Today it's our huge pleasure to be speaking to Dr. Naaman Wood. Dr. Naaman Wood is Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Redeemer University College in Hamilton, Ontario. He's also the CO editor of the text that we'll be discussing today. Words and witnesses Communication Studies in Christian thought from Athanasius. To Desmond Tutu, Dr. Wood, thank you so much for joining us today. My pleasure to be with you, Jonathan, thank you so much as your name and this book is comprised of some 43 articles, each exploring the communication strategy of one figure from the history of Christianity, would you be willing to share about the Genesis story of this project?
Yeah, so me and my colleague, Robert woods, we kind of grew up as Christians and kind of went through like the Christian university system, we went to graduate school at Regent University in Virginia Beach, we're always told that we should integrate our faith, our Christian worldview with our study. But as we got older, it started to become clear to us that kind of the way we've been formed hadn't really been sufficient for the task. And so we had this existential feeling that what we had wasn't quite enough. And this existential feeling occurred in the midst of other folks who were doing similar forms of reappraisal. So Jamie Smith's work on rethinking Christian worldview, or Robert Weber's ancient future faith series. And so we were really thinking about the reality that one of the gaps that we had in our training is that we never really went back to the long history of Christian sources. And this had really never really been done before and communicate, template for us to follow. So basically, what we did is we had all of our contacts, we contacted them, and we asked them, Hey, would you want to be a part of this project. And if you would just pick someone you know, from the Christian tradition, you'd want to know more about, or if there's someone you're already working with, that you know something about, pick them, read them in their historical context, come up with a single source, and then try to apply their insights that you see to some communicative problem in the church, or some communicative problem inside of Communication Studies. And that's kind of how the book took shape. We didn't have some grand plan or some through line for each of the things. We just felt like we needed to learn more about the Christian tradition, and to try to think about how that could help us deal with communication problems that we see in our world today.
I'm very interested in your project. Did what What language did you use to describe this attempt to reroute evangelicalism within the tradition as part of the so called resource Montt movement? Is this, what is this?
Yes, so So I mean, I definitely so I was lucky enough to go to grad school. So I learned about the resource movement, all those kinds of things. And so I think some part of us, even though we didn't have the language for it at the time, resource, mint is ostensibly what we're doing. And in theory, because no one has done this in Communication Studies before, this is a wide open project, you can do this exact same book, very different outcomes, depending on who you asked to contribute to the book, what authors, you know, our authors chose, I mean, you could do this almost indefinitely, because the Christian tradition is so rich and varied and beautiful.
You stated that you reached out to your friends for this book project. And many of those contacts, if I'm not mistaken, were part of this network that you and your colleague and founded the Christian Communication Studies network, would you be willing to share a little bit about your work in this network?
Yeah. So my co editor, Robert woods, he's the head of the ccsm is kind of what we call it, Christianity Communication Studies network. So we describe it as an interactive community of scholars and teachers who are really trying to press into the between Christianity in communication. And so we're really thinking a lot about faith learning integration. And so as a way of trying to do that faith, learning integration better. There are all kinds of ways that folks can interact with us at the network. We offer a lot of webinars where people talk about projects that they're working on. We have interviews, it's a series called having to do with Christian faith and communication. And so we interview scholars in the field. We also have publications like the Journal of Christian teaching practice, and other books, we have conferences that we hold. So this year, we were supposed to hold a conference on the legacy of Billy Graham but because of COVID they got pushed off till next year. So those are ways that folks can interact with interact with us and folks can also go to the website which is the ccsm comm or they can follow us on Facebook. They But calm slash, the ccsm.
Doctor would this volume covers a whole panoply of Christian authors from Benedict of nursia? Martin Luther, William Carey, Soren Kierkegaard James Cohn, it's astounding the breadth. And so from this survey, what can we say about the communication strategies of all of these men and women that's identifiably Christian? What does it mean to have a Christian communication strategy?
I would say, again, this is not there wasn't some master plan, where we were trying to kind of foreground some particular set of identifiable principles or anything like that, I guess I would say, what is identifiably Christian runs in a number of complicated ways for both good and bad. But at its heart, I would say there's a there's a theological imagination at work. There is a way of life in which the Theologian or the theological thinker is living. And both of those things motivates their response to some crisis or problem. And so that, that I would say that pattern runs through kind of the entire project. There's some theological imagination work some way of life, oftentimes, that's implicit, there's some problem. And then out of that their rhetoric, their communication emerges out of that intersection. And so for example, if you take someone like James Cohn, James Caan grows up in the black church, he grows up in the middle of 20th century under the shadow of lynching, he knows that white people are lynching black people. And he knows that some of those white people are white Christians. So he knows that white Christians could Lynch you. And so he's thinking he's trying to think theologically, what does Christianity have to offer to that crisis. And so the thing that he learns is that what black poets seem to have known is that Jesus, in his own way, was lynched. And so by putting Jesus at the center of that experience, he's able to not only see more clearly what's happening to people like him, but see more profoundly how Jesus can bring healing to those moments. So be one example, I think in a in a positive way. If you want another example, in a negative way, someone like Luther that our Luther chapter in the book is kind of illustrative of that kind of negative way. So throughout luthers career, for all the wonderful kind of things he offered to the what would later become the Protestant church, he wrote us a stain series of attacks against Jews living in Germany, and there's even like a name for this kind of sub genre in his work, he really did see them as a threat. And so part of what we're trying to think through are, you know, the author of the chapters trying to think through is okay, how has that desire to other people to demonize other folks? How is that still with us today, right. And so he kind of comes to the conclusion that evangelical Christians seem to have reproduced, loose, there's desire for an enemy. And so a lot of times, evangelicals, we craft our identities around that negative other. And so that has to be unlearned. And we have to come up with different resources, different ways of learning about who we are, who we can become, in order to deal with that negative thing. So sometimes it runs in positive ways, sometimes runs in negative ways. But I think in all those cases, there's an imagination a way of life. And out of that folks are trying to deal with the problem or an issue or crisis that they see.
Doctor with is really helpful. Your chapter in this text specifically deals with the fourth century church, Father, Gregory of Nyssa, whom, you know, is one of the first Christian abolitionists in the Christian tradition. How does Gregory of Nyssa argue against the institution of slavery?
So Gregory, he's writing in the late three hundreds, and for him, slavery is still very much kind of a way of life still very much embedded in the life that he sees people living. And he probably sees the significant violence that's at play kind of in slavery. And so, for example, there was language use to describe the stigmata of slavery, or the marks of slavery, where a bad slave would get abused by its master, and it would leave scars. And that would be stigmata are the marks of slavery. And there also are in formal terms for slaves, that would sometimes be called Soma or body. So you know, a slave would be reduced to a mere body. So this is kind of going going in, in, in this is kind of moment, he's likely seeing all this. And so he's coming up in in 7379. He's coming up on the season of Lent, which traditionally, is a time of confession in the Christian tradition. And what was interesting is that kind of on Easter, sometimes Christian slave owners would liberate a single slave on Easter. So you have this sense of confession and kind of liberation, kind of in the lens kind of Easter season. So he's reading from Ecclesiastes. And so he's delivering a series. And so in this homily, only four, he uses this logic that I would describe, as goes one, so goes the rest and the rest, he fills out and kind of three ways, humanity, creation and Jesus. And so he thinks about the slaves, we started off talking about the slave, and about how like, you know, the slave can be sold and bought. And he's talking in the singular slave. But soon he slips into the plural, he starts talking about not just a single slave, but all of humanity, he starts talking about in a spiritual sense. And so he says, like if all of humanity was enslaved to sin, and God liberated us from sin, then why would God make anyone a slave. And so he, he slips from the singular to the plural. And in doing so, he for me, he links the single slave to all of humanity. So as goes one slave, so goes all of humanity. He does a similar thing with creation. So he's thinking about Genesis one, how the humans and creation are the ruler of the earth. And then he imagines this scene where a slave is sold. And in the scene where he imagines the slave is sold. It's not just the slave that sold but it's everything the slave owns. And so if the slave like Genesis one says, the ruler of all the earth, then when you sell the slave, you're selling the entire earth, and he asked rhetorically, who can own all the earth? Nobody can, I suppose one humans goes the earth. And then the kind of christological conclusion is with Jesus. So it's kind of like the logic of Matthew, when Matthew when the Gospel of Matthew talks about Jesus as go, what you do the least of these you do to me, it's that kind of logic at play. And so what happens to the slave happens to Jesus and so, so, humanity is at stake in the slave creation is at stake in the slave, God is at stake in the slave. And so I kind of write that his conclusion as it is unthinkable in this moment. So the single slave violates humanity, creation and God. And so when it comes, when you come this Easter, you should manumitted or release all of your slaves. And that's a bit of an anachronism to call them an abolitionist. But like other scholars have said, there's not another word that describes what he's actually doing here.
Thank you very much, Dr. Wood. It's amazing the perspective you bring to us in this text words and witnesses with these 43 historical studies of particular figures in the Christian tradition, if I can pull back just for a moment and get sort of a macro view. So one of the intersections between Communication Studies, what you do professionally and the rest of us is, we're all trying to figure out what to do with virtual technologies, what to do. In this age, we're living where it may not be safe, perhaps for people to meet together in person. And a lot of our communication structures are coming decent decentralized through the internet, the internet. What's your view? Is the internet analogous to the printing press? Does that help us to get our minds around what the internet is and how to use it?
Yeah, so the analogy with the printing press, and the internet is interesting. I think if you think back to something like the printing press, probably the most provocative thing that anyone's said about that is this guy named Neil Postman. And he said, You know, when the printing press arrived in Europe, what you got was not Europe, plus the printing press, you've got a different Europe. Now that that's true, I think in a very kind of limited way. And I think another example to talk about is the clock so that when he talks about the clock, he talks about the Benedictine monks inventing the clock to help with their prayer, but once the clock got outside of the monastery, what that produced was the factory, right. And so I think the thing to keep in mind when we think about those kinds of things, is always to go back to the monastery. Right? If you go back to the monastery today, the monastery isn't a factory, at least not in the way that postman said that. And so I think what the monastery kind of communicates to me is that there's the technology that exists the tool, or the tool and a social practice. But there's also a culture in which that tool kind of circulates. And so if you go to the to the monastery, one of the things that's a part of that culture is poverty. And so it's really difficult to produce a factory out of people who vow something like poverty. And so I think that cultural component is a really important thing to think about. So to come back to the Internet, and what sense can we think about the internet and the printing press in an analogous way or the printing press in the clock? And I think the important thing to think about is that the internet kind of like what the internet does to us today. is not something different than what other media have done. So what do I mean by that? So we aren't in a different North America because of the internet. We're in a more North American, North America. Okay, so what does that mean? So if you think about like something like social media, social media, you can think about it as just mass media given to the individual. That makes sense. Sort of, kind of, Okay, so So if you think about pre Internet, TV station, radio station, movie studio, they had to do a lot of things. In order to get that product to market, there had to be things like advertising, you actually had to produce the product, you have to, you know, have the money for the production making thing, you have to develop and maintain a fan base, you have to have profits to continue that you have to have material infrastructure, you have to create stars there all those things that have to go into running that studio. But what happens with social media today is that all of that work is now what you do with your social media account. You have to, in some ways connect to the advertising, you have to produce your own product, you have to maintain your fan base. So what the internet is doing is just intensifying what was already there to begin with. It's the language you can use as its remediating old media in a new format.
absolutely fascinating. And Dr. Wood. So as you describe it, the the story here emerging is essentially one of continuity or basic continuity. The internet is a new way to do mass media to for the individual. Are there ways that you would say the internet is fundamentally different from previous forms of communication?
I mean, I think I think one of the things that I mean, took took a slide in kind of the digital revolution. I mean, I think what changes is our collective access to these story making possibilities. So there was a time before digital media, in order to produce something like a TV show, you had to have some money, or, or a movie enormous amounts of money to do even low budget films. And now today, you can do a movie, basically with zero money or something like $10,000 to kind of get enough gear and get to put a movie together. And so I think in that way, the discontinuity is that, and this is, you know, been said before that, that our moment is a much more democratic form of expression. I can have a YouTube channel, you can have a YouTube channel, we can all be our own TV producers. But all of those other logics of modernity, of capitalism, of colonialism, none of those logics have changed. All those logics are still in motion.
Extraordinary. So, Dr. Wood, what do you say to all of our churches that, since the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis have found themselves doing exactly that they're all producing their own YouTube channels, and we're all making our own TV shows. So what is your word to the church with this new environment we're in? Where do you find wisdom for what this new effects ought to be for our churches?
Yeah, so I would say that the question of any technology and ecclesial life has to do with, you know, the tool, the social practices, the culture that churches want to inhabit? And so I think the first question is to ask something like, what kind of culture do we want to inhabit as a church? And and the thing to keep in mind, as a lot of these, all this program is ending up on social media platforms like Facebook, for example, is that there's going to be the temptation to let all of those metrics of social media success define what your church defines success. Now, this, this is a part of a long history of evangelical media. evangelicals really do embrace that technology first. And they think about what it all means later. But I think the lesson to learn is that you invert that process. So if you go back to the monastery, you know, and the clock what culture was that play in that ecclesial communities such that it didn't capitulate to the logics of capitalism to the logics of the market? And so the crucial question for me is the crucial problem is that the church by and large, has already capitulated to a lot of these damaging effects, right? So a lot of times we think of the pastor as the CEO, or we think of church growth church in numerical success, right? Or to think about the work of Mark No, we inhabit a lot of anti intellectualism or lack of self awareness or I think about a book like divided by faith. We don't have a sense of what systems are at work and we're not in community with people of color, be a boy lacquer indigenous. And so can these virtual services for me? Can you deploy those in such a way to come up with an alternate vision for Christianity that deals with some of these problems we already inhabit? So I mean, the fundamental question for me again, is, what kind of culture Do you want your church to inhabit? And how can this use of virtual technology be a way to promote that culture and not let the tool damage the culture you're trying to build with other folks? Hmm.
That's an amazing point. What language do you use to describe that? So is this asking the church to be true to its prophetic calling? You know, not just letting the metrics of success on YouTube or whatever other media form dominate the way that the message is produced? Yeah, the church B is called to be a prophetic voice. How do you frame that mission of the church that you're calling it to? Yeah, I
mean, I think the language of the prophetic is really helpful. Yeah. How do I respond to this? can give me a second to think about that
one. It took me a long time to form the question you got all the time you want to answer? Yeah,
yeah. Yeah. So I would say that the language of the prophetic is really helpful. In terms of being countercultural, I think the decisive question is, What do you mean, when you try to be countercultural? And for me, there's a couple things to keep in mind so much I've already mentioned. So the work of Mark Knoll in something it's an older work, this scandal, the evangelical mine, is, I think, really helpful in trying to articulate all of these ways that we haven't lived up to our prophetic calling, or the book divided by faith in which kind of they talk a lot about the problems that white Christians have in dealing with race. So again, the technology can be prophetic. But you have to use it in very intentional ways in order to get at these larger cultural issues that we've been.
You know, the question is simplistic, Dr. Wood, but what do you think of virtual reality church services?
I think virtual reality church service, like any technology can be a real harm or real hindrance. And so I think, in terms of its harm, I think in a lot of ways, this goes back to some of the stuff we've talked about before, when your churches already kind of buying into a, you know, an economic or a capitalist notion of success, then once you step into a social media realm, capitulating to what social media defines as success can be really easy. And I think in that way, really harmful? I think it can be helpful in some ways, in that now, if you're someone who really wants to, for example, try to let the church not be the most segregated place on a Sunday morning, you now have access to church. Or maybe black churches in the south, for example, is the thing that I think about, there are lots of those around who are doing virtual church. And it's a wonderful kind of way of starting to think about different is perform or inhabit their own kind of faithfulness. Yeah, those are those are two ways to think about although there's a lot more.
Dr. Wood, we so appreciate your reflections on these questions. If I can close with a question that we've been asking all of the interviewees on this program, and that is this, what would it mean for the Christian church to be united today? How would we recognize this unity? And what is it that we can do is individual Christians to pursue the Unity for which Jesus prayed in john 17,
there's one thing for me that's inhibiting our unity as Christians, it's the legacy of colonialism and race. In the West, particularly, I don't think we've fully grappled with the ongoing damaging effects of that history. And that theology of the those effects that it's kind of brought on the world and our own Christianity. And so I think once we particularly as kind of Western kind of white Christians are capable of confessing those sins, and turning away from them, I think we can begin to live different lives, lives that can be reconciled to other Christians throughout the world, especially those Christians who still suffer the effects of colonialism, like indigenous peoples, or people of color in our own countries, or those throughout the world. And I think that will be a way or path. shutter with, with with white Christians between white Christians who are still a deeply divided bunch of people don't live at peace with each other. So I think the challenge that we have to face really for the next 100 years is this kind of colonialism question if we have any chance Simply recovering from the fragmentation we live in today.
It's been our pleasure today to be speaking with Dr. naman wood, co editor of the text words and witnesses, communication studies and Christian thought from athanasian Athanasius. To Desmond Tutu, Dr. Wood, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you, john.