information, forming attitudes, making decisions, implementation, and confirming or rejecting the continued adoption of the change.
Generalizations from Innovation Diffusion Research
The communication scholar Everett Rogers has surveyed innovation diffusion for more than forty years. Various editions of his classic work Diffusion of Innovations clarify the change process by enunciating some generalizations (translatable principles) emerging from thousands of research projects conducted in many different countries. Some of these principles can help organizations (including religious groups) to cope with the change process and to manage it wisely.
Some principles have already been cited, for example, the understandable relationship between successful change agents and opinion leaders. And many of the principles seem like simple common sense. However, it is good to keep in mind that these principles or generalizations are not just “hunches”; they are tested repeatedly in the field by scholars in varied settings. Thus, they are reliable guidelines for organizational planners who are trying to manage innovation creatively but with prudential judgment.
Rogers quotes several researchers: “A technological innovation is like a river – its growth and development depending on its tributaries and on the condition it encounters on its way” (p 146).
There are numerous generalizations in the Rogers book so anyone can examine the nooks and crannies of innovation there. I have selected some here that seem to me to be most significant from several perspectives:
principles about the process itself and about context issues
generalizations about the people who manage change
principles that relate to organizational structures; and
research conclusions about communication channels and processes
Process and Context Principles
One strategic element, research shows, is to have “pre-diffusion activities” – to systematically ascertain whether there is truly a need for change. As mentioned above, there may be a bias toward change even when it is not desirable. This innovation-development process must, however, be an open one instead of closing option for a change that is appropriate.
The socioeconomic context is a serious consideration. Many studies show that change agents spend most of their time with early adopters and this group tends to be better educated and have more resources. Thus, often change benefits those who are already advantaged. Of course, innovativeness is a continuous variable; we speak of early adopters and we break up the process only as a conceptual device.
The broad context of this research is human behavior itself. Behavioral change is often motivated by dissonance that is uncomfortable; the individual or group seeks to reduce or eliminate the disequilibrium caused by some types of change. There is a social landscape present also; social factors interact with the change process. Many change processes involve social marketing; the push to encourage individuals to stop smoking would be a good example of this kind of innovation.
An important context issue is the concept of “critical mass.” This is the point in any process when the process itself becomes self-sustaining after some threshold point has been reached. As Rogers notes: “Until there is a critical mass of adopters, an innovation has little advantage (and considerable disadvantage) for individual adopters” (p 319).
Characteristics of Change Personnel
Understandably, one of the most important traits for change leadership is credibility. Neighbors, for example, are considered more reliable than sales representatives in promoting change. Innovators tend to have consistent characteristics in most research studies. They often hold positions of relative advantage socially. They tend to adopt changes that are compatible with their existing values and beliefs. If the innovation is complex or difficult to understand it tends not to get adopted. Innovators like to be able to try out a product first; hence many medicine samples are left in doctors’ offices.
An interesting item emerges in innovation studies in developing nations. In these settings, paraprofessional aides are often used as change agents quite successfully. Here it is almost an advantage that their formal training is quite limited. A classic example is the case of “barefoot doctors” in China. By 1980 there were 1.8 million of them – one for every 400 people in rural areas. Most of these doctors did, in fact, wear shoes but the name emphasized the fact that “these individuals were peasants who often worked barefoot in the rice fields” (p 326). The “doctors” handled routine health matters in a village and could refer individuals to commune hospitals. However, very few found this necessary. Candidates were chosen by their peers in the village and had excellent credibility despite their limited training.
Certain characteristics of typical early adopters emerge from the literature. They tend to enjoy more social participation than others. They do have more change-agent contact and often seek information and have greater knowledge about innovations. They tend to be less fatalistic, have higher aspirations and higher levels of achievement motivation. They come in all ages, and they have more education, generally. They often have a more favorable attitude toward assuming risk, they are generally empathetic, they are not dogmatic, and they usually have a greater ability to deal with abstractions.
Organizational Dynamics in the Change Process
There is quite a difference between encouraging one individual to adopt innovation and the task of promoting change within an organization or an institution, even when that larger unit is a small village in Korea! In some cases, a decision to change is made by only one individual. Or choosing to adopt might be a consensus decision within a group. Sometimes “choices to adopt or reject an innovation (may be) made in a system by relatively few individuals who possess power, status, or technical expertise” (p 372).
It may surprise some to learn that, in general, larger organizations are more innovative than smaller ones. These units usually have more resources and technical expertise, but it is also true that size is one variable researchers can measure precisely.
There is another organizational factor that is interesting to look at for some generalized principles: centralization or decentralization. (This also relates to the concept of hierarchy or networked organizations discussed in the communications section below.) The early success of agricultural extension agents with U.S. farmers led to an overemphasis on centralized models of innovation diffusion. This contrasts with wide sharing of power and control among the members of a decision system. In this latter type “innovations can originate from numerous sources and evolve as they diffuse via horizontal networks,” according to Donald Shön, an organizational specialist (p 334). Many corporations, faced with global competition, note it is more effective for innovations to bubble up from operational levels in a system and then spread through peer groups within the organization. This dynamic may lead to participants creating and sharing information to reach mutual understanding.
There can, of course, be “quality control” issues as new ideas move through any group. How does an organization (like a church with established tradition and teaching) maintain its integrity? One dynamic is called “gatekeeping” – defined by Rogers as “the communication behavior of an individual or individuals who withhold or reshape information … (under their control) as it flows into their system”. (Most of us have experienced this kind of tight management control in institutions). Another technique used is the “consensus development conference” where individuals systematically highlight potential innovations through an open reporting system. Innovation diffusion literature is strewn with examples of proposed changes that have unforeseen consequences. Generally, these “great ideas” are abandoned or are re-invented to comply with needs in acceptable ways.
How Networking Fosters Change
In the early days of communication research it was thought that marketing through mass media was the most effective way to persuade groups and individuals to change. It turns out that this is an efficient way to get information out; however, researchers began to speak of a “two-step flow” model. Interpersonal communication (the second step) is the best way to effectively persuade individuals to adopt change. People learn of an innovation or a new idea through the media; it is then reinforced when neighbors speak about it. In this process, two-way communication helps people secure clarification about a new idea and it also assess more accurately the credibility of the source. Thus, the way to maximize the adoption of new ideas is to use mass media, use small-group communication, and then especially focus on two-way personal communication networks to solidify the decision to change.
In today’s networked and multimedia world, this is the communication infrastructure reality and leaders have no choice but to function within it. I often tell hierarchical leaders: “You can keep on trying to control communication, sending top-down commands, but the message flows cannot be controlled in E-mail and telephone environments, and on social media, so you need to understand the network reality and utilize it effectively.”
Rogers reminds us: “Most psychological approaches to human learning look within the individual to understand how learning occurs. But the social learning approach looks outside of the individual at a specific type of information exchange with others to explain how behavior changes… an individual learns from another by observational modeling… one observes another person’s behavior, and then does something similar” (p 330). Rogers adds: “A communication network consists of interconnected individuals who are linked by patterned flows of information. An individual’s network links are important determinants of his or her adoption of innovations” (p 332).
I have written elsewhere (in The Church and Communication, edited by Patrick Granfield), that I see communication interactivity as a model for more dialogic institutions (including religious institutions). In the same volume the noted theologian Hermann Pottmeyer says: “The word ‘dialogue’ as a description of communication within the (Roman Catholic) Church is new. It is not found in pre-conciliar ecclesiology whose key words were ‘jurisdiction’ and ‘obedience’” (See The Church and Communication, Sheed and Ward).
Dr. Lynn Andrea Stein at M.I.T. reminds us of another factor: “… don’t think of computation as just calculation. Think of computation as a community” (Harvard University Gazette, May 28, 1998). So, this is a “brave new world” and institutions (and change agents) need to adapt to networks!
One book addressing these issues very creatively is The Age of the Network, by Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamp. These authors speak of moving “from the pyramid to the pizza.” In other words, the new organizational chart is not a strict hierarchy; it is a circle with small circles within it – each one a team with some connecting links. This new cross-sectional networked organization approach enables hierarchy, bureaucracy, and network to fit together organizationally. They say simply: “The difference, of course, comes in the use of links. Vertical, one-way connections constrict information flow, while two-way hub and spoke communications provide control and coordination opportunities. To convert a wheel to a network, just add links…”
These authors note that when humanity was nomadic, small-group organization sufficed. An agricultural culture required hierarchy, but small groups continued to function. The industrial-age culture and economy discovered the value of bureaucracy. This was added to organizational patterns, along with the small groups and hierarchy. (A new organizational structure tends to be added to previous forms; it does not replace them).
Thus, experts identify the current importance of networks to organizations, facilitated by new technological communication links. However, small groups, hierarchy, and bureaucracy still play a role. They speak of “turning hierarchy on its side” in the age of the network – using the values of hierarchy while adapting its previous form to include network nodes.
When we review innovation diffusion research, what generalizations can we make about the role of networks in facilitating change?
One hundred percent of the research studies support one principle: “In all cases… social systems whose members are more closely linked by communication networks have a stronger diffusion effect and a faster rate of adoption of innovation” (pp 235-236). Two other factors emerge. First, the degree of interconnectedness is positively related to the adoption of innovations, the more networking, the more change. Secondly, the literature shows some “over-adoption” – many people seem to have a penchant for anything that is new. Therefore, what organizations (including religious organizations) can expect in today’s networked environment is more and more change and it will occur at a faster pace. Somehow, if wisdom is to prevail, change agents and opinion leaders need, themselves, to adapt to this reality.
Especially for churches, we need to recall that adoption of change is also a reality in the matter of theological reception, as Richard Gaillardetz notes above. Gaillardetz is himself conceptualizing a new model of reception that systematically inserts interactivity into it. (Address given to the 1999 Communication Theology seminar at the Catholic Theological Association of America).
Change “As if People Mattered”
As we have examined the components of the change process, it all seems efficient and relatively predictable. However, there are difficulties. I will now examine some of these problems and in the next section I introduce the subject of how change challenges today’s institutional religions. In other writings I examine specific arenas of change within the Roman Catholic Church and within theology specifically.
Keeping Change Humane
Economics plays a central role in shaping the activities of the modern world. So, it is probably appropriate to begin thinking about the challenge of change with some insights by the British economist E. F. Schumacher, author of the powerful book Small Is Beautiful, originally published in London in 1973. The book’s Introduction refers to a report by the editors of The Journal of the Fourth World. They speak of how “the pace of change (needs to be) regulated not by the appetites of a mighty minority for profit and power, but by the day-to-day needs of small-scale human communities and the psychic capacities of their members to adapt” (p x, Harper & Row, 1989 edition).
One of Schumacher’s major concerns is that modern economics “considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity, taking the factors of production – land, labor, and capital – as the means” (p 61). This will, of course, drive innovation and change. Schumacher, however, refers us back to I Ching, The Book of Changes, reputed to be mankind’s oldest book. “The I Ching is based on the conviction that, while everything changes all the time, change itself is unchanging and conforms to certain ascertainable metaphysical laws” (p 237). He notes Greeks consulted oracles, but the Chinese “went to a book setting out the universal and necessary pattern of changes, the very Laws of Heaven to which all nature conforms…”. He adds, perhaps ruefully, “Modern man goes to the computer.”
One chapter in Schumacher’s book is entitled “Technology with a Human Face”. Here he urges us to be aware of “people of the forward stamped”. He says we need to determine what changes really constitute progress, suggesting that to leave this to experts is to side with “the people of the forward stampede”. He urges, instead, “technology with a human face,” noting: “Man is small, and, therefore, small is beautiful.”
Bill Joy, cofounder of the U.S. computer firm Sun Microsystems, wrote a challenging paper in Wired magazine (April, 2000), questioning whether change is propelling us to a future that will replace existing humans through 21st-century technologies – robotics, genetic engineering, nano-technology, (add artificial intelligence, or AI. Joy worries:
The systems involved are complex, involving interaction among, and feedback between, many parts. Any changes to such a system will cascade in ways that are difficult to predict… (p 239).
The problematic “change agent” here is “a dangerous amplifying factor: They can self-replicate” (p 240). We already have experience of this from the damage caused when a computer virus is unleashed globally Joy warns: “Perhaps it is always hard to see the bigger impact while you are in the vortex of a change. Failing to understand the consequences of our inventions while we are in the rapture of discovery and innovation seems to be a common fault of scientists and technologists…” (p 243).
Joy comments: The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge (p 254).
He adds: “If we could agree, as a species, what we wanted, where we were headed, and why, then we would make our future much less dangerous – then we might understand what we can and should relinquish” (p 256).
Joy’s suggestion that we do “more thinking up front” reminds us of Schumacher’s advice that the “experts” – “the people of the forward stampede” – are not always the best decision-makers. Many of the change projects studied by Rogers are of the “top-down” variety. Perhaps we need to have more input from the grassroots to preserve “the human face” of change.
We do not have to deal with future technologies to see the harm of some technological change. Eli Noam, a Columbia University Professor of Business/Telecommunications, explored the difficulties in a 1999 paper entitled “Why the Internet Will Be Bad for Democracy.” He refers to the technology hype that purrs about the democratizing effect of the Internet. Noam notes that, like electricity, Internet connectivity will be almost universal and “the Internet will (be) liberated from the terror of the (personal computer) as its gateway.” In his opinion, “the PC is the most consumer-unfriendly consumer product built since the unicycle” (p 4).
Noam lists (and goes on to explain), various reasons why the Internet will not be good for democracy:
It will make politics more expensive, raising entry barriers
It will make reasoned, informed political dialogue difficult
It disconnects as much as it connects
It does not necessarily weaken state control
It facilitates international manipulation of local politics
Electronic voting does not strengthen democracy
Direct access to public officials will be phony.
Noam concludes:
“The Internet is a thrilling tool. Its possibilities are enchanting, intoxicating, enriching. But liberating? We cannot see problems clearly if we keep on those rosy virtual glasses and think that by expressing everything in 1 and 0, and bundling them in packets, we are even an analog inch closer to better political systems” (p 16).
New World Views for Religious Institutions
We now come to the problem of how the change process impacts organizations, especially religious organizations, as they attempt to preserve traditions and teachings in an age of constant change.
Two recent books have helped me understand the deep cultural and communication changes we must cope with in the 21st century. I will examine these insights first and then list some areas for practical consideration by leaders and church membership-at-large – all of us battered by constant change.
A Stanford University law professor, Lawrence Friedman, has written a thoughtful book entitled The Horizontal Society (Yale University Press, 1999). This work is especially significant for church leaders since they have tended to lead their institutions through hierarchical (or vertical) structures.
Friedman argues that modernization (especially communication and travel innovations). have uprooted large masses of people, making us more mobile. This has weakened and dispersed small communities (families and villages) and humans have begun to seek new groups for their moorings. These tend to be homogeneous horizontal groups – feminists, the handicapped, gays, Cancer victims, ethnic enclaves – and people can be interconnected technologically, even anonymously. Lacking the stability of earlier communities, some people become fiercely loyal to these newer horizontal groups; ethnic cleansing can be a frightening example.
Friedman argues that personal identity matters today in new and different ways. Church leaders probably need to listen to this author as he notes that “…we have to work with the world we have, not with the world we would like to have or used to have.” He adds: “We – all of us – live in a world that was never here before. It is a world of mass transport and mass communication, a world of satellite TV, (the Internet), and a world of computers…” (p ix).
Friedman argues:
Modernization is above all a process of connection; a process of linking the small, molecular units of human life into larger ones. But as the linkage goes on, the glue between the atoms and molecules becomes weaker. … When isolation is destroyed, the social units – the molecules that make up human life – tend to rearrange themselves and create what we are calling a horizontal society. People form or are aggregated into new groups (p 9).
A key characteristic of this new human arrangement is that many people now choose what group they want to join. Today there is even more choice involved in religious affiliation (or lack of it); one recent book on this subject is entitled Shopping for Faith, comparing this process to purchasing a commodity. Thus, institutional religion, with its vertical authority structure, is called upon to serve a society that has widespread individualism within it. And these individuals are linked horizontally in new groups, including online groups, they choose to join and leave at will.
These changes can be overstated, of course. Vertical structures continue to exist, along with horizontal groups, but there can be no doubt this change is widespread and it is a challenge to religious institutions.
A second major insight for me has been the work of the Latin-American communication scholar Jesứs Martín Barbero in his book Communication, Culture and Hegemony: From the Media to Mediations (Sage, 1993). Martín-Barbero disagrees with recent communication research scholars who have focused on the power of media to manipulate (or change) the masses. While this does occur, he argues that Latin America media have mediated the process of cultural transformation in popular culture – that the masses have used media in their own way to reconcile class and social differences. Forums for this mediation or transformation have included serial novels, local radio, circuses, fiestas, carnivals, music, film, and television melodramas (telenovelas). Martín-Barbero reminds us:
The family and the school, the old realms of ideological formation are no longer the places of socialization. The mentors of behavior are films, television, and advertising (p 34). … Now the masses, with the help of technology, feel nearer to even the most remote and sacred things. Their perception carries a demand for equality that is the basic energy of the masses (p 48).
Martín-Barbero’s work is a part of recent communication scholarship that has integrated cultural studies into the analysis of communication processes and practices. Another significant development has been an increased study of the audience reception process, (mentioned above and related to theological reception. As Martín-Barbero asks: “What do people do with what they believe, with what they buy, with what they see?”
When the Holy Spirit Is the Change Agent
Here I explore the issue of change within the Roman Catholic Church changes we have experienced as Catholics. Our lives have been transformed by these changes. Some have worked hard to effect change. Some long for even more change. Here I have tried to help church members adapt to change. We each bring different backgrounds and gifts to the discussion. In this I am speaking in my own voice and here I conclude with some observations and specific recommendations about the change process as I have studied it. I speak as one who has done graduate work, and much study, in theology, and as a communication specialist.
First, I believe the new understanding of this millennium’s religion, communication and culture needs to be articulated theologically. I have worked for almost a decade to encourage the development of a new body of thought called “Communication Theology”. We are beginning to see a body of literature in this area. In addition to many international colleagues, I know, personally, almost thirty theology doctoral students (from numerous countries) who are trying to integrate communication studies into their studies and writings.
Like the fields of Liberation Theology and Feminist Theology, there is a need to integrate communication studies into theology. There is a very respectable body of research and practice in persuasion, image studies, symbol, linguistics, mass media, critical and cultural studies, audience reception, etc. The impact of the mass media and the newly emerging role of computer networks represent only a small portion of the total field of communication studies. All these systematic insights available about communication and culture ought to transform the way we do theology in the 21st century.
One excellent example of this kind of theological reflection is a work by Richard Gaillardetz entitled Transforming Our Days: Spirituality, Community and Liturgy in a Technological Culture (Crossroad, 1999). Gaillardetz reflects upon how technology has permeated his own family life and turns to the thought of Robert Borgmann for insight. Borgmann explains the technological device has become a pervasive part of our culture and its invisibility often robs us of practices allowing us to “engage the larger world in our daily lives” (p 23).
Gaillardetz then goes on to explore, theologically, “Christian resources within our tradition that support the call to preserve vital focal things and practices in our daily life” (p 46). Among these resources are a life of grace, communal spirituality, and liturgy, or Christian worship. Gaillardetz asks: “How can we not view human innovation evident in technology as an expression of imagination and intellect that are themselves marks of the divine image within us”? This volume is a thoughtful and prayerful exploration of the theological context of today’s culture of technology.
I don’t believe church leadership and theologians will truly take communication or mass culture seriously, or know what to do about them, until all this becomes articulated theologically. There is a wide culture gap here because the masses do take communication, especially mass and social media seriously and they do mediate their social/religious space through media. The Super Bowl ritual, or the pain of seeing "Superman” paralyzed, or the Princess Di funeral, are all ritual and celebrity examples of modern mass mediation.
Secondly, since the Second Vatican Council transformed our theology of the church in the modern world, the Spirit of God is calling upon the people of God to witness the Gospel message within this modern, mediated world. Sometime this requires critique. More often, however, it probably calls for us to do our homework – to study the dynamics of change within a mediated global culture, to value the effectiveness of new tools (including technology), to learn the language of the mediated culture, and to minister to those who are alienated within it. We can incorporate the visual culture into our worship more creatively. We can encourage and support value-oriented creativity in all art forms. And we can simply be deeply reflective about it and share these reflections widely.
Another example of this homework is the adaptation occurring in the field of missiology. Based on anthropology findings, the church’s evangelization efforts have been transformed, giving much more respect to local cultures. The theologian Robert Schreiter speaks of “local theologies” and a “new catholicity” in his writings that are heavily informed by communication and cultural studies principles.
Thirdly, along with theology and communication/cultural awareness, all churches will simply need to improve their own communication skills and priorities. In his study of democracy on the Internet mentioned above, Eli Noam notes that the Internet, with its fancy video and multimedia messages and information resources, will increase audience expectations. And he asks: “When everyone can speak, who will be listened to”? He replies it will probably not be the wisest or those with the most compelling case or cause, but the best produced, and whatever is promoted best.
Organized religion, with its gifts of Wisdom, will have to study this communication / cultural / artistic competition and develop ways to reach the hearts and minds of humanity – through words, visual and audio media, through actions (witness), and through interpersonal/interactive communication. This will require listening as well as proclaiming. Jesus was not “slick” but he was an extraordinary communicator and His message informs and transforms even our postmodern technological culture.
Finally (although many other ideas could be mentioned), the 21st century will present an unparalleled opportunity for ethical guidance as our cultural and technological and economic changes propel us toward incredible (and, perhaps, dangerous) new frontiers. We need the wisdom of Bill Joy and Eli Noam and Lawrence Friedman and Jesús Martín-Barbero, and many others, as we attempt to discover ethical guideposts in concert with ecumenical and educational and cultural and theological experts.
This text is one attempt to reflect on change and to offer, not answers, but, instead, some guidance.