Now I'm doing it...

I wrote recently about the tensions between written religious texts and new media interpretations. Now I'm wrestling with the converse. Part of the data gathering includes audio recordings of interviews. I'm a baaad typist so transcribing takes me a long time. I may resort to hiring someone to assist with some of that work, although there is a benefit to being immersed in the interviews word by word by word.Why do I think this is important? Because transcribing is an interpretive process: when I convert spoken word to written text I..."flatten it out" in some respect. Verbal communication consists of the words spoken (sounds which placed together have a symbolic meaning for the speakers of that...

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"Know thyself" Part 1

The Greek aphorism gnōthi seauton has been attributed to a number of ancient philosophers but regardless of authorship its call to introspection remains true: know yourself. Were it only so easy.It s not just individuals that must do this. Churches need to know themselves as well. They need to know what they believe and they need to know their history. I'll come back to beliefs in a later post.Churches have histories like people. Even in Canada, some churches go back 300 years. That's a lot of ministry. I remember rooting around in the basement of Emerson Baptist Church when I ministered there, the second oldest Baptist church in Western Canada. Like the show Ancestors in the Attic, exploring...

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The Word spoken...

I went to see Jim Carey's "A Christmas Carol" and was inspired to re-read the book. The movie seemed to be undecided whether it was to be a literal interpretation of the original Dickens story or something new (and Jim Carey-ish.) A good movie but not the same as the book. I've been thinking a lot about the debate between the print and new media in religion.The peoples of the Book (Muslims, Jewish and Christians) have an text centered faith rooted respectively in the Koran, Tanakh, and Christian Bible each sharing significant Torah traditions. I'm interested (at present) in my research with Christian protestant evangelicalism and its use of information. In this theological tradition, there is...

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