Networked Theology (Engaging Culture)

Networked Theology (Engaging Culture) PDF Author: Heidi A. Campbell
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493404393
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
The Theological Implications of Digital Culture This informed theology of communication and media analyzes how we consume new media and technologies and discusses the impact on our social and religious lives. Combining expertise in religion online, theology, and technology, the authors synthesize scholarly work on religion and the internet for a nonspecialist audience. They show that both media studies and theology offer important resources for helping Christians engage in a thoughtful and faith-based critical evaluation of the effect of new media technologies on society, our lives, and the church.

Networked Theology (Engaging Culture)

Networked Theology (Engaging Culture) PDF Author: Heidi A. Campbell
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493404393
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
The Theological Implications of Digital Culture This informed theology of communication and media analyzes how we consume new media and technologies and discusses the impact on our social and religious lives. Combining expertise in religion online, theology, and technology, the authors synthesize scholarly work on religion and the internet for a nonspecialist audience. They show that both media studies and theology offer important resources for helping Christians engage in a thoughtful and faith-based critical evaluation of the effect of new media technologies on society, our lives, and the church.

A Matrix of Meanings

A Matrix of Meanings PDF Author: Craig Detweiler
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 080102417X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
A lighthearted analysis of modern pop culture considers what lessons can be learned from today's movies, music, television, and more, exploring how its popularity and successes reflects today's society. Original.

Church as Network

Church as Network PDF Author: Jeffrey H. Mahan
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538135817
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
The emergence of a digital culture has radically challenged assumptions about religious identity, how people connect and maintain relationships, and how people follow and give authority to leaders. This book explores the lessons digital culture offers as new types of congregational networks become popular and effective avenues for ministry.

When Religion Meets New Media

When Religion Meets New Media PDF Author: Heidi Campbell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113427212X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This lively book focuses on how different Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities engage with new media. Rather than simply reject or accept new media, religious communities negotiate complex relationships with these technologies in light of their history and beliefs. Heidi Campbell suggests a method for studying these processes she calls the "religious-social shaping of technology" and students are asked to consider four key areas: religious tradition and history; contemporary community values and priorities; negotiation and innovating technology in light of the community; communal discourses applied to justify use. A wealth of examples such as the Christian e-vangelism movement, Modern Islamic discourses about computers and the rise of the Jewish kosher cell phone, demonstrate the dominant strategies which emerge for religious media users, as well as the unique motivations that guide specific groups.

Exploring Religious Community Online

Exploring Religious Community Online PDF Author: Heidi Campbell
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820471051
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Exploring Religious Community Online is the first comprehensive study of the development and implications of online communities for religious groups. This book investigates religious community online by examining how Christian communities have adopted internet technologies, and looks at how these online practices pose new challenges to offline religious community and culture.

Godwired

Godwired PDF Author: Rachel Wagner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136512136
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Godwired offers an engaging exploration of religious practice in the digital age. It considers how virtual experiences, like stories, games and rituals, are forms of world-building or "cosmos construction" that serve as a means of making sense of our own world. Such creative and interactive activity is, arguably, patently religious. This book examines: the nature of sacred space in virtual contexts technology as a vehicle for sacred texts who we are when we go online what rituals have in common with games and how they work online what happens to community when people worship online how religious "worlds" and virtual "worlds" nurture similar desires. Rachel Wagner suggests that whilst our engagement with virtual reality can be viewed as a form of religious activity, today’s virtual religion marks a radical departure from traditional religious practice – it is ephemeral, transient, rapid, disposable, hyper-individualized, hybrid, and in an ongoing state of flux.

Thy Kingdom Connected (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith)

Thy Kingdom Connected (ēmersion: Emergent Village resources for communities of faith) PDF Author: Dwight J. Friesen
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 9781441208019
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Networks are everywhere. From our roads to our relationships, from our food supply to our power grids, networks are an integral part of how we live. Similarly, our churches, denominations, and even the kingdom of God are networks. Knowing how networks function and how to work with rather than against them has enormous implications for how we do ministry. In Thy Kingdom Connected, Dwight J. Friesen brings the complex theories of networking to church leaders in easy-to-understand, practical ways. Rather than bemoaning the modern disintegration of things like authority and structure, Friesen inspires hope for a more connective vision of life with God. He shows those involved in ministry how they can maximize already existing connections between people in order to spread the Gospel, get people plugged in at their churches, and grow together as disciples.

Watching TV Religiously (Engaging Culture)

Watching TV Religiously (Engaging Culture) PDF Author: Kutter Callaway
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 1493405853
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Helping Christians Understand the Power and Meaning of TV Since its inception, television has captured the cultural imagination. Outside of work and sleep, it is now the primary preoccupation of most Americans. Individuals consume upward of five hours of TV daily, even more when taking into account viewing done online and on mobile devices. TV is so ingrained in the fabric of everyday life that it can't help but function as one of the primary means through which we make sense of our lives and the world. This book shows that television--as a technology, a narrative art form, a commodity, and a portal for our ritual lives--confronts viewers theologically. Whether its content is explicitly spiritual or not, TV routinely invites (and sometimes demands) theological reflection. This book articulates something of the presence and activity of God in the golden age of TV and forges an appropriate response to an ever-changing cultural form. It constructs a theology of television that allows for both celebration and critique, helping Christians more fully understand and appreciate the power and meaning of TV. A supplemental website provides additional resources, conversations, and close readings of TV programs.

Creating Church Online

Creating Church Online PDF Author: Tim Hutchings
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1136277501
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Online churches are internet-based Christian communities, pursuing worship, discussion, friendship, support, proselytization, and other key religious goals through computer-mediated communication. Hundreds of thousands of people are now involved with online congregations, generating new kinds of ritual, leadership, and community and new networks of global influence. Creating Church Online constructs a rich ethnographic account of the diverse cultures of online churches, from virtual worlds to video streams. This book also outlines the history of online churchgoing, from its origins in the 1980s to the present day, and traces the major themes of academic and Christian debate around this topic. Applying some of the leading current theories in the study of religion, media and culture to this data, Tim Hutchings proposes a new model of religious design in contexts of mediatization, and draws attention to digital networks, transformative third spaces and terrains of existential vulnerability. Creating Church Online advances our understanding of the significance and impact of digital media in the religious and social lives of its users, in search of new theoretical frameworks for digital religion.

Being Conformed to Christ in Community

Being Conformed to Christ in Community PDF Author: James G. Samra
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567364666
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
This work explores Paul's conception of maturity, paying special attention to the maturation process and the role of the local church in facilitating this process. Although central to Paul's theology, maturity is often overlooked in Pauline studies. An exegetical-theological study of the seven generally accepted epistles, this work makes heuristic use of three studies for the purpose of illuminating Paul's thoughts regarding maturity: a survey of modern psychology, and analyses of the communities of Qumran and of the Therapeutae. Samra argues that Paul understood his apostolic commission to involve delivering mature believers on the day of Christ. Samra suggests that the central motif of Pauline maturity is conformity of believers to the image of Christ and that believers' attitudes and actions become aligned with those exhibited by Christ, who provides the defining standard of maturity for Paul. For Paul there are five means used by the Spirit to conform believers to the image of Christ, which Samra presents and analyzes as components of the maturation process, namely: identifying with Christ, enduring suffering, experiencing the presence of God, receiving and living out wisdom from God, and imitating a godly example. Samra concludes by arguing that Paul expected the local church to facilitate maturation so that believers' participation in a local assembly would result in their being conformed to Christ. The church does this by facilitating the five components of the maturation process.