1st Edition
A Theology for a Mediated God How Media Shapes Our Notions About Divinity
A Theology for a Mediated God introduces a new way to examine the shaping effects of media on our notions of God and divinity. In contrast to more conventional social-scientific methodologies and conversations about the relationship between religion and media, Dennis Ford argues that the characteristics we ascribe to a medium can be extended and applied metaphorically to the characteristics we ascribe to God—just as earlier generations attempted to comprehend God through the metaphors of father, shepherd, or mother. As a result, his work both challenges and bridges the gap between students of religion and media, and theology.
Preface : Why Theology? 1. Introduction: God, Mediation, and Theology 2. God and the Mediation of Orality 3. God and the Mediation of Literacy 4. God and the Mediation of the Figurative Image 5. God and the Mediation of the Body 6. God and the Mediation of Ones and Zeros 7. Conclusion: From Medium to Metaphor Index
Biography
Dennis Ford is the author of two books: Sins of Omission (1990) and The Search for Meaning (2007). After earning degrees at Macalester College (BA), Iliff School of Theology (M.Div.), and Syracuse University (Ph.D.), he pursued a career in publishing, primarily through his association with Scholars Press, formerly the "publishing arm" of the American Academy of Religion and Society for Biblical Literature.
"Ford's A Theology for a Mediated God is a well written, carefully constructed, and thoughtfully argued volume….[He reflects] on how different media (speech/sound, writing, the visual, the body, and the digital) encourage particular ways of thinking about God and demonstrating the ways that particular Christian understandings of God are rooted in the worlds of orality and writing within which they were first developed. Beyond that he teases out the way that embodied theologies and those rooted in the logic of digital culture and communication lead in new directions which, he acknowledges, present both possibilities and challenges for Christian communities."Jeffrey H. Mahan, Iliff School of Theology, USA
