modernity celebrated syllogism, systematization, and reason above all else. And the modern church followed suit by unconsciously offering an “unchanging” gospel pressed into a linear, sequential, and reasonable formula:
Apologies for your sins Believe in Jesus = Go to heaven.
As the print era wanes and electronic culture reigns, we are witnessing a morphing of modernity’s “unchanging” gospel. Something as simple as communicating with images and icons has changed the way we conceive of the gospel. Images, regardless of their content, erode our capacity for abstract thought and linear reasoning; while at the same time reviving our preference for narrative, concrete experience, and mystery.
The result is a gospel according to electronic culture, which is often carried by the emerging church. This budding approach to faith embodies the bias of images (just as Eastern Orthodoxy has for centuries). It is a gospel encountered through iconic story, mystery, and experiential ritual, rather than linear proposition and reasoned argument. It is a gospel bathed in the mystery of God’s Kingdom. It is elusive, deliberately defying categorization.
Quite so. Though I'm not sure about images removing capacity for abstract thought ... it's a different kind of abstract thought but it's still there, I think. Geometry is pretty abstract and yet imagistic to a high degree. What I really liked about this though is the recognition that the best road ahead lies with learning to adapt, not to try to totally resist. After all the churches didn't do badly in adapting to modernity, in actual fact despite the dire warnings of those who thought print would destroy thinking and pose a threat to culture and civilisation. Even the resisters, the RC church, eventually made peace with it.
Leadership Blog: Out of Ur: The Gospel According to Electronic Culture: What if the medium really is the message?:Filed in: gospel, mission, culture, message, media
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