Media Theory, Religion and Theology

Author: Richard J. Mouw
ISBN: 9780310231974
Pages: 144
Summary: A friendly, conversational look at what Calvinism has to say to the 21st century world, this book clears up some misconceptions about Calvinism and shows Calvinists how to live gently and respectfully with Christians who disagree as well as with non-Christians who have no clue what TULIP means.

Author: Kevin J. Vanhoozer
ISBN: 9780521793957
Pages: 312
Summary: Theologians have responded in many different ways to the challenges posed by theories of postmodernity. Kevin J. Vanhoozer addresses the issue directly in an introductory survey of what "talk about God" might mean in a postmodern age. The book offers examples of different types of contemporary theology in relation to postmodernity, and examines the key Christian doctrines in postmodern perspective. Leading theologians contribute to this informative Companion.

Author: Dennis L. Okholm
ISBN: 9780830818600
Pages: 238
Summary: Evangelicals are beginning to provide analyses of our postmodern society, but little has been done to suggest an effective apologetic strategy for reaching a culture that is pluralistic, consumer-oriented and infatuated with managerial and therapeutic approaches to life. This, then, is the first book to address that vital task.

Author: Mark Steele
ISBN: 9781434766922
Pages: 272
Summary: Somewhere between cold faith and hot pursuit lies lukewarm spirituality. And in the median between the wide path and the narrow road we find the middle ground of the spiritual walk. It's something not quite Christian. More like … Christian"ish".
Christianish may feel like authentic faith. Yet it's often easy to settle for the souvenir t-shirt the appearance of a transformed heart instead of taking the actual trip through true life change. We find ourselves settling for a personal faith that's been diluted by culture and other people's takes on spirituality.
"Christianish" tells the story of one man's journey to move from the in-between to a life that's centered on Christ. Through stories and insight, Mark delivers a compelling look at what our faith is all about. Readers will be encouraged to become true Christ-followers, and to just ditch the "ish".

Author: Quentin J. Schultze
ISBN: 9780870137747
Pages: 448
Summary: Dr Schultze has given a great critique about the typical evangelical's unquestioned trust in technology. He asks, what is all this trust in technology doing to our faith?



That is something I ask myself frequently as I watch churches chase after secular marketing gurus using marketing "technology" to turn their churches into glorified coffee shops and adding enough entertainment production values to their worship service "experiences" that they could make Cirque du Soleil jealous!



We need to use media to communicate in our age, but how is our media strategy changing us?



Schultze says, "Technology enables, but it also disables; in the process of making some worthwhile things happen, it prohibits other good things from taking place-even things that are primary matters of the spirit or habits of the heart. Moreover, the unexpected consequences of new media are sometimes more powerful than the carefully planned ones."



He also develops an interesting thesis showing that the First Amendment's constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech, the press, and the right to assemble is really centered on the freedom of religion, not the press as is often assumed, thus showing that in America religion and media have long been linked.



He has a chapter, "Discerning Professional Journalism" that analyzes the press and critiques their "fundamentalist" self-assumption that they are unbiased. The most practical parts of this book relate to journalism.



Of particular interest to me is how he shows historically how modern advertising borrows from Christian evangelical evangelism. In my opinion modern Christian marketing is not merely taking concepts from advertising, as much as it is reclaiming them back from secular sources that have borrowed them. I doubt the author would see ministry marketing exactly the way I do. But I don't need to understand or agree with everything he says to improve my perspective by reading his book.



The book is an important read for any Christian communicator. But whatever your perspective about Christian media is, don't expect the author to draw any conclusions that result in practical outcomes for Christian media producers in this book. This is more of an academic hang-wringing tome. In a couple places I felt he held up the "Anabaptists" (which I read as "Amish") as examples that didn't really connect with me.

Author: Diana Butler Bass
ISBN: 9780060859497
Pages: 336
Summary: For decades the accepted wisdom has been that America's mainline Protestant churches are in decline, eclipsed by evangelical mega-churches. Church and religion expert Diana Butler Bass wondered if this was true, and this book is the result of her extensive, three-year study of centrist and progressive churches across the country. Her surprising findings reveal just the opposite—that many of the churches are flourishing, and they are doing so without resorting to mimicking the mega-church, evangelical style.
"Christianity for the Rest of Us" describes this phenomenon and offers a how-to approach for Protestants eager to remain faithful to their tradition while becoming a vital spiritual community. As Butler Bass delved into the rich spiritual life of various Episcopal, United Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Lutheran churches, certain consistent practices—such as hospitality, contemplation, diversity, justice, discernment, and worship—emerged as core expressions of congregations seeking to rediscover authentic Christian faith and witness today.
This hopeful book, which includes a study guide for groups and individuals, reveals the practical steps that leaders and laypeople alike are taking to proclaim an alternative message about an emerging Christianity that strives for greater spiritual depth and proactively engages the needs of the world.

Author: John Shelby Spong
ISBN: 9781878282118
Pages: 79
Summary: Bishop Spong,a lifetime student and authority on Biblical history, has a distinct talent for helping the layman clearly understand meanings and context of often misquoted and erroneously used scriptures. Christpower, however, goes to the next level. His capable use of poetic license to communicate feeling and intent exhibits his thorough understanding and his wish to communicate spiritually to his readers. 5/5 stars to my favorite author.

Author: Matthew Paul Turner
ISBN: 9781400074716
Pages: 240
Summary: He spent his childhood trapped within the confines of countless bizarre, strict rules. And lived to tell about it.

In this first-hand account, author Matthew Paul Turner shares amusing–sometimes cringe-worthy–and poignant stories about growing up in a fundamentalist household, where even well-intentioned contemporary Christian music was proclaimed to be “of the devil.”

"churched "is a collection of stories that detail an American boy’s experiences growing up in a culture where men weren’t allowed let their hair grow to touch their ears (“an abomination!”), women wouldn’t have been caught dead in a pair of pants (unless swimming), and the pastor couldn’t preach a sermon without a healthy dose of hellfire and brimstone. Matthew grapples with the absurdity of a Sunday School Barbie burning, the passionate annual boxing match between the pastor and Satan, and the holiness of being baptized a fifth time–while growing into a young man who, amidst the chaotic mess of religion, falls in love with Jesus.

Author: Roger Finke
ISBN: 9780813535531
Pages: 368
Summary: Praise for the first edition:
"If Roger Finke and Rodney Stark are right, the current understanding of American religious history ought to be turned upside down . . . A pugnacious book."––New York Times
"Essential reading."––Kirkus Reviews
"Impressive . . . Bound to generate lively discussion––and not a little controversy––within the nation’s church community."—U.S. Catholic
In The Churching of America, 1776–2005, Roger Finke and Rodney Stark once again revolutionize the way we think about religion. Extending the argument that the nation’s religious environment acts as a free market economy, this extensively revised and expanded edition offers new research, statistics, and stories that document increased participation in religious groups from Independence through the twenty-first century. Adding to the thorough coverage of "mainline" religious groups, new sections chart the remarkable development and growth of African American churches from the early nineteenth century forward. Finke and Stark show how, like other "upstart sects," these churches competed for adherents and demonstrate how American norms of religious freedom allowed African American churches to construct organizational havens with little outside intervention. This edition also includes new sections on the ethnic religious communities of recent immigrants—stories that echo those told of ethnic religious enclaves in the nineteenth century.
Bringing together timely new information and evidence, this provocative book insists, more than ever, on a major reevaluation of established ideas about American religious institutions. Written with lively prose, it will stir debate within church and academic communities, as well as among laypersons interested in the history of religion.

Author: Joel Kotkin
ISBN: 9780375756511
Pages: 256
Summary: If humankind can be said to have a single greatest creation, it would be those places that represent the most eloquent expression of our species’s ingenuity, beliefs, and ideals: the city. In this authoritative and engagingly written account, the acclaimed urbanist and bestselling author examines the evolution of urban life over the millennia and, in doing so, attempts to answer the age-old question: What makes a city great?

Despite their infinite variety, all cities essentially serve three purposes: spiritual, political, and economic. Kotkin follows the progression of the city from the early religious centers of Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China to the imperial centers of the Classical era, through the rise of the Islamic city and the European commercial capitals, ending with today’s post-industrial suburban metropolis.

Despite widespread optimistic claims that cities are “back in style,” Kotkin warns that whatever their form, cities can thrive only if they remain sacred, safe, and busy–and this is true for both the increasingly urbanized developing world and the often self-possessed “global cities” of the West and East Asia.

Looking at cities in the twenty-first century, Kotkin discusses the effects of developments such as shifting demographics and emerging technologies. He also considers the effects of terrorism–how the religious and cultural struggles of the present pose the greatest challenge to the urban future.

Truly global in scope, The City is a timely narrative that will place Kotkin in the company of Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and other preeminent urban scholars.


"From the Hardcover edition."

Author: Steven M. Cahn
ISBN: 9780872208599
Pages: 1237
Summary: In keeping with those virtues which have made it the leading collection of its kind, the fifth edition of Classics of Western Philosophy features unabridged works (or substantive selections) in preeminent and thoughtfully annotated translations and editions. As before, Introductions by a team of distinguished scholars including William Mann, Steven Cahn, Patricia W. Kitcher, George Sher, Derk Pereboom, Philip W. Kitcher, Charles Guignon, Israel Scheffler, and Jonathan Vogel offer authoritative guidance to the philosophers and their work. And now coverage extends into the twentieth century, culminating in a judicious-and nontechnical-selection of philosophical writings that are both classic in their own right and representative of main currents of recent philosophical thought.

Author: Bob Walsh
ISBN: 9781590596913
Pages: 351
Summary:
Almost overnight, blogging has become a social, political, and business force to be reckoned with. Your fellow students, workers, and competitors are joining the blogosphereand making money, influencing elections, getting hired, growing market share, and having funto the tune of 8,000 new bloggers a day.
"Clear Blogging" sets out to answer in nontechnical terms what blogging has to offer and why and how you should blog. If youve never read a blog, but you keep hearing that term on the news, "Clear Blogging" will show you why blogging has shaken up mainstream media, and how a blogger can end up on CNN. If youre just starting to read blogs, "Clear Blogging" is your native guide to the blogosphere, covering how to get the best, most interesting information with the least amount of time and effort. The main course of "Clear Blogging" shows what you stand to gain from blogging, and how you can go from your first post to being welcomed aboard the blogospheres A-list.
Whether youre already blogging or youre considering it, youll want to get a copy of this book because it Covers how blogging can improve your job prospects, professional practice, business revenue, company reputation, and the world you live in Includes over 50 interviews with successful bloggers who are influencing products, policy makers, potential employers, and millions of the general publicall while earning an online reputation and real profits Shows you how to apply the best practices of news gathering to build your blogs reputation and brand Is heavy on the specific benefits of blogging and light on the technological aspects

Author: Douglas Rushkoff
ISBN: 9781573228299
Pages: 304
Summary: Noted media pundit Douglas Rushkoff gives a devastating critique of the influence techniques behind our culture of rampant consumerism. With a skilled analysis of how experts in the fields of marketing, advertising, retail atmospherics, and hand-selling attempt to take away our ability to make rational decisions, Rushkoff delivers a bracing account of why we buy what we buy, and helps us recognize when we're being treated like consumers instead of human beings.

Author: Matthew Paul Turner
ISBN: 9780974694283
Pages: 157
Summary: Written for anyone who’s ever struggled to share their faith with others, The Coffeehouse Gospel shows Christians how to evangelize effectively by sharing their personal stories of how God has impacted their lives. It includes questions and journal sections to help readers articulate their own spiritual experiences and show them how to be ready to defend and express their faith.

Author: Henry Jenkins
ISBN: 9780814742815
Pages: 336
Summary: Winner of the 2007 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award
Convergence Culture maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways.
Henry Jenkins, one of America s most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge. He takes us into the secret world of "Survivor" Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show s secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young "Harry Potter" fans who are writing their own Hogwart's tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise. He shows us how "The Matrix" has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels. Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes these two forces are at war.
Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.

Author: Todd Johnson
ISBN: 9781587430329
Pages: 236
Summary: A unique resource for identifying issues involved in Protestant pastoral ministry and adjusting pastoral approach to those issues.

Author: Steven Prigge
ISBN: 9781879505827
Pages: 215
Summary: As entertaining as it is enlightening, Created by… presents a stellar cast of 21 show creators who candidly talk about writing and selling hit television series.
J.J. Abrams (Alias, Lost)
Alan Ball (Six Feet Under)
Yvette Lee Bowser (Living Single, Half & Half)
Mark Brazill (That '70s Show)
Ilene Chaiken (The L Word)
Larry David (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm)
Tom Fontana (Oz)
Tracy Gamble (8 Simple Rules)
Dave Hackel (Becker)
Barbara Hall (Joan of Arcadia)
Brenda Hampton (7th Heaven, Fat Actress)
Bill Lawrence (Scrubs)
Dennis Leoni (Resurrection Blvd.)
Max Mutchnick and David Kohan (Will & Grace)
Tracy Newman and Jonathan Stark (According to Jim)
Josh Schwartz (The O.C.)
Shawn Ryan (The Shield)
Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls)
Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel)
They discuss influences • writing spec scripts • first jobs in TV • getting an agent • mentors • being staffed as a writer • the pitch • writing a pilot • putting yourself in the characters you create • rewriting • producing a pilot • marketing • hiring a writing staff • making a show last • TV writing vs. film writing • drama vs. sitcom • cable vs. network TV • what show creators look for in a writer • writers block • luck … and much more.
Created by… is a lively, well-written must-have book for all screenwriters and television writers—wannabes, novices, and pros—as well as all avid TV fans.

Author: Paul Starr
ISBN: 9780465081943
Pages: 496
Summary: America's leading role in today's information revolution may seem simply to reflect its position as the world's dominant economy and most powerful state. But by the early nineteenth century, when the United States was neither a world power nor a primary center of scientific discovery, it was already a leader in communications-in postal service and newspaper publishing, then in development of the telegraph and telephone networks, later in the whole repertoire of mass communications.In this wide-ranging social history of American media, from the first printing press to the early days of radio, Paul Starr shows that the creation of modern communications was as much the result of political choices as of technological invention. With his original historical analysis, Starr examines how the decisions that led to a state-run post office and private monopolies on the telegraph and telephone systems affected a developing society. He illuminates contemporary controversies over freedom of information by exploring such crucial formative issues as freedom of the press, intellectual property, privacy, public access to information, and the shaping of specific technologies and institutions. America's critical choices in these areas, Starr argues, affect the long-run path of development in a society and have had wide social, economic, and even military ramifications. The Creation of the Media not only tells the history of the media in a new way; it puts America and its global influence into a new perspective.

Author: Andrew Keen
ISBN: 9780385520812
Pages: 256
Summary: "Amateur hour has arrived, and the audience is running the show
"
In a hard-hitting and provocative polemic, Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen exposes the grave consequences of today’s new participatory Web 2.0 and reveals how it threatens our values, economy, and ultimately the very innovation and creativity that forms the fabric of American achievement.

Our most valued cultural institutions, Keen warns—our professional newspapers, magazines, music, and movies—are being overtaken by an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Advertising revenue is being siphoned off by free classified ads on sites like Craigslist; television networks are under attack from free user-generated programming on YouTube and the like; file-sharing and digital piracy have devastated the multibillion-dollar music business and threaten to undermine our movie industry. Worse, Keen claims, our “cut-and-paste” online culture—in which intellectual property is freely swapped, downloaded, remashed, and aggregated—threatens over 200 years of copyright protection and intellectual property rights, robbing artists, authors, journalists, musicians, editors, and producers of the fruits of their creative labors.

In today’s self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred. When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented.

The very anonymity that the Web 2.0 offers calls into question the reliability of the information we receive and creates an environment in which sexual predators and identity thieves can roam free. While no Luddite—Keen pioneered several Internet startups himself—he urges us to consider the consequences of blindly supporting a culture that endorses plagiarism and piracy and that fundamentally weakens traditional media and creative institutions.

Offering concrete solutions on how we can rein in the free-wheeling, narcissistic atmosphere that pervades the Web, THE CULT OF THE AMATEUR is a wake-up call to each and every one of us.


"From the Hardcover edition."

Author: Clotaire Rapaille
ISBN: 9780767920575
Pages: 224
Summary: Why are people around the world so very different? What makes us live, buy, even love as we do? The answers are in the codes.
In "The Culture Code", internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies. His groundbreaking revelations shed light not just on business but on the way every human being acts and lives around the world.

Rapaille’s breakthrough notion is that we acquire a silent system of codes as we grow up within our culture. These codes—the Culture Code—are what make us American, or German, or French, and they invisibly shape how we behave in our personal lives, even when we are completely unaware of our motives. What’s more, we can learn to crack the codes that guide our actions and achieve new understanding of why we do the things we do.

Rapaille has used the Culture Code to help Chrysler build the PT Cruiser—the most successful American car launch in recent memory. He has used it to help Procter & Gamble design its advertising campaign for Folger’s coffee – one of the longest lasting and most successful campaigns in the annals of advertising. He has used it to help companies as diverse as GE, AT&T, Boeing, Honda, Kellogg, and L’Oréal improve their bottom line at home and overseas. And now, in "The Culture Code", he uses it to reveal why Americans act distinctly like Americans, and what makes us different from the world around us.

In "The Culture Code", Dr. Rapaille decodes two dozen of our most fundamental archetypes—ranging from sex to money to health to America itself—to give us “a new set of glasses” with which to view our actions and motivations. Why are we so often disillusioned by love? Why is fat a solution rather than a problem? Why do we reject the notion of perfection? Why is fast food in our lives to stay? The answers are in the Codes.

Understanding the Codes gives us unprecedented freedom over our lives. It lets us do business in dramatically new ways. And it finally explains why people around the world really "are" different, and reveals the hidden clues to understanding us all.

Author: Herbert Schiller
ISBN:
Pages:
Summary:

Author: Andy Crouch
ISBN: 9780830833948
Pages: 284
Summary: It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture or to copy culture. Most of the time, we just consume culture. But the only way to change culture is to create culture.
Andy Crouch unleashes a stirring manifesto calling Christians to be culture makers. For too long, Christians have had an insufficient view of culture and have waged misguided "culture wars." But we must reclaim the cultural mandate to be the creative cultivators that God designed us to be. Culture is what we make of the world, both in creating cultural artifacts as well as in making sense of the world around us. By making chairs and omelets, languages and laws, we participate in the good work of culture making.
Crouch unpacks the complexities of how culture works and gives us tools for cultivating and creating culture. He navigates the dynamics of cultural change and probes the role and efficacy of our various cultural gestures and postures. Keen biblical exposition demonstrates that creating culture is central to the whole scriptural narrative, the ministry of Jesus and the call to the church. He guards against naive assumptions about "changing the world," but points us to hopeful examples from church history and contemporary society of how culture is made and shaped. Ultimately, our culture making is done in partnership with God's own making and transforming of culture.
A model of his premise, this landmark book is sure to be a rallying cry for a new generation of culturally creative Christians. Discover your calling and join the culture makers.

Author: Stephen L. Carter
ISBN: 9780385474986
Pages: 352
Summary: "The Culture Of Disbelief" has  been the subject of an enormous amount of media  attention from the first moment it was published.  Hugely successful in hardcover, the Anchor paperback  is sure to find a large audience as the  ever-increasing, enduring debate about the relationship of  church and state in America continues. In "The  Culture Of Disbelief", Stephen Carter  explains how we can preserve the vital separation of  church and state while embracing rather than  trivializing the faith of millions of citizens or  treating religious believers with disdain. What makes  Carter's work so intriguing is that he uses liberal  means to arrive at what are often considered  conservative ends. Explaining how preserving a special  role for religious communities can strengthen our  democracy, "The Culture Of Disbelief"  recovers the long tradition of liberal religious  witness (for example, the antislavery,  antisegregation, and Vietnam-era antiwar movements). Carter  argues that the problem with the 1992 Republican  convention was not the "fact" of  open religious advocacy, but the "political  positions" being advocated.

Author: Douglas Rushkoff
ISBN: 9781903083246
Pages: 272
Summary: This is an ideas-led, exuberant documentary about the converging strands of a new era, the empowerments of cyber-technology, and the precipitation of new ways of life. Originally written in 1994, it outlines the strands of the cyber subculture as it was emerging-- the favored drugs, the influential individuals, the hackers and their motivations, the science chaos and the complexity of fractuals. This book will endure as a reminder of how modern cyberculture came about--a note to the future form an individual perceptive enough to grasp the profound effects of the cyber revolution.