I often read on blog postings that writers, pastors, critics will identify themselves as “postmodern”.

While the definition of postmodernity as a cultural or political phenomenon is hotly debated, the use of the term to describe people is equally baffling for me.

What does it mean when someone says that they are postmodern? Do they claim citizenship to a culture that is not yet part of the ruling culture? If so, what is it about them that makes them a member of that culture, and how would they describe that culture they are resident in?

Or does it mean that they follow a certain philosophy or attitude? If so, attitude to what? Philosophy about what? What are the tenets of their belief?

Can we say “I am postmodern”? Is it similar to saying “I am in generation X, Y or Z”? Is it similar to saying “I am second generation Turkish-Australian”? Or is it like saying “I am post-feminist Marxist”?

I’ve been invited by The Eagle magazine, produced by St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane, to write an introductory article for their next edition. I’ve just sent the following off as a draft. It’s in serious need of editing, but I’m leaving it up to editors to do that. After all, it’s their job.

Why should we think about mass media?

Churches seem to have a variety of attitudes towards media technologies and popular mass media. Some try, in vain, to attract young people by using PowerPoint presentations alongside sermons or to display responsorial psalm verses. Others use videos for film nights or Alpha courses. Popular media, such as on TV or the Internet, is kept out of Church discussions (except for youth group events), and ministers extol the virtues of reading over TV in their lives. Christian media, such as bible magazines and CDs of new music, is either welcome and promoted as an alternative culture for the young, or rejected as individualistic and devoid of sound doctrine.

Yet among academic circles there is growing research into the intersection between mass media, religion and popular culture. This article provides a general examination of the themes discussed in this emerging research, and the reasons why theology should meet with media and culture.

We are in a period of “media convergence”, a time when one form of mass media is superseded by another as the dominant cultural medium. The development of Protestantism rode on the back of one such period, when the printing press became Europe’s most effective mode of creating and disseminating knowledge and information. The late twentieth century saw the rapid rise of television as the new dominant medium. Now, at the turn of the century, television’s place as our primary source of cultural information is being challenged by computer-mediated communication, including the World Wide Web, email and file sharing.

Just as printing did five hundred years ago, audio-visual media like TV and the Internet have exerted their power to not only change how we think, but the places and times we talk about, and make decisions about, how we live as a society. Mass media, television in particular, has become the main forum for social discourse, and the place where our views on politics, government, gender roles, family life, and even religion, our exposed and discussed.

Remember the Enlightenment: that era of philosophical thought that was started by Descartes’ famous words, “I think, therefore I am,” when scientific rationalism dominated all of our social institutions. The great product of the Enlightenment era was the secularisation of culture. Thinkers in this period saw religion as a barrier to truth, democracy and pluralism, and the result was the divide between Church and State, and the relegation of religious thought and practice to churches and seminaries, out of the public sphere.

I believe that the rise of audiovisual media as the dominant public media in our culture has led to the demise of secularisation, in two ways. Firstly, audiovisual mass popular media have added ritual dimensions to the communication of information, to the point of resacralising popular culture. We see this in the news reports of responses to the fall of the Twin Towers after September 11, images of public prayer vigils, with candles and prayers pasted on billboards next to photographs of victims. We also see it in the Big Brother spectacle, where contestants leave the real world by crossing a bridge over cheering, almost delirious, fans, toward the BB house as legendary heroes make their way to Mt Olympus. Audiovisual media re-form and re-create religious symbols and narratives in their endeavour to portray the world’s story.

Secondly, audiovisual media have allowed religious institutions to re-enter the sphere of public discourse. On the one hand, politicians assert the secularisation ideology by telling outspoken bishops and priests to “stick to spiritual concerns, and leave the politics to us”. Yet when we see our Prime Minister appear at a Hillsong gathering we realise how much politicians rely on support from religious groups to maintain electoral support.

The role of religious institutions in public life of late modernity thus depends on how they involve themselves in the discourses played out in mass media. Evangelical Protestant churches appear to thrive in the mass media market, not only because they seem to have fewer ethical concerns about borrowing from popular culture in their evangelism (such as the marketing of Christian mobile phone covers, or iPod shuffle cases in the shape of a cross), but also because their mythologies and doctrines are aligned with the codes and narratives arranged in mass media.

For evangelicals, the gospel is seen as a dynamic and creative concept. The dualistic theology of evangelicalism marries well with symbolism and narratives of television. Evangelicals hold a utilitarian view of media, and an emphasis on the individual as a social unit, in the same way that TV does, and focus on experiential and emotional communication of faith.

Mainline churches, however, are viewed as “boring” and “irrelevant”, constrained by the formulations and regulations of a print-based culture, by a generation who have new aesthetic standards shaped by a culture of sound and vision. This generation see the world they live in as rejected by these churches (perhaps rightly) as consumerist and devoid of meaning.

A paradox now exists in the West. Those societies that have established national churches (such as in Western Europe) find declining church attendances and an increasingly silenced institution in public life. On the other hand, those nations founded on the church vs. state divide (such as the United States, and to a lesser extent Australia) find that religion flourishes in a pluralist, autonomous social sphere.

So why should we think about mass media? We can take a cue from the Gospels. In them we see a Jesus who uses parables to explain God’s purpose for the world. These stories are free from ecclesial jargon, and use popular themes and symbols of an agrarian society to give a picture of the Kingdom of God. And in telling these stories Jesus takes theological debate out of the temple and into the streets and lanes, defying the authority of the religious elite.

Two thousand years later, people use mass media to construct a religious identity, outside the confines of religious institutions and their doctrines. The authority of the Church is challenged by the popularity of Supernatural, Touched by an Angel and Sunday Night Safran, that explore religious issues in a language and format that is by far more accessible and attractive. People alienated by the old forms of religious expression on a Sunday morning are finding safe places to explore new symbols, stories and ways of being in community in the virtual world.

The future of the Church is dependent on its willingness to enter this place, to explore the conversations played out therein, and entertain the notion that it is no longer the single authority on religious life in this country.

From Sydney Indymedia:

If you’re down on your luck, no place to go, and find yourself on Oxford Street in Sydney’s gentrified Darlinghurst, you could soon count on local businesses to come to your “aid” with a pamphlet stating (among other things):

Local business has pledged to make the new Oxford Street pavements as PLEASANT as possible. Did you realise asking people for money makes it UNPLEASANT? That’s what our customers tell us all the time. We’re sorry you’re down on your luck – but did you know there’s NO REASON for
you to damage our businesses and make the street UNPLEASANT?

How generous are these businesses, and their care for the community! Not even a half-eaten discarded gourmet foccacia that will cost them nothing, of 2% of their combined profits to improve living conditions in the inner city. Just enough money to produce some pamphlets and distribute to undesirables to “save” their businesses.

If you’re like me and offended by this notion, find out when and from what businesses are coming to the street, and boycott them!!! Make it bad for their business.

Show them that the only way to improve business is to support community members, not push them to one side.

There are many men in my life that I can say that I truly love. The top two are the usual suspects: my dad and my son. I have three male friends who are really close to me, and their names start with A, B and C. They are the guys who let me dirty up the couch in their lounge room and watch all their DVDs when I’m away from the family and studying in Melbourne. I’ve never been ashamed to say that I love these men, even when my partner would call out, “It’s one of your boyfriends on the phone!” If it weren’t for these guys I wouldn’t be in a such a happy place now, and I always need to let them know that.

Among them is one guy, B, who I can truly call a soul mate. For some reason he seems to know how I’m feeling before I do. He’s carried me through some pretty awful periods in my life, even when my depression and anger made it hard for people to be friendly to me. One day he proposed that when we die we get buried in different corners of a graveyard and have battleship game consoles instead of tombstones. It’s that kind of nerdy humour that can only be appreciated in a true friendship, and carries an intent that can only be described as true, flawless, friends-forever love.

Today B called me today to say he had a date last night, the third date with this girl, and he didn’t get home until very early this morning. I asked him, “Does this mean you have a girlfriend?”

B is one of those tragic-romantic types. I met him in 1996 and have never known him to have a girlfriend, while in those ten years I had been married twice and almost married another one (God-awful mistake that he had to carry me through). He’s never been a celibate, but somehow manages to find women with “complications”, or invent complications for himself that make seeing his way to second date really difficult.

Every once in a while it seemed to trouble him, but mostly he found himself quite comfortable in knowing that he preferred women with standards, rather than going out with someone who would consider going out with him. One part of his comic, macabre character that endeared him to me all the more.

But when I heard his reply, “You know, I reckon I do,” I was overcome with emotion. This girl seems really good value – educated, politicised, feminist, with a slight sarcasm in her humour – all the qualities I would recommend in a girlfriend for B, and he is very, very smitten. He told me he was happy, really happy.

I found myself jumping up and down and giggling like a school-girl. It was the freakiest, funniest and most excellent news I had heard from him in ten years. B was happy and on his way to being in love, no sign of looming “complications” in sight. I imagined meeting this girl, giving her a bear hug and congratulating her on making such a brilliant choice, and welcoming her to the family (Look, I know it’s only been the third date but I’m excited, okay?)

I realised that was acting like a giggly school-girl because, in cases like this, it is exactly what I am. I love love. And when love happens, or even the notion that love might be on the way, I want to run to watch it unfold.

Congratulations, B. You are the greatest and you deserve this. God knows we’ve waited long enough.

P.S. I’ve already called A and C about it.