The Interactive Perspective on Christian Communication

The Interactive Perspective on Christian Communication

1. Introduction

The aim of this study is to develop policies and strategies for the churches to interact with the mass media and the audience in order to share the gospel. The church and her communicators - Christian communicators - see their role in the interaction between the media and the audience essentially from two perspectives. After introducing these perspectives this chapter will analyse the World Council of Churches Assemblies’ Reports, some of the Roman Catholic Pontifical documents on the ‘Means of Social Communication’ and some of the World Association for Christian Communication Congress’ declarations. The primary task of the first part of this chapter is to show that some of the world bodies that represent the churches reflect these approaches in their reports on communication. These two perspectives are introduced and critically studied in order to highlight the importance of an interactive approach that is relevant to Christian communication today.

First, Christian communication involves sharing the gospel with people and enabling them to establish a relationship with God. It is to obey the commission that Jesus gave to his disciples to spread the gospel to ‘all nations’ (Mk.13:10). It is seen as the responsibility of all Christians to proclaim the message of the gospel to the entire world through all possible means of communication. Secondly the churches are concerned about the ethical issues that arise from the impact of the media on the people’s beliefs and values. From an ethical perspective the mass media are often seen as powerful institutions that raise moral issues and sometimes present a challenge to the basic principles of the gospel. On the one hand the churches attempt to challenge such effects of the media and on the other hand they try to make the audience aware of the ethical issues. Even though other views such as dialogic and cultural engagement also continue to influence the churches’ attitude towards the media these two primary perspectives dominate most of the discussion in the WCC Assemblies’ reports and in the Pontifical Commission Documents.

These approaches view the mass media either as instruments of communicating the gospel (instrumentalist perspective) or as powerful tools that can make a negative impact on the audience’s values and beliefs (effect-centred perspective). By emphasising the instrumentalist approach the churches focus mainly on the role of the communicator, on the media as powerful instruments, on their content and on their reception. By emphasising the effect-centred approach, they highlight the effect that a medium, its content and its institutions, has on the audience. These two approaches of the churches are based on certain theological assumptions that are supported by the interpretation of the biblical narratives in which God is often seen as the primary source of communication.

Having received the revelation from God through Jesus, some churches claim to possess the gospel and see it as their duty to communicate it to others. In this concept of revelation the audiences are often seen as faithful receivers. This perspective on communication is given importance by some of the churches’ documents, in their discussions about their mission through the media. However some of the recent WCC Assemblies’ reports and Pontifical documents (such as Communio et Progressio) have attempted to depart radically from this perspective and have emphasised the dialogical aspect of communication. This can be difficult, because the instrumentalist and effect- centred perspectives are often grounded in certain theological bases which will be identified in the following sections. For this reason many Christian communicators and the church documents tend not to describe the audience as active participants in the construction of meanings of the gospel. World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) has emphasised this participatory approach in their declarations and principles. This chapter will also analyse the participatory approach that is emphasised in the WACC’s documents. Thus the first task of this chapter is to study whether some of the churches’ documents give primary importance to the instrumentalist and effect-centred perspectives on communication in their reports.

Communicating the gospel does not occur in a vacuum. The churches need to recognise more clearly that Christian communication occurs only when audiences also participate in this process. Audiences are already engaged in various processes of communication through which a wide range of religious and social meanings are mediated and made available to them. This study emphasises the role of the audience both in sharing and constructing the meanings of the gospel. In order to present the gospel and its meanings to a wider audience the churches have to start the process from where the audiences are. This gives rise to the need for an ‘alternative’ perspective on communication that can help the churches to engage effectively with the audience using the media.

In order to develop this alternative perspective and a theological basis this chapter will focus on Carey’s cultural definition of communication and Kierkegaard’s concept of indirect communication. Even though the churches’ statements may not have a direct impact on media practices or reflect all the views of the member churches, they are widely discussed and considered by many Christian media institutions while developing strategies and policies. By referring to the way in which Jesus interacted with his audience through parables, this study will emphasise the need for the churches to give priority to this perspective on communication.

2. The Documents of the Churches on Christian Communication

A. Introducing the Documents of the Churches

The reports of the WCC Assemblies and the Pontifical Commission of Social Communication’s pastoral instructions have been selected because these institutions, and their statements, reflect the opinion of the majority of the members or representatives attending the respective assemblies from all over the world. This study also includes WACC Congress declarations in order to show that a few institutions have already begun to give importance to the participatory approach to communication. Their reports have also been sent to their respective member churches for consideration. The Catholic Church reports are included in this research, because in India, Christian communicators from different denominations, including the Catholic Church try to work together in media institutions, all representing minority religious communities.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is an ecumenical Christian organisation representing 336 churches and denominations from 120 countries. Every seven years, the WCC convenes an International Assembly calling together representatives from its member-churches. The assembled delegates set policies for the Council’s work and make statements regarding the churches’ roles in various aspects of contemporary society. WCC assemblies began making statements about the interaction between the church and the media in 1961 when the Third Assembly was held in New Delhi. In this chapter particular reference will be made to the statements of the WCC Assemblies in Uppsala (1968) and in Vancouver (1983) on the media such as The Church and the Media of Mass Communication [Goodall 1968: 389-401] and Communicating Credibly [Gill 1983:103-110]. These statements were adopted by the Council and were recommended to the churches for study and appropriate action [Goodall 1968:267; Gill 1983:103].

The Catholic Church has made statements on the media either through encyclical letters or through Vatican Council decrees. Eilers [1993:5] points out that some of these texts have a normative character and are considered as the basic teaching of the church on social communication. Reference will be made to Eilers’ collection and Internet version of the basic documents of the Papal encyclical letter and Pontifical Commission’s reports on the means of social communication, particularly to Inter Mirifica (1963), Communio et Progressio (1971) and Aetatis Novae (1992). These statements are considered to be more positive statements about communication than the earlier Pontifical Decrees [Soukup 1996:ix]. For example, the earlier documents such as Vigilanti Cura (1936) asked the Bishops and the entire Catholic world to put a ban on bad motion pictures [Eilers 1993:16]. The recent documents attempted to understand the role of the media in society from a broader perspective (such as dialogical perspective in Communio et progressio - 115). My study will also refer to the annual Papal messages on the World Communication Day every year since 1967 when they began. Hamelink [1975] and other contemporary scholars have studied some of these documents. I refer to them in the critical analysis of these documents.

Some of the churches’ documents did not escape criticism from members of the Assemblies or from some of the representative members of the churches. In the Vancouver WCC Assembly the document on the media was thought to be too negative in its assessment of the potentiality of the media by one of the representatives of the churches from Germany [Gill 1983:103]. And at the Vatican Council, before the final vote on Inter Mirifica by the members of the Pontifical Commission, a group of American Catholic scholars issued a statement against the decree which received support from three Council theologians. These statements reflect the views of the majority of the members of the councils or assemblies. The following sections will give a brief introduction to the church documents.

This study also recognises the importance of a few international institutions such as the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) which try to contribute to the wider Christian communities. WACC has its general secretariat in London, UK, and has eight regional associations in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and the Pacific. WACC has more than 800 corporate and personal members in 115 countries worldwide [WACC Web 2000].

WACC is an international, ecumenical organisation established by Christian communicators whose aim is to prioritise Christian values in the world's communication and development needs. Its main focus is on empowering people and promoting democratic structures of communication11. It organises various programmes at international and regional levels particularly conferences, and makes statements regarding communication for discussion by churches around the world. I will analyse the declarations of the WACC congress and some other conferences that give importance to participatory communication.

B. WCC Documents

From the time of the third WCC Assembly in New Delhi (1961), statements were prepared regarding communication and the mass media. In the New Delhi report there was an attempt to define Christian communication and to see the role of the mass media in it. It states, “To communicate the Gospel involves the willingness and the ability of the evangelist to identify himself with those whom he addresses” [Hooft 1962:82]. This statement clearly indicates the need for the communicator to share the concerns of youth, workers and intellectuals, to sympathise with their aspirations and to learn their language. When this report speaks of the mass media, it referred to radio, television and the press. It recognised the importance of using them as instruments of communication [Hooft 1962:84].

In Uppsala (1968), a special report was presented to the assembly in which the function, use and effect of the media were discussed. The term media included films, communication satellites, records and magnetic tapes besides television and radio [Goodall 1968:389]. The whole of the text can be summarised in one sentence: “the mass media can be employed for either powerful communication or deceitful manipulation” [Goodall 1968:30]. Even though the positive function of the media was recognised, the report pointed to the economic aspect of their institutions. It questioned the credibility of those who owned the media institutions primarily for commercial gain. The report recognised the impact of the media on Christians and on their faith [Goodall 1968:394-5]. It asked the churches to consider not only the use but also the structure and function of the media, and to become fully involved with them. The report went beyond the use of the media to express concern over their social functions and their effect on the audience. It also emphasised the need to explore the theological aspects of communication.

At the fifth WCC Assembly in Nairobi (1975) there was no separate report on media or communication. There was a brief statement about the media with the emphasis on traditional methods of communication, such as the living witness in words and deeds of Christian persons, groups and congregations [Paton 1975:54]. In the sixth WCC Assembly in Vancouver (1983) a special section was included in the report under the title Communicating Credibly. As in Uppsala, the function and use of the media at global and local level were discussed. The report questioned the credibility of the media12.

The Vancouver report recommended to the churches three possible ways of using the media: pastoral, evangelical and prophetic. It called on the churches to understand the tensions of those who work in the media pastorally; to use media; and to provide critique of performance, content, and techniques of the mass media. The report also encouraged the churches to use alternative forms of communication [Gill 1983:107-9]. The group that prepared this section supported the demand for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). The report defined the word ‘communication’ as a process which involves several persons in active sharing, interacting and participating [Gill 1983:103n]. This cultural perspective is similar to that which is developed in this study. By studying the media’s role within the wider social and cultural processes and by highlighting the audience’s role in the construction of meanings, this study attempts to widen the cultural perspective into an effective alternative vision. In the Vancouver Assembly the media were called to serve the people by using new possibilities for individual feedback and group participation [Gill 1983:106]. For the first time in this report the churches were called to provide credible information through alternative forms.

In the seventh WCC Assembly (Canberra, 1991) there was no special report on the media or on communication apart from a number of references. This report called for co-operation with the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) in this area [Kinnamon 1991:50]. Churches should express their opposition to the distortion of truth by the media, and also ask individuals who work in communication to exercise Christian witness in the work place. The churches are encouraged to communicate in the cause of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. But there is silence about communication of the gospel using the media. Instead the churches are called to communicate the truth with love and listen [Kinnamon 1991:247].

In the report of the eighth WCC Assembly in Harare (1998) there are a few statements about the role of the media at global and national level13. In this report there is an explicit attack on the developed countries for their effort to gain and secure military and political hegemony on a global scale. Global media networks are said to promote a consumerist mono-culture [WCC web 1999:36]. The Harare reports view the media as powerful instruments that lead to the control of one group over the other. The media are blamed for many of the problems at global and local levels. The churches are called to speak for the voiceless and oppose those hegemonising forces of nations or individuals. In this report also there is no mention of the use of the media in the mission of the church. They clearly present the view of the churches towards the media and the possible response of the churches. Before critically analysing different perspectives that are reflected in these documents, my study identifies Pontifical Commission’s statements on Communication.

C.WACC Documents

WACC was formed following the merger of the World Association for Christian Broadcasting (WCCB) and the Coordinating Committee for Christian Broadcasting in Oslo in 1968. WACC began to make policy statements from 1986 onwards with the adoption of its Christian Principles of Communication. These principles recognise the way in which the mass media affect people’s lives. But communication is also defined as participatory and as a two-way interactive process [WACC 1997:7]. While pointing out the problems of the existing structure of the mass media, they recognise the participatory, liberating and prophetic characteristics of communication. These principles demonstrate that WACC is also interested in encouraging communicators to engage in people’s communication process [WACC 1997:5-9].

WACC organised its first international Congress in Manila in 1989. People from diverse fields of communication were represented at the congress. They shared some concerns which were later issued as the Manila Declaration. In this congress they discussed the theme ‘Communication for Community’ and adopted the Macbride Report under the title Many Voices, One World: Towards a New more Just and more Efficient World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) [WACC 1997:10]. In this declaration the members also recognised the link between culture, the media and the ecological system, and also between communication and power. They emphasised the responsibility of communication workers to advocate high professional standards in their practices. They recommended WACC to widen its network, to bring awareness of the NWICO debate, to provide opportunities between traditional communication and alternative media, to strengthen its programmes in media education, to enable church- related institutions to develop communication policies and to bring about the empowerment of women.

Their second Congress was held in Mexico in 1995 and was attended by many delegates from around the world. The theme was Communication for Human Dignity from a local and global perspective. There was a call to recognise the wider role of the communicator in strengthening various indigenous cultural and life-enhancing forms of communication and to challenge power structures within the media. The participants reflected on many issues that affect communication, and recommended certain principles that would enable communicators to become more effective: to use the media in innovative and responsible ways, to undertake serious theological reflection on their work and mission, and to affirm deep-rooted human values and plural expressions as well as social contradictions. They urged communicators to identify and to understand the interactive nature of new communication technology and to use it to achieve more freedom, fairness and diversity in the media [WACC 1997:22].

These two declarations will be analysed together with other manifestos when considering the participatory approach of communication. WACC has certainly attempted to give importance to this approach. Their declarations reflect a realistic attitude towards the media practitioners and a wider understanding of the role of the media in society. WACC declarations are often discussed in the churches’ journals [Suk 1986:12].

D. Catholic Documents

The first encyclical letter of a Pope on the means of communication in the 20th century is Vigilanti Cura (1936). It focused on the effects and the power of ‘motion pictures’. It encouraged the churches and their members to assess critically motion pictures and promote good films [Eilers 1993:8-20]. The second encyclical letter of Pope Pius XII on Motion pictures, Radio and Television is Miranda Prorsus (1957). The media are seen as gifts of God, and their use, function and effects are discussed in this letter. This letter recognises the importance of keeping in touch with the professionals such as critics, actors and producers. It draws attention to the duties of audiences’ and to the responsibility of the church in promoting God’s word to the audience [Eilers 1993:47].

The Vatican Council discussed the issue of the media and issued a decree (Inter Mirifica,1963). Eilers [1993:59] notes a shift in understanding whereby communication is not restricted to mere technical means of transmission but rather is concerned about communication as a process between and among human beings. In the document a need for training priests, lay people, journalists, actors and the audience in this field is emphasised. The primary approach is not to use the media for the churches’ purpose but also to encourage the media to be responsible and to have programmes of reasonable quality [Eilers 1993:61-7]. Many positive aspects of the media are highlighted in this document even though many individual members of the Council felt that this document presented a negative approach towards the media. The 503 No-votes against 1598 Yes- votes clearly show that a number of Council members were not satisfied with this document [Eilers 1993:57].

The Pontifical Commission on Social Communication proposed another document (Communio et Progressio, 1971) as pastoral instruction on the means of social communication. This was neither a decree approved by a Council of Bishops nor an encyclical letter of the Pope but was signed by the president of the commission and approved by the Pope. It was a statement with the most positive, professional and concrete approach to communication and church [Eilers 1993:71]. For the first time the theological foundations of communication were discussed in this document. It recognised the positive roles of the media in human progress and the need for training personnel. The report emphasised the use of the media in promoting a dialogue within the church and between the

church and the world14. The contributions of Catholics to the media and of the media to Catholics were the main foci of the report. There was a reiteration of the use of the media to proclaim the gospel to the audience. My study agrees with Eilers that this document has certainly provided the best theological basis to engage in a wider dialogue with the media.

After twenty years the Pontifical Council presented another pastoral instruction (Aetatis Novae, 1992) which was signed by its president and did not carry a note of approval by the Pope [Eilers 1993:120]. Aetatis Novae contains many quotes from earlier statements. The role of media was seen in a wider cultural, political, economic and social context but from a broader ethical perspective. There was a call for a critical approach towards the structure and policies of the media institutions and practices and for a right to communicate. The instruction emphasises began to recognise the importance of a holistic approach towards communication and media practice. There is a shift in priority from defending a moral stand to protecting human cultures.

These documents (both WCC and Pontifical) focus their discussions mostly on two major perspectives of communication. The more recent documents in particular began to show a sympathetic attitude towards media practitioners and to identify a need for participatory communication. The effort with which the perspectives of communication in these documents are developed should be appreciated. Their anticipation of a wider debate on the role of the media needs to be recognised. Having given an outline of these reports, the following section will highlight the two major perspectives in them.

3. The Approaches of the Churches

Even though a development in the understanding of communication can be clearly identified in these documents two primary approaches are inherent in them. In the first approach, the task is to use the media to communicate the gospel to all. The media serves as an instrument for extending the traditional methods of communication such as preaching and worshipping. In the second approach the aim is to address the ethical issues that arise from the influence of the media on the audience.

A. Instrumental Approach

In this approach the media are seen primarily as instruments to communicate the gospel. The media have an instrumental role. Christian communicators are expected to use the media to produce, distribute and broadcast the gospel message to all people. The media are instruments to extend the sphere of influence from the pulpit of the local congregation to a wider audience. The reports and statements of two international ecumenical institutions are selected in order to show that their views mostly reflect this approach when discussing the communication of the gospel. Even though all the member churches do not necessarily share these views their reports are sent for consideration to all the member churches.

i. Statements

Some of the reports of the WCC Assemblies and the Pontifical Commissions use the word ‘instrument or means’ to refer to the media or other technology that facilitates communication. The WCC (New Delhi) Assembly’s Reports it says, “Religious broadcasting and television are still only beginning to explore the possibilities of these new instruments of communication” [Hooft 1962:84]. This report reflects the concern of WCC Assembly members by noting that, “Broadcasting is an effective means of evangelism and education, especially if attention is given to securing a response from the audience” [Hooft 1962:311].

In the Uppsala report [1968] the churches were asked to abandon their traditional suspicion of the media. The report acknowledges the fact that the mass media have acquired a prominent place in all societies and also have an influence on the church [Goodall 1968:389]. The report has developed a triangular understanding of the use, function and the structure of the media. It states:

In the light of this (mission) the media can be seen as potential tools of mission. They must be used properly, stressing the need for good quality performance, a language understood by all, and respect for people of other faiths or no faith [Goodall 1968:397].

In this document the media are seen as potential tools of mission to communicate the gospel to all people. There is a demand to improve the quality of Christian communication by using honest techniques and by maintaining a ‘high view of the nature of man’. In the Nairobi WCC Assembly, the churches were encouraged to use every possible means of communication in order to share the gospel with all people [Paton 1976:54]. From 1983 onwards the WCC Assemblies’ reports began to take a realistic look at the interaction between the church and the media. There was a call for the churches to communicate credibly and to experiment with alternative forms of communication. In the Vancouver Assembly it states:

Evangelically, the churches must resist the temptation to use the media in ways which violate people’s dignity and manipulate them, but rather (the church) should proclaim with humility and conviction the truth entrusted to it [Gill 1983:107].

These documents invite the churches to use the media for their purpose of communicating the gospel. They view the media as a powerful instrument of communication that could be used by the church to share the gospel with all people.

Catholic encyclical letters and Vatican Council Decrees express similar views. In one of the encyclical letters (Miranda Prorsus, 1957), it states, “From the art and letters of antiquity down to the technology of our day all the means by which men are united with one another have tended to this high end, that is this task men might in some way be ministers of God” [Web Edition 1999:3]. The Vatican Council Decree (Inter Mirifica,1963) identifies the press, the cinema, radio, television and others of a like nature as ‘the means of social communication’ [Eilers 1993:61]. The decree calls on pastors to employ these means in preaching the gospel; to aim for technical perfection and for general effectiveness in conveying religious truths [Eilers 1993:64-5].

In 1971, the Pontifical Commission passed a pastoral instruction (Communio et Progressio) regarding social communication which indicated a broader role for the media - extending beyond worship. It states, “The modern media offer new ways of confronting people with the message of the Gospel, of allowing Christians even when they are far away to share in sacred rites and worship and in ecclesiastical functions” [Eilers 1993:103]. This is restated in the recent document of the Pontifical Commission of Social Communication (Aetatis Novae, 1992). It calls on the church to use the media in evangelisation and catechesis along with more traditional liturgical expressions [Eilers 1993:129].

One of the major tasks of Christian communication as reflected in these documents is to use the media to communicate the gospel. As the media are seen as instruments of communication, the churches are expected to produce the message to send through these instruments to the audience. Whenever these reports speak about the use of the media in communicating the gospel the Christian communicators are asked to view them as powerful instruments through which to extend their sphere of influence.

‘The Role of the Communicator and the Audience’

The churches and their members are expected to play the role of communicator in sharing the gospel while using the media. The report recommends the churches to use the media as instruments of communicating the gospel in order to secure a response from the audience [Hooft 1962:311]. Except for the New Delhi report15, other WCC Assemblies’ reports are silent about the audience while discussing the communication of the gospel. In order to improve the use of the media, the WCC Assembly’s report in Uppsala wants the churches to train their communicators with a high degree of professional skill [Goodall 1968:401]. It calls on them to use a language understood by all and to have respect for people of other faiths or none.

The primary emphases of these documents are on developing the quality of the media techniques and the contents. The Nairobi WCC Assembly’s report (1975) invites the churches to use all the means of communication with a humble spirit of sensitivity and participation [Paton 1976:55]. It recognised the need for participation on the part of the communicator. A similar emphasis on the role of communicator can be noted in the reports of WCC Assemblies in Vancouver (1983) and in Canberra (1991).

The idea of the communicator as a sender of the message of the gospel can be traced in Catholic documents too. In Miranda Prorsus (1957), Catholics are advised to use the technical methods of communication to spread the teaching of God and of his son, Jesus Christ [Eilers 1993:33]. Having received this teaching of Jesus, Catholics are directed to use the media to convey the message. In Communio et Progressio the role of the communicator is to employ all the opportunities offered by the modern media to extend the message of the gospel to a growing number of people [Eilers 1993:103]. Both the WCC Assemblies’ reports and the Catholic documents reflect the instrumentalist approach while expressing their views about the use of the media in the proclamation of the gospel. The next section will highlight how this perspective was developed from certain theological concepts in the churches’ documents.

ii. Underlying Beliefs

The instrumentalist perspective on communication has been developed from a few Christian theological concepts in which the role of the churches is to communicate the gospel to the audience so that they might receive and believe in it. The WCC assemblies’ documents reflect the theological perspectives on which this approach to communication is based. In the WCC Uppsala (1968) report states:

Communication is also the way in which God makes himself known to man, and man responds to God. God speaks, the church proclaims; our doctrinal shorthand sees active and creative communication as the source and motivating source of all life. In Jesus Christ God revealed himself to man and made communion with him possible. …. The (this) message must be preached and enacted in all its breadth and depth, in its relevance to modern man [Goodall 1968:394-5].

According to this statement the role of God in this theological understanding of communication is to make himself known to people. The content of Christian communication is the information about Jesus. This sets the theological framework for the understanding of communication in which the churches are called to send the message to all people. It was restated at the Vancouver Assembly16 in 1983. In this sense the churches are called to use the media speak about God in the way they received God’s message through Jesus. This view of Christian communication is strongly developed and built on certain theological notions in WCC assemblies’ reports.

The decrees of the Pontifical Commission for the means of Social Communication reflect similar theological concepts of communication. In 1971 Communio et Progressio states:

In the fullness of time, he (God) communicated his very self to man and “the Word was made flesh”. … While he was on earth, Christ revealed himself as the perfect communicator. … He preached the divine without fear of compromise [Eilers 1993:76].

This document also states:

Christ commanded the apostles and their successors ‘to teach all nations’ to be ‘the light of the world’ and to announce the Good news in all places at all times. … Therefore, the Second Vatican Council invited the People of God “to use effectively and at once the means of social communication, Zealously availing themselves of them for apostolic purposes” [Eilers 1993:103].

From this statement the second theological concept can be derived. It views Jesus as the perfect communicator who alone possessed the truth and communicated it to the church. The church was commanded to communicate this truth to all nations. Because Jesus was seen as a perfect communicator, his teachings should be considered as the perfect form of communication.

A similar statement was made in the Uppsala report (1968), “The Gospel is by nature a ‘scandalous story’, a stumbling block and an offence. We cannot change that; but the true scandal does not need to be confused with a scandalous presentation” [Goodall 1968:397]. While communicating this message the churches should not distort the content of the message in order to suit the medium of the people or to capture their attention. This perspective is further developed in 1992 in the Pontifical Council’s document Aetatis Novae, “Here in the word made flesh, God’s self-communication is definitive. … Christ is both the content and dynamic source of the Churches’ communication in proclaiming the gospel” [Eilers 1993:126-7]. The report continues to state, “It (Christian communication) is the proclamation of the gospel as a prophetic, liberating word to the men and women of our times; it is testimony, in the face of radical secularization” [Eilers 1993: 129]. This approach to Christian communication is based on a theological concept whereby Jesus’ teachings and life form the content and the source of information while people are receivers. In this instrumentalist perspective God is assumed to be a perfect communicator and the Incarnation of Jesus provides the basis of perfect communication between God and humans. In a similar way the Church and the Christian communicators are seen as the senders and the audiences are the receivers.

The churches are called to use the media in order to communicate the Christian faith and values and to encourage their members to engage actively in any possible medium. The churches need to transmit the gospel without any distortion in its content. Because of the support for such a theological concept this model dominates Christian communication in general. My contention is that the instrumentalist perspective on communication and its theological basis, are given more importance in these documents than the cultural perspective which is also recognised by them. In order to identify the need for a theological paradigm, this study will critically examine the problems of the instrumentalist approach and its theological basis.

iii. Critique

WCC assemblies’ reports and Pontifical Commissions’ decrees primarily reflect an instrumentalist approach while encouraging their churches to use the media in mission and evangelism. In these documents the instrumentalist perspective is related to a theological framework in which God is seen as the primary source of communication and the people are seen as receivers of their message - that is the gospel. The audiences are seen as active participants only after the message is being communicated and their contribution is mostly seen as receivers. Their role in the construction of meanings before the gospel message is being communicated is given less importance. The task of this section is to critically analyse the theological basis on which this instrumentalist approach is developed and thus to challenge the approach and its practice.

Three major problems of this instrumentalist approach will be pointed out in order to identify the need for an alternative approach. The first problem is that Christian communication is seen as an equivalent of passing on information about Jesus to the audience. This approach is built on a theological assumption that Jesus is seen as a primary source of information and thus plays the role of a sender in Christian communication.

Having received their message from Jesus, the churches are called to proclaim the gospel to their audience. Thus the churches and their communicators are seen as senders of the gospel to the audience who actively receive it. This is particularly true when these documents speak about communicating the gospel. They highlight some important characteristics of the communication process such as producing high quality content, training of communicators, using quality technology and broadcasting through effective transmitters. These documents do not realise the importance of the ongoing search for meanings in which the audiences are already engaged even before the gospel is communicated. It is vital to recognise the audience’s role in the construction of meanings of the gospel. Both communicator and audience are equal participants in the search for meanings of the gospel and its relevance to their respective context.

Communicating the gospel is not like a package to be possessed by the churches or by Christian communicators. Rahner [1961] points out that revelation consists of more than propositional knowledge. He maintains that a proposition already implies a communication which has an over-abundance of information. The concept of God’s revelation should not be separated from the relationship-establishing dialogue initiated by God. Because communicating the gospel cannot be considered merely as information or as propositional knowledge it is neither the equivalent of news about the churches and their doctrines. Babin also points out that:

The message of faith is not first and foremost information affecting my understanding. It is the effect produced in me by the whole complex known as the medium. The content of the faith message is not primarily the ideas or the teaching, but rather the listeners themselves insofar as they are affected by the medium [Babin 1991:6-7].

Babin criticises the process of treating Christian communication as an equivalent of information about God or Jesus or about Christian religion. He highlights the complexity in the interaction between the message and the people who share this message. Communicating the gospel through the media cannot simply be considered an act of informing people about Jesus. If the primary purpose of communicating the gospel is to establish or re-establish the relationship between God and humans and between human, then information about God alone may not be sufficient. If this information damages the relationship itself, then Christian communicators should find alternative approaches to communicate the gospel.

The second problem with this approach is that the media are seen merely as instruments. They are seen as useful means to carry the gospel message from a communicator to an audience. The church often uses them to extend her sphere of influence. By giving importance to the instrumentalist’s view the media are placed between the Christian communicator and the audience. Having studied some of these documents Hamelink [1975] was critical of the churches’ use of the media as extensions for the purpose of convincing an audience to accept their doctrines. While they may be critical of the media for their cultural-ideological invasion, the churches nevertheless use them to extend their message to influence a wider public. Hamelink is right to argue that this approach is anti-dialogical. For him this view excludes the common discovery of what is true and avoids critical questioning of the content of the message [Hamelink 1975:28]. Jeyaweera [1978:3] notes that in India alone 28 Christian groups are broadcasting the Gospel message daily from Ceylon, the Seychelles and the Philippines. He states:

Christian communicators have all too often succeeded only in concealing the Gospel and generating prejudices towards images that are really only caricatures of the Gospel but in the minds of the local groups are mistaken for the true Gospel [Jeyaweera 1978:4].

The instrumentalist approach separates the communicator from the audience and thus may not reach out to the masses with the message of the gospel. By investing in production, training and broadcasting the churches attempt to communicate the gospel to the mass audience. The report of the WCC Assembly in New Delhi (1961) states, “It is Christ, not Christianity, that is to be proclaimed as the truth, as it is God’s power and not ours which brings men to accept it” [Hooft 1962:83-84]. The claim that Jesus is the life of the world and is to be proclaimed as the truth may not make sense if communication is aimed at a non-Christian audience. By emphasising the gospel as truth, these documents note that Jesus is both content and source of Christian communication. It can be understood as a message-centred interpretation of the gospel not of the people-centred interpretation.

The gospel presents this belief in story form that mediates the meanings of Jesus’ teachings within his hearers’ context. For the gospel writers the best way of communicating the gospel is to write in narrative form that would enable the audience to believe that Jesus is the Christ (Jn 20:31). They express their own personal belief in Jesus through their writings. In a similar way the media, their content and their forms interpret this belief that Jesus is the truth. McLuhan [1994:15] points out that the medium shapes the message and states: “any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary”. Technology enables to a particular way of interpreting belief. For example visual technology interprets one’s beliefs through visual images.

The use of technology (computer), images (judge) and genres (television series)17 provide a framework of hermeneutic that has not been recognised by some of these documents. The word ‘genre’ is used in this study to denote types or classes of literature, for example, epic, tragedy and comedy [Abrams 1999:108]. In the parables it refers to different styles such as, proverb and stories. Ferreras-Oleffes [1978:244] argues that the new media are not merely vehicles (magnifying mirror) but new interpretations of human beings. These interpretations depend upon the number of variables in the media’s role (such as media-technology and selection of a channel) in communicating the gospel. The word ‘variable’ means those characteristics with which any process can be varied or analysed. For example, in relation to the audience one variable might be their age group. By recognising the variables, the Christian communicator would try to engage in the audience’s process of communication with the gospel story rather than with mere information about the gospel.

The interaction between the gospel and the media has many variables which are not recognised by the instrumentalist approach of the churches’ documents. This is because the role of the media cannot be seen without its place in a society [Ferreras-Oleffes 1978:235]. Hamelink [1975:17-24] after studying the three church documents Inter Mirifica, Communio et Progressio and the Uppsala report argues that these documents encourage the churches to use the media, to motivate the audience with their theological concepts and thus to achieve certain effects. He notes that these reports do not take serious account of the long-range socio-cultural effect of the media in terms of their contribution to the whole process of cultural socialisation [1975:28]. The link between the media and the complex nature of the socio-cultural context has not been taken seriously during discussions about the communication of the gospel.

Media institutions are cultural institutions through which particular communities or people interact among themselves. In order to interact effectively with the audiences, communicators reflect and address the worldview and beliefs and use the forms and genres that are known and shared by them. By realising this link between the media and socio- cultural realities, churches can make use of their hermeneutic role in communicating the gospel. The media can certainly interpret the gospel in terms of the available genre, forms and meanings that are known to the audience. The use of the media in public communication has established certain ritual practices such as the camera view from a certain angle or a particular background or genre. If the gospel is to be communicated to the wider audience, then it may have to meet the demands of the media and their forms. The audiences sharing different kinds of media have engaged in a communication process which provides part of the context for new media interaction. Christian communicators have to participate in this process in order to share the gospel. The instrumentalist approach ignores these variables in the interaction between the media and the gospel.

The third problem is that audiences as receivers of the gospel message are given more importance than other perspectives. By noting a similar model (sender-message- channel-receiver {SMCR}) Weber [1992] argues that it devalues persons in favour of the message. For him this approach (SMCR) emphasises the authority of the sender and the powerlessness of the receiver [1992:22]. In reality the audience interacts with the media and their content. In their interaction the audience interprets the meanings that arise from the media. This interaction does not begin simply after the message is sent through the media, but even as the message is produced. Christian communicators have to become aware of their audiences’ role in the construction of meanings of the gospel message. Nevertheless the reports from the churches recognise this as an issue in discussions about the gospel and the media. Because the churches assume that they possess the gospel there is little regard for the audiences’ beliefs and their worldview.

These three problems cannot be addressed without assessing the theological paradigm on which this approach is developed. The present theological paradigm of the churches can be challenged by Jesus’ portrayal in the gospels as a participant in his hearers’ communication which this study attempts to do by analysing one of his parables. Christian communication is not merely concerned with the communication of the gospel, but also with the interaction between the communicator and the audience. The role of the audience, even before the message is being communicated, should be given importance in Christian communication. The churches can engage in the audience’s search for social and religious meanings and present the meanings of the gospel among the wide range of meanings by interacting with them. The next section will highlight the second approach in which the churches’ reports focus on the effect of the media on the audience.

B. Effect-centred Approach

The second approach in the churches’ documents reflects their desire to address the ethical issues raised by the effect of the mass media. In this approach there is an assumption that the media are very powerful in reaching the masses with their values. For example, they are concerned about the impact of violence and sex on the audience particularly on children. Through media education and by their own use of the media the WCC Assemblies’ reports and Pontifical instructions hope to make both communicators and audiences aware of such ethical issues and to bring them to the attention of the public. In this effect centred approach, the churches try to express their concerns about the media and the need to influence them by introducing Christian values.

i. Statements

Some of these documents have been influenced by the assumption that the media such as television, radio and Internet have acquired a prominent place in society and have a big impact on people’s lives. In the Uppsala report, it is noted that the media should be evaluated in terms of their social functions. While recognising the positive role in helping the public to understand and to appraise the issues that affect them the report also highlights how the media can be perverted by powerful elite. By denying access to the people and by contributing to the dissatisfaction of the poor, the media can have an important effect on their lives [Goodall 1968:391]. The report understands the churches’ voice can speak as one among many and realises that the media replace a single system of values with a plural system. The media’s effect on the church and on Christians is noted even though the inherent claim of authenticity of their message is upheld [Goodall 1968:393].

In the Vancouver Assembly the media’s impact on people’s lives and values were developed further. The report in this assembly highlights the problems of the media at both local and global level. It states:

They (most ordinary men and women) have accepted the fact that only those with political and economic power, or those who possess professional skills, have the right to disseminate information, ideas, images and experiences. ... The mass media in many affluent countries distort and diminish the life of the world by packaging it as entertainment or simply as propaganda. … In many countries of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the Pacific, the new media scarcely exist and are not likely to reach the people in the near future [Gill 1983:105].

The flow of communication from the few to the many, along with the control of the media, is questioned particularly when they are misused. Interestingly the report recommends that media systems need to become decentralised, community-based, and localised. It asks the churches to analyse critically the intention, content, style, and value reversal of the media and to experiment with alternative forms of communication. In the Canberra Assembly (1991), the focus was more on the social role of the media and its effects on the people. Its report uses the instrumentalist image to show the effect on the audience by noting:

Means of communication are powerful tools of hidden control. Often, as in the present military situation in the Gulf, governments, even the governments of Northern democracies, control what the media can communicate. The truth is not told and we cannot exercise free judgement. …The mass media are a means of cultural imperialism.[Kinnamon 1991:83].

The media are seen as powerful instruments of a few powerful people who at times can manipulate them to achieve their own ends. The values portrayed by the media frequently stand against the Christian values. This report invites the churches to monitor the influence of the media and to express vigorously their opposition to the distortion of the truth, to negative stereotypes and to violent behaviour. The Harare Assembly’s statement (1998) views the contemporary mass media as technological systems that promotes consumerist values and widens the gap between rich and poor, powerful and powerless [WCC Web 1999: 25].

Corresponding views and discussions can be found in the Pontifical Commission on social communication. The development of their views on ethical issues is demonstrated by comparing the encyclical letter Miranda Prorsus (1957), the Pontifical decree, Inter Mirifica (1963), and the pastoral instructions Communio et Progressio (1971), and Aetatis Novae (1992). These documents show that there is a development in the understanding of the church towards the media and their effect on the audience. There is a clear shift from the ‘moral scare’ to a realistic appraisal of the media effects in these documents. Inter Mirifica (1963) states, “all must accept the absolute primacy of the objective moral order. It alone is superior to and is capable of harmonising all forms of human activity, not excepting art, no matter how noble in themselves” [Web edition 1963:2]. It is further noted in this decree that those who exploit the media solely for profit might hinder the communication of what is good and facilitate the communication of what is evil. The decree argues that the media can make a powerful impact on the audience in opposition to Christian ethical values [Eilers 1993:66-7].

In the pastoral instruction Communio et Progressio (1971) the attitude towards the impact of the media on the people is presented in refined statements. This document realises that the media reflects the violence and savagery that occurs in societies. According to this statement if these events are shown too realistically they can pervert the image of human life and may show violence as an accepted way of resolving conflicts [Eilers 1993:84]. In the next document there is a call to take a positive and sympathetic approach to the media. Aetatis Novae (1992) identifies certain problems that arise from media policies and structures. They are: the unjust exclusion of some groups and classes from access to the means of communications, the systematic abridgement of the fundamental right to information which is practised in some places and the widespread domination of the media by economic, social and political elites. Catholics are asked not to dictate their values but rather to seek to be of help by stressing ethical and moral criteria - criteria which are to be found in both human and Christian values [Eilers 1993:130].

These statements clearly highlight many different views towards the ethical issues that arise from the impact of the media on the audience. Two primary ethical issues are identified: the influence of some of the media raises ethical concern for the churches; the way in which the media industries function at global and local levels is frequently in opposition to Christian principles. In order to address these issues these documents encourage churches to review their perspectives. The next section will identify the theological assumptions that are behind the churches’ view of the impact of the media on the audience and its role in society.

ii. Underlying Beliefs

These documents rightly identify some problems in the interaction between the media and the audience. They assume that the media institutions are increasingly powerful and influence people’s values and thus manipulate them to their own ends. At times these values stand against Christian and human values and so must be identified and refuted by the churches. This is seen as an ethical issue and is addressed on the basis of certain theological assumptions. The Uppsala Assembly Report (1968) recognises the fact that the pulpit is no longer the sole authoritative voice. The churches are asked to learn to live in an open situation where their message will carry weight by its own authenticity, by the inherent quality of truth of what they say and do rather than from any accepted authority [Goodall 1968:393]. The report states, “The church can only announce the fullness of the Gospel if it claims the whole of man in his community for its Lord. Therefore it must care for the structures of the community and all that influences them” [Goodall 1968:395]. It continues to note:

People have made this God-given power of communication to serve sub-human ends. It sows hatred, sustains war and through slander poisons inter-personal relationships. Even God’s communication to this world, revealed in the Bible, can be perverted. … Therefore in Christ we are invited to unmask all pseudo- communication which divides rather than unites… [Goodall 1968:396].

According to this statement, the media can distort the truth and damage human relationships. The churches are invited to identify and to unmask this act of distortion and manipulation in Christ. In the Vancouver Assembly Report (1983) theological assumptions are stated clearly using biblical references (Heb 1:1-3; 1Jn 1:1). The report affirms that Jesus’ method was the most effective method of Christian communication in which he met people where they are and empowered people to tell their stories [Gill 1983:104].

The Catholic documents went further than the WCC documents in affirming the central role of Jesus in Christian communication. In the pastoral instruction Communio et Progressio (1971), a theological foundation for communication towards human progress is established. It pictures God as one who shares with humans his creative power, and Christ as one who reveals himself as the perfect communicator [Eilers 1993:76]. The document states, “In the institution of the Holy Eucharist, Christ gave us the most perfect, most intimate form of communion between God and man possible in this life, and, out of this, the deepest possible unity between men” [Eilers 1993:76]. The ethical issues raised in the interaction between the media and the audience or the media institutions can be addressed and resolved through Christian principles. From a Christian perspective communication must state the truth and must reflect the context of the audience with all its implications.

This is repeated in the Papal speeches in which they assumed that the teachings of Jesus have “objective moral truth”. The church is called to teach and communicate this to all people. The Pontifical Council for Social Communications’ document (1989) on Pornography and Violence in the communication media states:

For the church, the first responsibility is that constant, clear teaching of the faith and, therefore, of objective moral truth, including the truth about sexual morality. In an era of permissiveness and moral confusion, this requires that the church be prophetic voice, and often, a sign of contradiction [Eilers 1993:150].

Through media education churches are called to teach and foster this message to all people. What God communicated to the people during biblical times contained essentially the objective truth and provided values for people’s lives. The churches are expected to possess and to pass on these values as codes of practice to their members. If the ethical issues of the media are identified, then the churches should provide the media personnel with the necessary rules and regulations. This study recognises the fact that the Catholic documents are particularly insistent of the existence of an objective moral order. The perspective and the theological basis will be critically studied in the next section.

iii. Critique

The ethical issues raised by the churches seem to assume that the media are powerful tools of communication which can strongly influence people’s lives and values. In our critique considerations will be given to five problems which arise from the prominence given to the effect-centred approach. First there is a strong assumption that there is a correlation between some social problems and the effect of the media on the audience. Secondly certain variables involved in the interaction between the media and the audience are not given importance. Thirdly there is less emphasis on the role of mediation and the ritual use of the media by the audience. Fourthly there is a generalisation about the issues relating to the media and their effect on the audience. The final problem is the theological basis on which this perspective is being developed.

First there is a general assumption in this model that the use of the mass media is related to some of the problems in society [directly or indirectly]. For example the WCC Assembly report in Harare (1998) argues that the contemporary mass media promote consumerist values and widen the gap between rich and poor, powerful and powerless [WCC Web 1999:25]. In this report the term ‘media’ itself refers to television, radio or newspaper. Hamelink [1975:27] notes that some of the church documents assume that the media have a powerful effect on their audiences. For him they are strongly influenced by a uni-directional cause-effect model. He points out that the conclusion of social scientific research shows the media as contributory rather than causative. This study agrees with Hamelink that the role of the media should be examined within the wider social and cultural context of the audience and of the communicator.

According to the statements, Media institutions or personnel are considered to be responsible for the values that arise from the content of the media and should be challenged about such issues. These values shape and influence the audience’s view and thus could give rise to some of the social problems. These statements assume that these values are promoted by certain meanings that arise from the content of the media. It can be argued that often the media simply mediate or reinforce a wide range of meanings and the audiences construct their own meanings from the content. Sometimes the content (e.g. news) may have an influence on the public but this cannot be generalised for all occasions. Meanings arise not only from the content of the media but also from the context of the communicator as well as that of the audiences.

The interaction between the media and the audience is a complex process. A computer-based content analysis on the Leicester Mercury tabloid newspaper, as part of the author’s post graduate research, revealed a complex link between the content, the medium (newspaper), the editors, the journalists, the managing directors and the audience [Joshva 1996:5-6]. The effect of a particular medium such as television and their content at one particular time may be very effective but in a different situation they may have little impact. The effect of the media on the audience and the social problems cannot be directly correlated even though at times the content of the media might contribute to some of those problems. There is a clear need to see the media’s impact on the audience within the wider social context by using a range of cultural variables.

Secondly the churches’ documents do not recognise the complexity in the interaction between the media and the audience. In the effect-centred approach to the media, there is less emphasis on the many different variables19 involved in the process of communication. Søgaard [1993:11] points out that many of the problems in Christian communication arise from confusing variables with constants. There is less awareness about these variables among the Christian institutions which leads them to generalisations about the effect of the media on the audiences. There is a wide range of variables involved in this interactive process and so the role of the media should be seen within the context of other social processes. This context of social process in every society varies with space and time variables and so it is difficult to generalise certain principles of communication into universally applicable regulations. The document Communio et Progressio recognises the fact that:

The moral worth and validity of any communication does not lie solely in its theme or intellectual content. The way in which it is presented, the way in which it is spoken and treated and even the audience for which it is designed - all these factors must be taken into account [Eilers 1993:78].

If all these factors (audience included) are taken into account then other processes that contribute to these factors need to be considered. The media alone cannot be blamed for the meanings or values that contribute to the social problems. At times the media and their contents simply reflect changes in other social processes or extend the sphere of interaction in one or the other processes. A shift in communication took place when television was introduced as a medium of communication. This has changed the perception of communication to some extent, and has also influenced the audience’s use of the media. Unless the audiences have access to television sets the communicator cannot transmit his programmes to them.

The variables make the interaction between the media and the audience a complex process that cannot be analysed quantitatively. The negative or positive effect of the media on the audience cannot be scientifically measured or identified. [McQuail 1983:52]. It is essential for a Christian communicator to become aware of different variables involved in this interaction between the media and the audience. Burgoon [1994:38] identified three sets of variables in the communication process - source, receiver and content20. The problems and issues in the interaction between the media and the audience differ within different historical and social contexts because of these variables.

Even the social scientific methodologies that are applied to analyse and study the interaction between the media and the audience could not establish any direct or indirect effects [Gauntlett 1995]. In the effect-centred approach the flow of communication is from the communicator to the audience. In a similar way the churches are called to communicate their own principles to the audience. If the churches become aware of the variables in communication, then they can see the role of the media within the wider social and cultural context.

Thirdly even though these documents identify communication as a social process, they place less emphasis on the mediation and ritual role of the media within a particular social and cultural context. The influence of political, technological and cultural processes on the media needs to be recognised in order to see the media’s role within a wider context of the audience. After doing audience research in Leicester, Halloran [1995A:44] concludes that media institutions are one of the social institutions amongst many which contribute towards a multi-cultural society. He also highlights the way in which complex and conflicting values are mediated and are reinforced through various forms of communication among the diverse audiences. Halloran’s study puts forward a need for analysing the different roles of the media within the context of the wider social context [1995:41-3]. It is difficult to analyse how and why the audience derives a particular value from a particular content. It is almost impossible to identify under what circumstances an audience is motivated to change their values or behaviour.

Gauntlett in his book, Moving Experiences: Understanding Television’s Influences and Effects, highlights the disadvantages in the effect-oriented arguments. He concludes by saying that, “The causes of violence and crime seem much more likely to be found in poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and psychological background than in television programmes” [Gauntlett 1995:119]. After studying all the effect-oriented social scientific studies, he concludes that many of them cannot see the audience’s role and context in the construction of meanings. Thus the media’s role should be seen within the wider context of the audience’s individual and collective context.

Meanings that arise during the interaction between the communicator, the media and the audience might contribute to these values and influence the opinion of the audience. It is difficult to identify the way in which the meanings are constructed or even mediated through the media. It has already been pointed out that the meanings arise not only from the content but also from the communicator and from the audience. Graddol [1994:16] identifies a social model of communication in which meanings arise from an interaction between the medium and its social context.

The role and the function of the media should be seen within the wider context of political, social, economic and cultural processes. Hamelink [1975:28] points out that some of the church documents do not take account of the long-range socio-cultural roles of the media in terms of their contribution to the whole process of cultural socialisation. However some of the later documents acknowledge this socialising effect of the media. Soukup [1993:77] notices that the documents tend to take the mass media on their own terms. This for him leads to a kind of optimistic or idealised view of the media which sees them in instrumental terms and not as social structures. The role and function of the media need to be seen within the wider social and cultural processes that are occurring in a particular society. The churches’ reports do not seem to have realised that the interaction between the media and the audience are subject to enormous variables and the gospel truth cannot simply be imparted as a series of rules and regulations.

Fourthly some of the statements in these documents can be interpreted as generalisation of the issues relating to communication. When they refer to the mass media, they do not mention a particular medium or a particular programme under review. Hamelink [1975] and Soukup [1993] have identified the contradiction that while they raising some doubts about the impartiality of the media these documents call for their use in the mission and ministry of the church.

Such generalisations, regarding the effect of the mass media ignore the complexity of the communication process. For example, the Vancouver Assembly, report states that “The mass media in many affluent countries distort and diminish the life of the world, by packaging it as entertainment, or simply as propaganda” [Gill 1983:105]. In the Harare WCC Assembly issued a statement saying: The WCC should continue to explore the tremendous potential opened up by technological developments in the area of communication, while at the same time remaining attentive to the challenges posed by contemporary mass media, particularly in promoting consumerist values and in widening the gap between rich and poor, powerful and powerless [WCC Web 1999].

This statement calls for the WCC’s use of the media, but at the same time, it should remain attentive to the challenges they pose. The generalisation is made that the contemporary mass media promote consumerist values and widen the gap between rich and poor. Yet the media may not be solely to blame for the present social situation.

By studying one context in which the media made an impact, one should not generalise these observations to all situations and try to develop a set of codes of media practices. Using these generalised ethical assumptions does not solve the issues that arise from the impact of the media on the audience. By referring to Inter Mirifica Emmanuel [1999:61] highlights the contrasts between what the Catholic church (Catholic) perceives to do as it communicates, and what it exhorts the civil authority to do. The church should not impose in the media what she herself cannot practice. Emmanuel points out the way in which the Catholic Church silences some of their theologians [1999:62]. While addressing the ethical issues regarding the effect of the mass media the churches need to study them within the wider social and cultural context. Social problems such as discrimination or poverty or perverting human values, cannot be solved simply by changing the content or the media practices. Christian communicators themselves need to engage in the media of the audience.

In looking at the ethical issues from a Christian perspective, it must be noted that the media alone cannot be blamed for widening the divisions between poor and rich or for the increase in violence in a society. Dubois-Dumee [1978] argues that the churches have a problem with communication media. In the church there are too many moralists and too many generalisations. Mass media are viewed as one-way systems that have a direct impact on their audience. In the church documents discussed there is an absence of reflection on contemporary culture and its impact on the media. The churches are not aware of the wide range of meanings arising from the context of the audience which are different from those of the mass media. They do not recognise the fact that meanings arise from other social processes and that communication at any particular time mediates the changes in other processes. Finally the theological perspective in these documents puts emphasis on the transmission view in which God is seen as the source of communication. Reviewing these documents Soukup [1993:77] comes to the conclusion that the theological foundations on which the moral claims were made were not clarified and are sometimes misapplied. For example in the Uppsala report it states:

Communication is also the way in which God makes himself known to man, and man responds to God. God speaks, the church <proclaims> our doctrinal shorthand sees active and creative communication as the source and motivating force of all life [Goodall 1968:394]. The WCC Assembly of Vancouver affirms by stating: God spoke through those who told stories, compose poems, and spoke the prophetic word. “In these last days God spoke through God’s own son” (Heb 1:3). Jesus Christ is God’s Communication at its clearest, costliest and most demanding. It was there from the beginning: We have heard it (1 John 1:1). That was Christian communication [Gill 1983:104].

The statements of WCC Assemblies highlight the fact that God remains the source of Christian meanings. This study argues that God makes himself known to man but in the form of a servant and on the cross. God’s involvement in human communication recognises its limitations and highlights the need for sharing with the audience within their limitations.

Many who uphold this effect-centred approach believe that the Christian faith has all the answers. They assume that the church can provide absolute solutions to all these problems or that it can solve them by communicating and by converting people to the Christian faith. These documents have not recognised the complexity in communication. It has already been argued that the meanings do not simply flow from the media or from their content or even from the communicator to the audience, but rather they arise when communicators and audiences participate, share and interact among themselves.

Addressing these issues may be possible by participating through the media that the people share. By engaging with the masses in their struggle to understand their lives, and by helping them to reinterpret their faith, Christian communicators may enable them to address these ethical issues. They need to help the audience, through the media, to interpret their beliefs so that they may relate them to their context. Through their engagement with audiences, the churches and their communicators may enable them to address problems by themselves. There is a need to develop a theological basis for an effective interaction between an audience’s need and expectations, the media’s demands and the Christian message.

The gospel story needs to be made available without condemning, and without generalising, but through continued interaction with the audience. The ethical problems are not merely created by the media but also by the social conditions within which the audience and the communicator interact. It is right to emphasise the complexity of the interaction between media and audience and to note the number of variables involved. This should not lead to exclusive blame of the media or media personnel, but rather should lead to an examination of the process concerned with Christian values and principles. There is a need for Christian communicators to interact with audiences’ beliefs, and with their social context through the media that they share. Having critically analysed these documents, this study applauds the way in which both WCC Assemblies’ reports and Pontifical Commission’s documents have tried to address the issues relating to the mass media and social communication. The problems have been identified in the churches’ approaches (instrumental and effect-centred) highlight the need for an alternative approach of communication and the need for a theological basis for such an approach.

C. Participatory Approach

I have already shown that some of the WCC Reports (particularly the Vancouver Assembly) and Pontifical Documents (Communio et Progressio) defined communication in terms of ‘sharing’ and ‘participating’. In the participatory approach communication becomes a two-way interactive process because it shares meanings and establishes social relationships [WACC 1997:7]. The media are expected to serve and enhance this perspective on communication. WACC is emphatic in promoting or encouraging this approach. On the one hand it recognises the fact that the media operate from the centre to the periphery, and on the other hand it points out that communication is, by definition, participatory. By noting this contradiction WACC has emphasised the need for enabling the process of communication to be more participatory, liberating and prophetic. WACC’s statements and their importance will be analysed in the following section.

i. Statements

Under the title Christian Principles of Communication, WACC has discussed a participatory approach which was developed from a Christian perspective. It states:

Communication as a human right encompasses the traditional freedoms: of expression, of the right to seek, receive and impart information. But it adds to these freedoms, both for individuals and society, a new concept, namely that of access, participation and two-way flow [WACC 1997:7].

This statement clearly challenges the two perspectives stated above and brings out the importance of the participatory approach. Before identifying this approach, the declaration notes the problem of the media in which the flow is from top to bottom. It points out that the mass media do not meet the information and communication needs felt by individuals and groups. The participatory approach also emphasises the role of communication in constructing communities and in supporting and developing cultures. But the mass media are seen as: a form of power and often part of a system of power. They are usually structured in such a way as to reinforce the status quo in favour of the economically and politically powerful [WACC 1997:8].

Some of the critical points that are used against the effect-centred approach are relevant to this particular statement which ignores the whole idea of participatory communication. Because of their nature, the media have a dominating effect on people which is contrary to genuine communication.

In the Manila Declaration (1989), WACC Congress reiterates similar principles of communication. The Congress delegates adopted the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) unanimously. This shows that WACC has a great interest in enabling the communication systems to become more participatory and interactive and in challenging existing media practices [WACC 1997:10]. The Manila Declaration states:

Mass media and the information industries are structures of power. They are intertwined with national centres of political, economic and military power and are increasingly linked at the global level [WACC 1997:11].

In this declaration the Congress participants addressed this media issue by noting the responsibility of communication workers in these matters. They called upon WACC to challenge unjust power structures and to enable journalists and the communication workers to become aware of such problems. They recommended that WACC should build up and widen its network of Christian and secular groups and institutions and all people of goodwill in order to participate in the people’s communication process [WACC 1997:13].

In the Mexico Declaration (1995) the major theme is Communication for Human Dignity. It points out the importance of empowering women and men in all regions of the world and identifies the richness of communication within all cultures which are life- enhancing [WACC 1997:18]. Participatory communication should aim at restoring or bringing human dignity to all people. The Congress participants recommend:

Christian communicators need to undertake serious theological reflection on their work and mission, particularly on the challenges posed by new information technologies…. Christian communicators need to engage in a process of conscientisation with respect to communication in pursuit of religious tolerance, justice and peace [WACC 1997:20].

The participants have realised a need for a theological basis of communication rather than merely a change in the communication perspective. This also demands that Christian communicators participate in this process of conscientisation. This declaration particularly affirms deep-rooted human values and plural expressions as well as social contradictions. While discussing the participatory approach, WACC began to realise the need for a theological approach which is not often given importance in other documents. This participatory approach is developed from the theological principles stated in these declarations.

ii. Underlying beliefs

In the WACC documents theological principles of communication are given at the beginning of the statements. Various models of communication are highlighted in the document entitled Christian Principles of Communication. The theological basis that is developed reflects WACC’s interest in pointing out the participatory characteristics of Christian communication. Christ’s own communication is seen as an act of self-giving, based on Paul’s letter to the Philippians (2:7). It states Christ “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant”. The document comments:

He ministered to all, but took up the cause of the materially poor, the mentally ill, the outcasts of society, the powerless and oppressed. In the same way, Christian communication should be an act of love which liberates all who take part in it [WACC 1997:5].

This theological statement clearly outlines the way in which WACC interprets the verse in the letter to the Philippians. In order to participate in people’s communication, Jesus serves the people by emptying himself and taking the form of a servant. For WACC, the gospel ‘needs to be constantly reinterpreted from the perspectives of the poor and the oppressed’ [WACC 1997:5]. It demands that the communicators express God’s kingdom rather than the divided church. The church is called to embody and testify to the central values of the kingdom which is participatory in nature.

The First Congress in Manila did not emphasise a proper theological basis for the perspectives of communication that were developed in the declaration. But in the second International Congress in Mexico (1995), there was a discussion about communication ethics, communication and religion, and Christian communication. The WACC calls for serious theological reflection on their work and mission, particularly on the challenges posed by new information technologies [WACC 1997:20]. It also states:

Christian churches and organisations should recognise and respond to the challenges of the media age and develop an organic rather than instrumental understanding of communication media. They should give attention to the reinterpretation of the contents of Christian discourse, as based on the deposit of faith. Christian communicators need to consider both the biblical text as well as cultural context in their communication work [WACC 1997:20].

This statement clearly points out the need for hermeneutic work to be done on the biblical narratives in order to develop a theological basis. In order to bring about changes in the perspectives of the churches on communication, their theological foundations need to be reinterpreted or widened by an alternative understanding of the biblical narratives.

WACC Congress declarations foresee the need for a theological basis from which participatory communication can be brought about within the Christian media practices and the churches’ communication. In such cases they identify a few relevant biblical passages which highlight the importance of the participatory nature of Christian communication. WACC’s principles of communication will be critically analysed in the next section.

iii. Critique

This study recognises the role of WACC in encouraging the churches to realise the real meaning of communication by giving importance to its participatory characteristics. Christian communicators are invited not only to participate in people’s communication but also to challenge the role of the media in society. WACC’s declarations show the scholarly nature of the statements and reflect the practical experience of the participants. I have already noted that these declarations highlighted the need for a proper theological basis for such a participatory communication. Some of the critical remarks however directed at the effect-centred approach are also relevant to the WACC’s statements.

There are three issues in the WACC documents that will be identified in this section. This research attempts to address these issues in the following chapters. Firstly the primary challenge before the churches is how to share the gospel with their audiences. The WACC statement on Christian Principles of Communication notes “The Gospel, being the Good News for the poor, needs to be constantly reinterpreted from the perspectives of the poor and the oppressed” [WACC 1997:5]. This view of Christian communication shows vital characteristics of the gospel. It is important to emphasise this aspect of the gospel in a context where poverty and oppression is an everyday reality. This is one aspect of the gospel story. Christian communicators need to be aware of other characteristics, too: spiritual nourishment is also an important element. In this sense bringing awareness among the poor and oppressed involves enhancing the audience’s faith and enabling them to come closer to God. Thus it is essential to reinterpret the gospel from the perspective of the poor and the oppressed while taking into account their spiritual needs as well. It is essential to bring the people closer to God as well as to bring them out of their poverty and oppression, even though at times it may not be possible to communicate directly this spiritual aspect of the gospel.

Secondly the media’s role is seen only in one-way lines:

The mass media have been organised along one-way lines: they flow from top to bottom, from the centre to the periphery, from the few to the many, from the “information rich” to the “information poor”…. Many think that this is the way the media have to work [WACC 1997:7].

The Manila Declaration points out, “Mass media and information industries are structures of power. They are intertwined with national centres of political, economic and military power and are increasingly linked at the global level” [WACC 1997:11]. These statements portray the mass media as if they reflect the existing system of power and reinforce the division between rich and poor. The document argues that only by changing the communication technologies is a higher degree of participation possible [WCC 1997:7]. It can be argued that divisions between rich and poor have always existed, but the mass media reflect and reinforce certain myths that justify such divisions. Other social processes such as industrialisation and urban movement have also contributed towards such division.

In some contexts the media contribute to an awareness of mass movement against such divisions. The media play an important role in the life of communities at regional and national levels in various contexts. They have become part of people’s ritual engagement with a wider culture. Thus it is important to enable people to use the mass media to participate and interact among themselves. It is a challenge for Christian communicators who engage in a mass medium to interact with the audience. Their involvement should contribute towards a wider participation of the audience and challenge the existing systems. Without simply blaming the media, Christian communicators should attempt to participate in the mass media in such a way that this awareness is fostered among the audience. This should lead to wider participation and interaction among the audiences and thus lead to a search for social and religious meanings among them.

Thirdly WACC identified two main themes in their international congresses in Manila and in Mexico. The themes are: Communication for Community and Communication for Human Dignity [WACC 1997:10, 18]. The primary purposes of communication are well stated by WACC in its declarations. They should aim at building community and should enable the people to become aware of their dignity. The best way of creating a community is to enable the audience to identify and address the issues themselves. Communicators cannot build a community for the audience, rather the audience themselves contribute towards building a community. Even before communicators participate in their audiences’ communication, the audiences are already engaged in a communication process through which they share and exchange their social and religious meanings. The communicators have to participate in this communication process together with their audience to enable them to become aware of these issues. While there is a need for communication for community and communication for human dignity the communicator needs to recognise communication of the community. By participating in the communication process of the community, can the communicator interact with them in order to raise awareness of the issues of community and of human dignity. In this case the communication starts the audience and the communicator himself is a participant along with them in their search for the wider meanings of community and human dignity.

This critical study of the documents of the churches points to the necessity for a perspective in which the communicator shares and participates in people’s communication process and interacts with their beliefs and worldviews. In order to bring about a change in the churches’ perspective it is essential to develop a theological basis of communication. In order to develop this perspective and a theological basis, Carey’s ritual view, Freire’s pedagogical principles and Kierkegaard’s concept of indirect communication are brought together in the following sections.

4. Carey’s Cultural Understanding of Communication

In the above section, it is argued that the instrumental and effect-centred perspectives were given prominence in the church documents. These documents did not highlight the importance of the interaction between the media, the communicator and the audience within their wider social context. Sharing the messages and meanings is a complex process because many variables are involved in the participation of the communicator, media and audience. Thus there is a need to develop an alternative paradigm of communication; one that recognises the complexity of the communication process itself and which also views communication as an interaction within the social and cultural processes. Carey’s ritual approach might provide a background to develop an interactive perspective from a cultural understanding of communication.

Carey [1989:14-5] identifies two main conceptions of communication; the ‘transmission view’ and the ‘ritual view’. He argues that the transmission view of communication is formed from a metaphor of geography or transportation, whereas the ritual definition is linked to terms such as sharing, participation, association and the possession of a common faith. In the ritual understanding, communication is linked to terms such as ‘sharing’ and ‘participating’ in an exchange of the message and its meanings, and those who engage in it are seen as participants. For Carey communication is directed towards the maintenance of society in time and the representation of shared belief, and is viewed as the sacred ceremony that draws persons together in fellowship and commonality [1989:18].

While recognising the importance of Carey’s shift in the emphasis, communication is not limited to a static circular process where people share what is available to them. Carey [1989] argues that in the ritual view, the reading of the news is not merely an act of receiving information but also an act of engaging in a drama in which a particular view of the world is portrayed and confirmed. The use of the media by the audience needs to be studied within wider cultural and social practices. He sees communication as a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transformed [Carey 1989:21-23]. In his understanding both the acts of maintaining and transforming realities are considered. It can be argued that the communication process alone does not determine the transformation and maintenance of a community. Other social processes such as technological advancement and the migration of people from rural to urban areas, or from one country to the other, also contribute to the transformation and maintenance of culture and also to the process of communication.

While sharing and participating in the communication process within a particular social and cultural network, audiences construct their own messages and meanings regardless of what is being communicated. Sometimes the communicated messages reflect and influence the audience’s view of the reality. Sometimes they reinforce and mediate it. Carey sees, “Human thought, in the new model, is seen more as interpretations persons apply to experience, constructions of widely varying systems of meanings the verification of which cannot be exhausted by the methods of science” [1989:63]. Meanings are not merely constructed but also are mediated through the content of the media and shared by the community. In this sense the communicator is not the only source of meaning, for meanings exist in the community even before they are communicated.

Communication is seen as an interpretation in which meanings are constructed from, and placed upon the experience of a particular community and its members. In this interpretation a medium can interpret the experience and cannot avoid a multiplicity of meanings evolving out of that interpretation. Carey [1989:25] notes that language (as a medium) often distorts, obfuscates, and confuses people’s perception of this external world, yet they rarely dispute this matter-of-fact realism. He also points out that communication cannot be revealed in nature through some objective method free from the influence of culture. He further notes that peoples’ minds and lives are shaped by their total experience or by the representation of experience which for them is communication [1989:33]. This is opposed to the assumption that people’s reality is being shaped and influenced by the content of communication on its own.

For Carey [1989:34] social life includes the sharing of aesthetic experiences21, religious ideas, personal values and sentiments and intellectual notions. The word ‘aesthetic’ is related to philosophy of taste or of the perception of the beautiful22. He recognises the shift in the understanding of communication from the transmission approach to the ritual approach and the complexity in the process of communication. Thus Carey notes:

Culture, however, is never singular and univocal. It is, like nature itself, multiple, various, and varietal. …The scientific conceit is the presumption that living in scientific frames of reference is unequivocally superior to an aesthetic, commonsensical, or religious ones. The deliberating effect of this conceit is the failure to understand meaningful realms of discourse in terms of which people conduct their lives [1989:65-66].

In Carey’s view communication is a process that arises out of the cultural reality in which participants of the process share and exchange their messages. In such an understanding communication, as a process, is conditioned by the social and cultural context. There are no more senders and receivers in this process, as they both share the media in order to engage in it. They are involved not merely in the process of sending and receiving information but of sharing and participating in the process of celebrating and understanding each other’s lives within their social and cultural framework.

In my approach, communication is seen as an ongoing process in which people engage in sharing and constructing messages and meanings. This is in continuity with other historical processes of society [such as industrialisation and urbanisation]. At times communication makes an impact on other social processes; in turn they also affect the process of communication. Black and Bryan [1995] identify the ‘interaction model’ in which communication is defined as a process through which participants create and share information with one another in order to reach mutual understanding. It is a process through which persons create, maintain, and alter social order and relationships and identities. The action of creating and sharing are part of the communication process. As this process occurs within a social framework, it is essential to see it as a continuation of a process from the past into the present and taking participants into the future.

Carey provides an understanding of communication in which communicators and audience are seen as mutual and equal partners. When he defines it as a process in a particular social context, he recognises the way meanings are mediated, shared and constructed in a ritual and cultural manner. For Carey the ritual understanding of communication does not exclude the process of information transmission or attitude change [1989:21]. His analysis also recognises the limitations of the media in portraying, reflecting and reinforcing the existing realities that people experience in their daily life. He sees no objective way to understand this process and considers the mechanism to be complex. It includes not only sending and receiving information but also celebrating life by sharing aesthetic experience, religious ideas, personal values and sentiments.

Communication, as a ritual event, occurs in a community’s life without any meaning being shared or constructed but simply as part of celebrating life. This cultural view highlights the importance of the interactive characteristics of communication. This shift in the understanding of communication emphasises four things: the importance of the audience’s role in the construction of meaning, the impact of their cultural context, their interest in sharing aesthetic experience, and the medium that they share.

Carey’s view leads to a realisation that Christian communication should not be understood merely as communicating the Christian faith in the form of an information package or as a set of rules and regulations to solve ethical issues. From this cultural perspective, Christian communication can best be interpreted as a process in which the communicator and the audience participate and engage in a search for religious and social meanings. While they interact through their cultural forms and celebrate their life together they can share each other’s experience of faith and life. In order to interact with the audience, the Christian communicators need to engage in the audience’s process of communication regardless of their religion and beliefs.

If this cultural approach is interpreted theologically, it can be argued that God is no longer a mere sender but the one who shares and participates with human beings in the process of communication in order to understand and to be understood by them. God’s involvement in the process of communication cannot be seen as an exchange of information about himself but as a celebration of life together with human beings by sharing aesthetic experiences, faith, values and sentiments. This view would help the churches give importance to the cultural view. In the following section, an attempt is made to develop a theological basis for such a shift with the help of Kierkegaard’s idea of indirect communication. Such an approach to communication might help churches to develop more vigorous models for Christian communications.

Kierkegaard’s Concept of Indirect Communication

A need for a theological basis for such an alternative approach has already been noted in my critical study of the churches’ documents. This section will focus on the three essential aspects in Kierkegaard’s understanding of communication that contribute to the theological basis. The first is his emphasis on the indirect communication of Christ to his hearers through a ‘sign of contradiction’. He speaks of the impossibility of communicating Christ directly or objectively. The second is that the teacher or the communicator needs to begin from the place where the learner or audience23 is. The third point is his emphasis on the ethical issues in which the need for sharing higher virtues is emphasised. While enabling the learners to choose certain values, the teacher learns together with them. In this process, the teacher shares his message in order to enable the learner to realise his capability and to choose to live with virtues. Kierkegaard’s three aspects of communication arise out of his theological concern for communicating the Christian faith. These principles and their applications in constructing an alternative paradigm will be noted in this section.

A. Indirect Communication

In his book Training in Christianity, Kierkegaard [(1850) 1941A] argues that by his very nature Jesus did not directly communicate himself to the world, even to those closest to him. Jesus’ message, Kierkegaard notes, was indirect and his followers were asked to believe in it. Indirect communication is defined as the opposite of direct communication that can be produced by the art of reduplicating communication [1941A:132]. This means there is no objective way of communicating Christ25.

Kierkegaard states:

If someone says directly ‘I am God; the father and I are one, this is direct communication. But if the person who says it, the communicator, is this individual human being… just like others, then this communication is not quite entirely direct. … that an individual human being should be God - whereas what he says is entirely direct. Because of the communicator, communication contains a contradiction, it becomes indirect communication [(1850) 1991:134].

In Kierkegaard’s concept of indirect communication, Christ did not communicate directly to his followers through his teachings. Those who believe in Christ could recognise the ‘sign of contradiction’ in him. For Kierkegaard [1941A:124] Christ is a sign, ‘a sign of contradiction’. A sign of contradiction is a sign which contains in itself a contradiction. To be a sign of contradiction is to be another thing which stands in opposition to what one immediately is [1941A:124-5]. Christ is a sign of contradiction because on the one hand he says he is one with the Father and on the other he is an ordinary human being like others and thus contradicts himself.

The sign of contradiction that Christ offered was offensive, and so, too, the indirect communication of a Christian will also offend [Arbaugh and Arbaugh1968:274]. For Kierkegaard Christ places before individuals a choice, and while they choose, Christ himself is revealed to them [1941A:98]. Kierkegaard points out that Christ called on people to accept him as Lord by accepting rejection and by allowing himself to be crucified. It is in the form of an irony that attempts to persuade a learner to choose to believe that Jesus is God.

The second point that Kierkegaard makes in defence of indirect communication is that it exists only for faith. He argues:

He (Christ) is the paradox, the object of faith, existing only for faith. But all historical communication is communication of ‘knowledge’; hence from history one can learn nothing about Christ. History makes out Christ to be other than He truly is [1941A:28].

For Kierkegaard faith is thus the response to a communication that is indirect and direct communication of Christ is an impossibility26. He argues that the ‘proofs’ in Scripture for Christ’s divinity, such as his miracles and his resurrection from the dead, are recognised through faith. The miracle stories prove that all these conflict with reason and therefore are objects of faith [1941A:29].

In Kierkegaard’s theological understanding God is seen as one who has given freedom of choice to human beings; the choice whether or not to believe in him. In Kierkegaard’s argument God chooses to participate in communication with his people through indirect communication. It is God who wants to communicate indirectly27. It brings a new understanding to the relationship between God and human beings, as communication does not simply flow from God to people. God enters the human level of understanding and uses the form through which he attempts to share his love and care for his people.

Kierkegaard was critical of the Christendom28 that has transformed the whole of Christianity into direct communication [1941A:97]. For Kierkegaard, until now, people taught Christianity as knowledge that has triumphed over actuality and reduplication [Pattison 1992:74-6]. By making it a dogmatic and apologetic confession, the act of communicating faith becomes merely an imparting of knowledge and information about God, and about Christ, which for Kierkegaard, is a misunderstanding of Christianity.

These criticisms are relevant to the theological basis of the present churches’ approach to Christian communication. By adopting the instrumental approach, Christian communication is made the equivalent of imparting information and knowledge about God and Christ by the churches to the people through a medium. Swenson [1941:238] argues that for Kierkegaard the nature of faith is distinctive and cannot be transferred from one person to another as a complete package. To communicate the faith, with all the questions neatly resolved in a planned programme that would lead the recipient to a full Christian faith, is not possible. Direct communication is a distortion of the truth. The truth is distorted because the subjective is objectified [Weber 1993:66]. If Christian communication is direct, then it denies choice to the audience.

In order to participate in the process of communication, churches need to realise the contradiction within the content of their message and the inability to objectively communicate the gospel. On the one hand they would claim the presence of God’s saving act in and through the church, and on the other hand they contradict this by choosing the way of the cross which is ‘a sign of contradiction’. By enabling the audience to interpret their beliefs and relate them to their context, the churches can indirectly bear witness to the gospel. The churches can bear witness to the gospel through their indirect involvement in the audience’s communication process.

The primary task of Christian communication is to offend with a sign of contradiction and enable the audience to choose the meanings of the gospel. This theological basis emphasises the freedom of the audience, and their choice to believe, while attempting to persuade them to believe. This communication cannot be direct because what is communicated cannot be provided with evidence [Pattison 1992:85]. Rather the purpose of Christian communication is to share the gospel through story forms with the audience in such a way that they might interpret their beliefs and relate them to their context. The audience is provided with a choice to believe and to stand alone before God. The emphasis on indirect communication involves recognition of the complexity in sharing the gospel. By recognising the complexities in the audience’s communication process Christian communicators need to realise that they can communicate the gospel indirectly while being a witness to it. By realising these complexities, they can interact with the audience as Christ interacted with the people indirectly in the process of communication in biblical times.

B. Midwife’s Role of the Communicator

In order to enter into a communicative act with his audience, Christ interacted with his audience by constructing a sign, a sign of contradiction to catch their attention and to challenge them. Kierkegaard argues that Christ did not communicate directly29 and his direct utterances can serve, like the miracles, to make people attentive [1941:131]. This Christological understanding of Kierkegaard highlights the basic principles of an indirect communication in which communicator and audience are seen as participants (learners) in the search for meanings of the gospel.

This aspect of indirect communication is explained with the help of the mid-wife imagery. Kierkegaard borrows the midwifery image (maieutic) from Plato and uses it in his Fragments. The imagery appears in the dialogues of Plato where Socrates says, I am so far like the midwife that I cannot give birth to wisdom… all who are favoured by heaven make progress at a rate seems surprising to others as well as to themselves, although it is clear that they have never learned from me. The many admirable truths they bring to birth have been discovered by themselves from within [Hamilton and Cairns 1963:853-5].

The midwife’s role is to help a woman in the process of delivering her child; it is the woman who delivers the child by herself with the help of the midwife. For Kierkegaard the communicator’s role, like a midwife, is to help the learners (audiences) to become free and to stand by themselves in the process of believing and entering into the God-relationship [(1847) 1995:276-78]. The communicator remains anonymous in the process. Arbaugh and Arbaugh [1968:274] point out that for Kierkegaard the teacher, like a midwife, should deal with the learner where the learner is, in whatever state he or she may be, and seek to progress from that point towards the eternal. Both are concerned with seeking eternal truth.

The purpose of indirect communication is not to bring the learner into a relationship with the teacher but rather into relationship with God. In an essentially aesthetic age if the teacher is to start where the learner is the teacher must start with the aesthetic – even though the aesthetic is incapable of expressing religious truth [Pattison 1992:72]. Kierkegaard defines aesthetic as a pleasure, which is more than an art, and as personal interest which is more than sheer pleasure. With an aesthetic attitude one is caught up in various attractive experiences of the moment, in a state of immediacy which does not reach beyond itself [Arbaugh and Arbaugh 1968:64].

In his Training in Christianity, he identified the learner as being in the age of aesthetics. The teacher has to go to the place where the learner is in order to communicate with him or her indirectly [Kierkegaard 1941]. The age in which the clergy of the established churches are derided as ‘poets’ and in which the sort of character portrayed in Heiberg’s A Soul After Death, is also considered as aesthetic [Pattison 1992:62]. The aesthetic age means the age in which the audience engages often in the cultural practices that give them pleasure and entertainment. To make communication effective, there is a need to recognise and share their audience’s medium and aesthetic interests. The primary task of the Christian communicator must be to find and to start from the place where the audience is.

C. Choice and not Code

Kierkegaard is also concerned with moral life that for him is learnt by practising the art of such living, together with observing this art as demonstrated by noble examples. In Either/Or he uses another metaphor of a judge who views the aesthetical, the ethical and the religious as three great allies [1959(2):150]. The ethical will not annihilate the aesthetical but transfigure it. In this way Kierkegaard combines indirect communication, Christology, aesthetic and ethical aspects together in the teacher (communicator) and learner (audience) relationship. In combining these aspects of communication, he sets out the goal and the role of the Christian communicator.

The goal of Christian communication should be to bring the audience not into an intellectual acceptance but to a personal acceptance of spiritual and ethical principles through aesthetic characteristics. Kiekegaard notes, “The ethical must be communicated as an art, simply because everyone knows it. The object of communication is consequently not a knowledge but a realisation” [1967 (4): 272]. The learner needs to be prodded into self- awareness in relation to these principles by means of irony, pathos, and dialectic. Such communication addresses an individual, a constituent of the audience, to help him/her to see inwardly and then to choose these principles in the light of his/her God-relationship. It is to enable the individual to seek for himself/herself these principles in communication.

In Christian communication it is essential to recognise the fact that the task is to help audiences to realise their capability and to persuade them to see in themselves these virtues. Pattison argues that the ethical teacher is not concerned to put knowledge into the learner but to draw out from him his own capability or potentiality [1992:74]. Kierkegaard notes, “It may be that science can be pounded into a person, as far as aesthetic capability is concerned and even more so with the ethical, one has to pound out of him” [1967 (4): 285]. He explains this using an analogy in which he illustrates the difference between pounding the soldier out of the farm boy by recognising the capability in him and the soldier studying a manual of field tactics in order to become a farm boy. It means that ethical communication does not require any kind of knowledge [1967(1):285]. This argument supports the fact that the audience shares certain ethical and social values even before they are communicated to them. The task of the communicator is to make them to realise these values in them.

It is important to note that in Kierkegaard’s argument about indirect communication, the communicator should make it clear that he is not the teacher since only God bestows eternal truth on each individual. It leads to an act of recognition on the part of the communicator that the learner somehow already possesses the truth. He must acknowledge that everyone stands absolutely alone in his relationship to God. Arbaugh and Arbaugh argue that in Kierkegaard’s understanding this ethical communication develops a response, but does not seek to inform [1968:272-3]. They interpret Kierkegaard’s ethical communication as to coax the ethical out of the individual because it already exists inside him or her. They also point out that in ethical and religious communication the teacher is himself a learner who benefits from the response of his pupil [1968:272-4]. This characteristic of ethical communication, as explained, recognises those religious and social meanings as already present in the audience, waiting to be shared and interpreted through the communication process.

It has been noted that a wide range of competing meanings is available to the audience through various social processes. In these circumstances the best way to communicate the ethical meanings is to present them among a wide range of social values that are available to the audience. It is vital to relate those ethical principles to religious beliefs through the aesthetic aspect of communication. This would enable audiences to read themselves and might make them more aware of the God-relationship.

The communicator’s role is not simply to pass on information but, rather to enable the audience to realise the meanings in themselves. Communicators merge into the communication process and lose their identity in order to enable learners to live aesthetically with higher virtues. The Christian communicator, according to Kierkegaard, should also fade into the background leaving the hearers standing solitary in the presence of God. For him, Christ willed to be incognito [1941A:127]. Kierkegaard points out that Christian communication must end in witnessing which he identifies as direct communication [1967(2):1957]. For him witnessing expresses in the recipient’s life what he or she has come to believe [1967(1):659]. When the communicators become one with their communication, they become witnesses and are then no longer engaged in indirect communication.

D. Reflection

Kierkegaard’s understanding substantially shifts the theological basis of communication. God chooses to communicate with his people indirectly and Christ demonstrated it. Christian communication involves sharing the good news of God’s involvement in the human communication process. On the one hand Christian communication is direct in stating that God is with us (Immanuel), and on the other hand there is no evidence provided for such a claim except asking people to believe in it. By engaging in the audience’s communication process and by bearing witness to this belief, then the Christian communicator can interact with the audience. This makes Christian communication indirect. The basic purpose of the indirect communication should be to enable the audience to ‘read’ themselves and to enable them to stand-alone before God. Kierkegaard’s idea of indirect communication expects a Christian communicator to start from where the audience is. Christian communicators need to participate in the communication process where the audience is participating, by sharing the medium and the format and also their faith, and their world-view with the audience. In this indirect communication, the audience’s preferences and tastes need to be taken into consideration and also their qualities of aesthetic appreciation.

In Christian communication it is vital to capture the attention of his audience and to start from where the people are. If people prefer an aesthetic form of communication, then the Christian communicator should use such forms in their communication. Forrester [1993:72-3] in his article on the ‘Media and Theology’ argues that Christianity belongs within a powerful medium such as television rubbing shoulders alongside other images, stories and instruction. There is a need for Christian communicators to share with the audience their aesthetic qualities and understanding, and to interpret their faith in order to persuade them to have a direct communicative relationship with God.

There is a strong recognition here of the audience role in Christian communication which gives credence to this study in establishing that Jesus himself participated in such a process of communication through parables. Christ interacts with his audience through aesthetic means. This shifts the concept of Christian communication from a sender-receiver model to a model based on indirect communication. In indirect communication the audience does not consist of passive receivers but of active participants, seeking and sharing meanings of eternal truth, and of life, together with the communicator. In Kierkegaard’s understanding of ethical communication there is an emphasis on the ethical capability of the individual. The Christian communicator learns together with the audience by participating in the process of communication. It is essential to enable these individuals to see in themselves their potential to acquire higher virtues. This, for Kierkegaard, is possible through faith.

In order to enable these individuals to see inwardly, the aesthetic aspect of communication should be used. Thus aesthetic aspect, Christian faith and ethical communication are related to each other in Christian communication. These principles in Kierkegaard’s indirect communication have helped this study to develop a new theological basis for Christian communication. By identifying these principles in Kierkegaard’s concept of indirect communication, a theological basis for an alternative paradigm of Christian communication can be developed. However Kierkegaard’s understanding of indirect communication needs to be extended into an interactive paradigm.

6. Interactive Approach

An attempt shall now be made to bring Kierkegaard’s indirect communication, Freire’s dialogical approach and Carey’s cultural understanding of communication together in order to develop a new approach to Christian communication. Carey’s approach highlights the necessity to shift the present understanding of communication to a cultural one. In his cultural approach, communication was understood to be a process of sharing and participating rather than of sending and receiving. Unless an audience is sharing and interpreting among themselves, their interactive participation cannot be effective. He also accepts the limitations of the media in portraying the social and cultural realities of the people. He recognises communication as a complex process in which many variables are involved. For him this process cannot be objectively analysed. It is a complex ongoing process in which the participants, both audience and communicator, are involved in the construction of meanings within a particular social context.

This provides an alternative approach to Christian communication in which God and people are seen as participants. Thus the communicator and the audience become active participants in the process. As seen in some of the church documents, Christian communication is thought to be an act of passing on information about God and Christ. This informative knowledge is seen as if it flows from God through Christ to the people through the churches and their media institutions. This theological basis enables them to be authoritative over the content they communicate. The problems with such an understanding of communication have been identified in the previous sections.

In contrast to this Kierkegaard argues that Christ communicated indirectly with his followers. It was also recognised that Christian communicators need to use aesthetic elements in order to attract people’s attention. Kierkegaard identified the theological necessity for the communicator to begin from the state of the audience. He also points out that both the communicator and the audience are in the process of coming into a God- relationship. The ethical aspect of this indirect communication, for Kierkegaard, works on choices in which Christian values are shared with aesthetic elements. This forms the theological basis in which God is seen as an effective participant in human communication. In the study of Freire’s pedagogy, it was pointed out that the communicator is a co-worker and participant in the investigation of knowledge. His emphasis on concentization is relevant in the interactive communication because communicator’s action follows his or her reflection. The freedom to think critically and to choose an appropriate action is emphasised in Freire’s work.

In the process of Christian communication, there is an interaction between people’s faith, medium and their social-cultural contexts. Kierkegaard and Carey identify communication as an interactive process in which communicator and audience help each other in the construction of meanings. The interaction between the communicator and the audience is essential not only to maintain the ritual order of other social processes but also to make it an effective and growth-oriented process. This perspective sees communication as an ‘interactive process’ within the wider social and cultural context in which it occurs.

A. Interactive Process

In this study communication is seen as an interactive cultural process in which communicators and the audience participate in sharing and constructing social and religious meanings. The communicator engages in the audiences’ process of communication in order to interact with them. This perspective highlights the role of the audiences in communication even before the message is communicated. Interaction occurs not only in interpersonal and group communication but also at the mass level. Interaction is understood as a process of “linkages between or among countless factors, each functioning conjointly, so that changes in any one set of forces affect the operation of all other processes to produce a unique and total effect” [Sereno & Mortensen 1970:8]. The communicator can often interact more effectively if he/she is aware of the audience’s meaning making, beliefs and worldviews.

Two scholars in the field of communication have identified the significance of this approach. They are McCoroskey [1968] and Schramm [1973] whose work is a study of what happens after the message is communicated. The important features of McCoroskey’s model are i. Communication is a circular process. ii. There is a linkage of encoding and decoding to the process prior to (investigation process) and after communication (communication effects). Thus it views encoding and decoding in the social context [McCoroskey 1968:25]. The social and cultural contexts are changing and so are the technologies in the communication process. These changes make communication into an ongoing spiral process which tends to influence other social processes and in turn is being influenced by them.

Schramm’s model also visualises communication as a circular process. It has no starting point and no end. It is really endless. It also conceives of decoding and encoding as activities maintained by sender and receiver [1973:31]. Hall’s study on ‘encoding’ and ‘decoding’ which was noted earlier in the introduction is relevant here. Hall argues:

Events can only be signified within the aural-visual forms of discourse, it is subject to all the complex formal ‘rules’ by which language signifies. To put it paradoxically, the event must become a ‘story’ before it can become a communicative event [1980:129].

They put the emphasis mainly the decoding of audiences. They hold the view that decoding takes place when the communicator has communicated his message. They do not recognise the complexities in the process of ‘encoding’ of the communicator and the ‘decoding’ of audiences. In the interactive perspective, the process of encoding and decoding does not occur in isolation but within a particular historical context.

Plude argues that the communication patterns that arise from the new interactive technologies, such as teleconferencing and computers, begin to empower individuals and groups. For her in these Interactive Strategic Alliances, authority seems to move from ‘the top’ to ‘the grass roots’ [1994:193]. As already noted in the introduction that her conclusions are derived from the perspective of the contextual necessity which is created by the use of interactive technology in communication. My own research highlights the interactive characteristics of communication from a cultural and religious perspective.

In this interactive approach the communicator is part of an ongoing process. The communicator has to share in the existing media, faith and cultural systems in order to participate in this process together with the audience. The audience already shares these aspects and is also influenced by other processes. By entering into this ongoing process the Christian communicator can come to the place where the audience is. With the support of Carey, Freire and Kierkegaard, this study places the communicator and the audience as participants in the ongoing communication process that occurs within the framework of their social and cultural context.

This interactive perspective is particularly relevant to Christian communication because the communicator is called upon to present the meanings of the gospel in the midst of a wide range of meanings. It is necessary for the Christian communicator to begin from the place where the audience is. One of the best ways of communicating the gospel is to interact with the audience’s belief, their means and forms of communication, and worldview. By interacting with the audience, the Christian communicator realises that he/she too is a learner and enables them to realise the choice that God provides for them.

In Christian communication there is an interaction between the communicator’s and the audience’s faith and between the media and their social realities. Both are involved in sharing and exchanging their religious understandings and social insights through the media. As it occurs within the particular framework of a society, the communication process reflects and reinforces the world-views and cultural attitudes of the audience. Christian communicators need to be aware of the numerous means of communication that compete for attracting the audience’s attention.

In this interactive perspective, Christian communication is seen as part of the cultural process in which the communicator and the audience engage to share and construct meanings that are relevant to their belief and to their social context. It is essential for the Christian communicator to engage in the audiences’ communication process because they are exposed to a wide range of meanings (both religious and social) through various processes (e.g. political and cultural). The meanings of the gospel need to be presented effectively among the wide range of meanings using aesthetic characteristics and forms that are familiar to the audience. Examples of the aesthetic forms of communication are the television entertainment programmes such as quiz programmes. In short Christian communicators need to engage in what their audiences share as part of the communication process, in order to interact with them and to present the meanings of the gospel.

B. Biblical Basis

In many biblical narratives, God is shown as one who is engaged in the human communication process in a variety of ways (Heb 1:1). God shares his care and love within the limits of human understanding, and expresses this within the framework of our communicating abilities. At times he conceded to people’s demands in order to show them that he participates in their communication process. For example, when the Israelites demanded a King, Yahweh allowed Samuel to anoint a king for them even though he spoke about the dangers of monarchy (1Sam 8:1-22).

Even though the monarchy was seen as a rejection of Yahweh’s rule, he is portrayed as one who accepts the demands of Israelites32. While allowing them to have a king, Samuel presents ‘the ways of the king’ in verse 11. Commenting on this passage (1Sam 8:1-22), Klein [1983:79] notes that by granting Israel a king despite their sins, Yahweh demonstrated his generosity to his people. Yahweh’s involvement in his people’s lives is thus seen as an interactive participation. In this interactive perspective, there is consideration for the audience’s understanding and participation on the same level as that of the communicator, that is God. God and human beings participated in the communication process in which participant tried to understand each other. God is shown as one who continued to interact through the monarchical institution with his people. This clearly highlights the interactive characteristics with which some of the biblical narratives portray God’s participation in human communication.

God’s involvement is presented in such a way that human beings are able to understand him within their limitations and share his concern through their forms of communication with others. In this understanding there is a consideration for human interest and aesthetic taste, through which the messages and meanings are shared and exchanged among the participants. Even though the understanding and means do not completely picture or portray God or his activities in an objective way, yet, they attempt to persuade people to experience God’s involvement in their lives by participating in this process together with others.

In New Testament times, Jesus interacted in a similar way with his disciples and with his hearers. Some of his parables portray the way in which Jesus interacted with his hearers by sharing their faith, by reflecting their realities and by using their forms of communication. By identifying such an interaction, this study attempts to develop it as a theological model of communication. It can be inferred from the context of the parables that many conflicting and complex beliefs were redefined through these parables. Even though this study tends to apply all the modern understanding of communication to the parables, it does not assume that Jesus was aware of these issues. Analysing many parables would be a long-term project. This study attempts to focus on one of the synoptic parables to derive principles of communication without generalising it to all other parables.

In the next chapter it is demonstrated that Jesus participated in his hearers’ communication process by sharing their faith, their forms of communication and their realities through his teaching - particularly through his parables. He sums up his principles of this interactive communication process in one of his kingdom parables (Similes) in Matthew (13:52) by saying, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old”. The parable shows the involvement of a scribe who shares the old with his audience and interprets it in terms of new realities and understanding. This is what is identified as an interaction between old and new forms of communication in which a Christian communicator, like a scribe, is expected to participate. The scribe participates in the ongoing process of communication which is in continuity with the old. The changes in his hearers’ contexts demand something new in his involvement in the process of communication.

In a similar way the Christian communicator is called upon to share the religious expressions, characters and forms that are already familiar to his audience (old) and to participate in the communication process by sharing the media with his/her audience in constructing meanings (new). A Christian communicator’s interpretation and participation should be shaped and influenced by the changing social and cultural context of the audience. By identifying these principles and encouraging the communicator to participate in an interactive process with his/her audience, this study provides a New Testament model of Communication. This paradigm has two main purposes - to communicate the gospel to the people and to address the ethical issues of communication. The need thus arises to analyse this alternative paradigm through one of the parables of Jesus.

7. Conclusion

In this chapter, an attempt has been made to identify the issues involved in a Christian approach to communication by referring to basic documents of the Church (WCC’s reports, WACC’s declarations and Pontifical documents on communication). The approaches behind these documents were classified into two categories – instrumental and effect-centred approaches. These approaches viewed Christian communication from a sender-receiver perspective and identified it as an equivalent of information about God. After identifying their limitations and disadvantages, it was argued that such paradigms were developed on the basis of certain theological assumptions. A need for an alternative approach to communication and for a new theological orientation to support this approach was recognised. An alternative paradigm of Christian communication has been developed from Carey’s cultural perspective, leading to a definition of communication as a complex interactive process involving a large number of variables.

This chapter noted Freire’s contribution to participatory communication. His analogy of a teacher-student relationship emphasises the importance of creative engagement of the communicator and the audience in the communication process as participants. His emphasis on the liberating aspects of the gospel is relevant to Christian communication in India. In a context where many people are oppressed, the Christian communicators need to interact with the audience in order to bring them out of their oppression and also bring them closer to the gospel. The task of the Christian communicators is not only to liberate suffering people from their oppression but also to bring them closer to God.

In order to develop a theological basis for the interactive approach to Christian communication, reference was made to Kierkegaard’s understanding of indirect communication and his emphasis on the role of the audience in this process. Kierkegaard’s indirect communication and Carey’s cultural perspective were brought together to develop a new perspective in Christian approaches towards communication which was identified as an interactive paradigm of communication. The basic shift in the understanding of communication is to view the communicator and the audience as active participants in the communication process before and after the message is communicated. In this perspective Christ is seen as an active participant in the communication process in order to interact with human beings. This shift is essential so that Christian communicators might see themselves as part of an ongoing process and become active participants. To participate actively in this process, they have to begin from the state of the audience as Jesus did when he interacted with human beings.

In the continuity of God’s interaction, Jesus also tried to draw his listeners into their participation by using metaphors and similes. He interacted with his hearers and used their forms of communication to interpret their faith. His participation showed his concern for the issues in their cultural realities. There is a need to examine this interaction of Jesus with his hearers so that churches and their institutions can be encouraged to adopt this alternative paradigm and its theological basis in their approach to communication. It will be demonstrated that the interaction between Jesus and his hearers was part of the ongoing communication process of first century Palestine. The concrete example of this participation is Jesus’ use of parables. This interaction is explicit in certain parables where there is a shared language of faith and social-cultural realities. This points to the value of an analysis on one of the parables of Jesus in order to identify his participation in his hearers’ communication process.