Back to the Future: virtual theologising as recapitulation

Here is a (very draughty) draft of my paper. Please accept that this is a draft I am still working on, but let that encourage you to make comments! It is MS Word - for now - I am getting a conversion to PDF later. Here is the link to the Word Doc and (at last) one to the PDF.

Confessions of a butterfly mind

I have just spent a few days away at the bach trying to get some progress on my paper. I'm having trouble because every new article or chapter I read (to check or ground an idea) suggests five new ways to prepare the paper! I'm having to resist - after a few false starts at a total rewrite - and stick to my abstract.

Thanks and congratulations Iain, on being the first to post, well before the deadline of Friday! Stephen e-mailed me saying he intends to put his up as a PDF for ease of printing, I forgot to say to you all that the way to do this in blogger is:

1. pretend it is an image, click the image link and upload the file,
   
2. choose " Link to the image (jack_paper.pdf)"
   

It's an oddly roundabout way to do it, but there you are, that's the wonders of Internet software!

Stephen also asks for an "extension" till Tuesday (as this is a long weekend here) that should be fine, the real issue is not a date but the goal that we all read the papers in advance. And... since we are all as busy as eachother... that means getting them up soon!

Philosophical Conversation in a Virtual World

PDF Version

I'm quite sure that no one was going to read my entire paper on line so I've deleted the HTML version.

BBC article on academic blogging

Brief BBC News article on academics blogging,

Blogs are giving departments, staff and students the freedom and informality of tone impossible in scholarly journals or even the student newspaper.

Blogging lecturers say the technology provides them with easy online web access to students and improves communication outside of the classroom.

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4194669.stm

P2P theology

I am assuming that the point of this blog is to seek to process our work together, not just Q/A after a spoken presentation, but by interaction as the work is formed. In seeking this aim, here is some "processing."

My topic is P2P theology; colloborative learning in community. First introduction here.

Grid blogging: is a fascinating example.
"Grid blogging aims to investigate the potentials of a distributed media production model spread across blogosphere nodes. It seeks to ignite attention on specific topics at set times through variegated voices. A kind of decentralised flash mobbing for the mind, if you like. Decentralisation is key here. Unlike single collaborative blogging structures that unite discussions under the same URL, Grid blogging is about synchronized guerrilla publishing attacks carried out across a series of online locations. It respects and heightens the individual voice within a media-wise choir. It allows for idea-jamming and mosaics of diverse perspectives to emerge unfettered."

December 1, the word brand was blogged on by 66 bloggers around the world. It was picked up in Brazil and Slovenia. It was used in communities of interest, 8 emergingchurch blogs, 5 in the coaching. It "drew attention to the multiple facets that make up any issue of substance in these complexity-ridden times." (Ashleyb)

On January 15, the word ritual was blogged around the world.

It seeded and mutated. Project 365 became a visual grid blog, a photo a day for a year. It became theological. It was used as a way of talking around "gospel." Advent grid blog invited contributions on each Sunday of advent, using the words "seek", "stretch", "source", "union" as metaphors (note to self: you, Steve Tayor, seeded this mutant. Is there any value in a piece of research that quotes your own work!).

Grid blogging works with contemporary communication. It is collobarative. It is distributed. It is open. Anyone can participate.

Grid blogging also works against the grain of contemporary communication. Grid blogging allows multiple perspectives on a single issue. It introduces complexity, working against the "headlining" or "RSS feeding" of issues. Grid blogging encourages planning. It works against the "instant" nature of blogging, the "oh, this is what I ate for breakfast," by inviting the person to plan their contribution.

Paul Teusner - Religious Language

Hi everyone. I'm Paul and I'll be joining you at the Colloquium in February.

A small bit about me for starters. I'm a Uniting Chruch minister working in a youth service agency in Shepparton, Victoria, as chaplain and doing some work in suicide prevention and grief counselling in schools, as well as some work with young people from multicultural backgrounds. I'm also a student undertaking a TheolM course at the Melbourne College of Divinity, under the wise watch of Dr Horsfield. The title of my research thesis is Crossing Over or Crossing Out? The Media's Influence in Young People's Religious Language and Imaginings. It's a lengthy title that presents an exciting challenge for a fledgling student commentator amongst all that has been finely studied and written before me.

Now about what I have to offer. George Lindbeck(*) writes that from a cultural-lingiustic point of view, religious change is not understood as emerging from new religious experiences. It is rather seen as coming out of changing situations within a cultural-linguistic system. When a certain way of ordering or explaining the religious character of a cultural group creates anomalies in its application to new contexts (eg. new media, new places and times of reception), new concepts, symbols and ideas are discovered that solve the anomalies.

I want to see how well this theory fits when we examine the differences in the language employed to communicate religious ideas in different conexts, and how this may impact on the way audiences receive and interpret the information to form a religious identity. The contexts I want to identify are:

1. Traditional mainstream protestant communities

2. Evangelical protestant communities (I know, I know: we could go to town trying to delineate between the two. I don't want to dwell on it, but will acknowledge that the definitions of such words, and the line drawn between them, are not clear, and both "mainstream" and "evangelical" streams exist in the same denomination)

3. Secular popular media (eg. film, tv shows - I'll just use a couple of examples)

4. Religious television, and

5. Religious web sites and accompanying discussion outlets

Basically, I want to know what the conditions are that create new ways of talking about, interpreting and experiencing religion in these media spheres.

Since the spectrum is so broad, I will be brief on each one, to the point of perhaps simplifying too much. But my intent is start a discussion and see where it goes. In the meantime, please send in your comments.

Paul Teusner

(*) George A Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine. London: SPCK, 1994. P. 39.