The Good Samaritan and the Compromise of Convictions

Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan is one of the most powerful of his illustrations regarding love of neighbor, and it provides an important foundation for how to engage others in a multifaith world. But at the same time, popular interpretations of the story rob it of much of its subversive power.

Rebecca Trotter has written a piece on her blog "The Upside Down World," that steps back to reassess this story in light of a statement that Evangelical often make in relating to others: "You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate." On the surface this sounds good, particularly for those of us working in multifaith contexts where conservative Evangelicals are concerned that such efforts are risky, and leave practitioners open to compromise. But Trotter reminds us that the parable of the Good Samaritan challenges this idea. Sometimes you do have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.

Consider the familiar story again. When the priest and the Levite saw the injured man, they made a conscious choice not to help as acts of faithfulness to their religious convictions, particularly those related to fears about ritual impurity and contamination. But the conclusion of Jesus' story indicates that the one who truly loved neighbor in God's way was the one who ignored these religious convictions and offered aid anyway.

This should give Evangelicals pause for reflection. Our religious convictions concerning how we relate to and engage others in our multifaith world should not be cast aside casually, but there may be times when love of neighbor trumps these convictions. At the very least, we should be willing to engage in more theological self-reflection in such matters.

Read Trotter's piece and give Jesus' parable another look.

Enns on Theological Belligerence

Peter Enns recently made a blog post that is worth reading. It's titled "Fear Leads to Anger: Unpacking Theological Belligerence." The piece begins:

"My point: Belligerence in theological discussions is a reaction to a deep fear—typically unperceived—that one’s metanarrative is under threat.

"Let me put that in English: People fight about their views of God because they are afraid of the consequences of being wrong. Being wrong about God is fearful because it destabilizes their way of looking at the universe and their place in it. People tend to fight when frightened this way."

As he unpacks this, Enns responds to various arguments that are offered many times as to why theological belligerence is the right way forward. As he does so he echoes sentiments that I have presented in a number of venues. I feel vindicated in some way as another Evangelical has made the same observations that I have.

I think Enns has "in-house" arguments in mind between fellow Christians and Evangelicals given the harsh response he has received from many in regards to his views on the Old Testament, evolution, and inerrancy. But this essay also has application to interreligious contexts, and helps explain one of the dynamics involved in confrontational encounters between Evangelicals and those in other religions.

The essay is worthwhile for critical reflection by Evangelicals.

Rethinking the Sacred and Profane

Yet another article from religion dispatches was of interest, this one touching on the concepts of and boundaries between the sacred and profane. In "Sacred & Profane: From Bono to to the Jedi Police - Who Needs God?", Gary Laderman looks at a recent opinion piece written by Bono, and recent affiliations with the spirituality of Jediism, as he rethinks not only the concepts of sacred and profane, but also the new ways in which the spiritual quest is being understood in the church and outside of it.

Laderman's article begins with consideration of Bono's recent opinion piece wherein he praises the charitable works of those who are not Christians, a work which Bono describes as "soul music." The article continues with a description of how this is defined by Bono as a "way to capture, metaphorically, a sacred stance and engagement in the world emanating not from the usual, institutional sites, but from prison cells and investment firms."

The second part of the article addresses a phenomenon of great interest to me, that of hyper-real spiritualities, those new expressions of the spiritual quest that draw from the well of popular culture, particularly from the fantastic in literature, film, and television in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Laderman describes a BBC news story that describes the hyper-real spirituality of Jediism shaped by the Star Wars films:

"In the largest police force in Scotland, eight police officers recently listed their religion as 'Jedi' on the voluntary diversity forms they were required to fill out. In the words of one reviewer: 'Far from living a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, some members of the noble Jedi order have now chosen Glasgow and its surrounding streets as their home.'

"The BBC reports the rather astronomical-sounding numbers from a recent census of England and Wales indicating that 390,000 identify themselves with the Jedi religion, and nearly 14,000 who claim allegiance to the Jedi Force in Wales. But even more tellingly, we learn that the Office of National Statistics there does not recognize the religion separately, so followers were bunched under the 'atheist' category (which is, after all, fitting since there is no deity in the Star Wars cosmology)."

Two aspects of the story on Jediism are of special interest to me as a theologian and missiologist specializing in popular culture and practical theology. First, popular culture must be recognzed as a significant source and reservoir for the formation of the spiritual quest of increasing numbers of people. Second, our religious survey work and the interpretation thereof needs to be done carefully so that the broad categories of surveys as well as respondent self-definitions are properly understood. A recent ARIS survey indicated an increase in the number of those who claim atheism or affiliation with no religion, but this may not necessarily mean an increase in the number of atheists or agnostics. As the rise of those expressing an interest in Jediism who were put under the category of atheism indicates, surveys may be more accurately interpreted as indicating the decline of traditional and institutional religions which still form the backdrop and assumptions of many surveys, and a shift to non-traditional expressions of spirituality such as Jediism where no appropriate categories currently exist in surveys for proper classification.

In the conclusion of his article Laderman states:

"I can hear my New Testament and Systematic Theologian colleagues reading this with skepticism if not disgust—and indeed I’ve encountered these kinds of reactions in public forums. 'Surely anyone identifying their religion as Jedi is just being silly,' they say. Or 'How do you know this is genuine religion and not just some passing fancy?' I imagine after the death of Christ members of the early Christian community may have faced the same kind of incredulity and disdain.

"My response: Welcome to the twenty-first century, when sacred matters are not limited to the monotheists, or confined by conventional religious traditions. Bono and Warren Buffet, Master Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi are legitimate guiding religious lights whose words and actions stir the imagination and rally the faithful in ways those of us who study religion are only beginning to understand."

To these concluding thoughts of Laderman I add my hearty agreement. One person's "fringe religion" is another person's sacred pathway, and these new forms of spirituality must be taken just as seriously by theologians as more mainstream, traditional, and familiar forms of religion and spirituality. Welcome to the twenty-first century Western world and its new forms of the sacred.

Tom Boellstorff and an Ethnography of Second Life

As part of my continuing reflections on the cultural, sociological, and theological implications of digital technologies, including videogames and virtual cultures, one of the resources I have found helpful is Tom Boellstorff's Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008). Boellstorff is associate professor in the department of anthropology at University of California, Irvine, and editor-in-chief of American Anthropologist. We finally coordinated our schedules for an interview by phone on the topic, but the technology used to record our conversation failed us, and all that remains are Tom's responses to my last two questions. Even so, they provide some insights into the significance of virtual cultures like Second Life, and the value of Tom's research.

Morehead's Musings: How have forms of cybersociality result in the creation of new "electronic tribes"?

Tom Boellstorff: Well, I wouldn't call them tribes exactly, but they do represent new ways of connecting people. The fact that people can use a blog or website or something like that to share information and notes is important, so we need to remember that people can get together not just in virtual worlds, but also in blogs and websites, and many people in Second Life have these and interact with others through them as well. And these are not reducible to each other. But there are possibilities inside a virtual world that are different from what you can do with a web page, but once again the virtual world phenomenon is broader that shares some things in common with other aspects of the Internet, but there are some aspects of it that are unique and unprecedented.

Morehead's Musings: In your research in Second Life what surprised you most about your conceptions of selfhood and community that had to be revised as a result?

Tom Boellstorff: One thing that really did surprise me but it shouldn't have, was an interesting parallel with my Indonesia research was that things weren't as different as I expected them to be. In my research on gay Indonesians my assumption was you go half way around the world to a very different place, and sometimes as researchers we feel that if you haven't found something that's really different that we haven't done our job, that we're really supposed to find something interesting, cool, and things that are really different. One thing I learned as a researcher is when you find things that seem the same, and in some cases are similar in certain ways, then we really have to stop and think about it because many times people don't. When you go into Second Life to do research as I have you find that it's very different and very interesting and I can mention a couple of things that I mention in the book.

My main surprise was that you go into Second Life and find grass, and trees, and the ocean, and people hanging out in their houses and watching television, going shopping to buy a shirt, or getting into a fight with their lover, but things that actually in a way are not different from what they do in the actual world is taking place. But this can be interesting too because you can ask why people would rather go into a virtual world at all, and another question is sometimes we see things that look very similar but if you scratch under the surface for a second you see that they are actually quite different. But the continuities with the actual world are very important for researchers because virtual worlds have gone become places with millions of people in them in just a few years, and if they were absolutely, completely, and utterly different from anything that came before how in the world would you understand it? So the similarities are very important.

In terms of differences there are some really big differences that are important to talk about. One of the biggest is embodiment. In a virtual world you can change the way you look with the click of a mouse, you can change your race, your height, you can become an animal, and in most of these virtual worlds you can have different embodiments. So it's not just that you can become a man or a woman or animal or person, but a man for one hour to go to a party and afterwards become a woman again, and then turn into an elf, and then after that turn into a human again. So it's not just that it's changeable, but that it's easily changeable. Ideally though, you don't have to only pick one thing. In the physical world to change your embodiment is extremely difficult. It's very hard to change your race or gender, and some people can do the latter just with clothes or hormones, but changing your body in any significant way is nearly impossible. But to go back and forth in embodiments, or to become a fifty feet tall dragon and then to become a two feet tall dwarf because you feel like it is not something you can do in the physical world. You can't have two bodies in the physical world, whereas in Second Life you can have as many as you like through your avatars, so that's another significant difference. So there are many differences between the actual world and the virtual world and embodiment is one of the major differences.

In terms of community there is almost less difference because community in the physical world for many years now hasn't been as closely connected to place as it used to be. So let's take the community I work in, the gay community, is that an area, is it just in bars, is it where people live, is in magazines, or what does it mean to talk about community in this sense? This is the same when whether we are talking about the African-American or Jewish community, these are no longer defined in relation to senses of places in limited geographical terms. I think the notion of community has been exploded beyond its connection to place for some time now. So virtual community for people is less of a stretch. An interesting thing in virtual worlds is you almost get a relocalization of community in some cases. You have instances where places in the actual world are connected to virtual places. The ideas of community are obviously changing as well, but these are obviously always moving targets, because what this means in Indonesia or California or Nebraska is different and changing. Representations of community in the virtual world adds other dimensions to our ongoing transformations of senses of community. And identity conceptions are being reconfigured in the same way.

Morehead's Musings: Tom, thank you again for your interesting anthropological ethnographic portrait of Second Life, your ongoing research in this area, and for making time in a busy academic schedule to discuss these things. I hope others will look into this phenomenon from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including theology.

John Lyden: Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals

John Lyden is professor and chair of religion at Dana College in Blair, Nebraska. He is the author of Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals (New York University Press, 2003), as well as numerous articles about film and religion. He is currently cochair of the Religion, Film, and Visual Culture Group of the American Academy of Religion.

Morehead's Musings: Dr. Lyden, thank you so much for participating in this interview and sharing your interesting thoughts on film, popular culture, and religious studies. As we begin, can you share a little bit about how you became interested in the study of film as a theologian?

John Lyden: I have always been a film-lover, but I never really related film to my study of religion until about ten years ago. At that time, I began to see more study in this area, but I was not very impressed with the quality of most of it. It seemed to me that many of the people writing about religion and film had not developed a coherent method of analysis, and were simply applying methods from film studies without considering how religious studies might approach this subject, or they were applying theological ideas without really paying attention to the content of the films. In either case, there was little advancement by way of understanding the films better from a religious perspective. I began to develop my own method of approaching film, as a religion scholar and theologian, to try to address that lack of methodology in the field.

Morehead's Musings: In some of your writings, particularly your book Film as Religion, you state that we cannot separate culture from religion. This may come as a surprise to some evangelical Christians who seem to assume a clear separation is possible. Can you share a little about what you mean by this and what the implications are for a theological engagement with popular culture?

John Lyden: Religion is ultimately a part of culture, as it is a human construction just as any other part of culture. We may want to think of it as separate because it may have a transcendent subject matter, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is also human. You could think of this in analogy with the Christian understanding of the nature of Christ; the fact that he is divine does not take away from his humanity. Conversely, we can argue that the divine or religious is everywhere in culture, even when it is not recognized as such. I view this as a positive thing for dialogue between religion and culture, as it shows that the opposition between them is illusory. It means that we can take popular culture seriously as a dialogue partner and recognize that it has a tremendous influence on people’s religious views, whether we like it or not.

Morehead's Musings: You have also talked about the ways in which popular culture and media, particularly, film, is similar in function to religion. Can you elaborate on this for us?

John Lyden: I utilize a functionalist definition of religion drawn from the work of the anthropologist Clifford Geertz. This allows us to see that religion exists in whatever aspects of culture meet those functions, for example: it supplies a set of symbols that acts as both a model of reality (how it is) and a model for reality (how it should be, ideally), and so a worldview as well as an ethic; it involves rituals that help us to enact the ideal and make it real; it helps us deal with how to find meaning amidst the experience of chaos and evil, etc. I have found that films seem to supply all these functions, to some extent, in their meaning-making and symbolic capacity, in the values they propose, and in the way in which those are enacted for audiences who are invited to participate in the worldviews of various films.

Morehead's Musings: As someone with an intercultural studies background involved in interreligious dialogue, I found your suggestion that the dialogue between popular culture or film can be understood as an interreligious dialogue most intriguing. Can you summarize your thinking here for us?

John Lyden: If popular culture or film acts religiously for people, then it stands to reason that the dialogue between popular culture and those aspects of culture we normally call “religious” is really a dialogue between religious views. One can then apply the same sort of analysis and norms to that dialogue that have been used in interreligious dialogue as a way of creating better understanding and interchanges. The history of the interaction of religion and film bears this out. For example, the early days of sound cinema were filled with critiques of popular movies by the churches, largely because film was viewed as in fact a religious competitor, offering up a different set of views and values. Later, films were more appreciated by religious leaders when they found they had some theological value, but they still tended to homologize the films to Christian understandings. Recent interreligious dialogue has proposed moving beyond turning the “other” religion into either a demonic view to be rejected, or a mirror-image of my own tradition, to seeing it as a genuine dialogue partner, which is both similar and different from my own tradition. In this way, we can begin to actually hear and fairly evaluate the other view, whether we call it religion or culture.

Morehead's Musings: In your fascinating book one of the things you discuss in the section on method is myth. Can you define your discussion of myth for us, and touch on why this is significant in a theological engagement with film, particularly in a late modern Western context?

John Lyden: Myth is a much-maligned term, implying to many people a falsehood, but mythic understandings are not going away. We always hear stories mythically whenever we move beyond the literal narrative to invest them with symbolic meaning. Even when we try to “factually” evaluate the justice of invading another country, we quickly move beyond arguments about literal threats to national security to more mythological concepts—viewing ourselves as saviors of the world, for example, thus legitimizing our action. Politics is full of mythological rhetoric about nations and destiny and purpose, but people don’t see it because it isn’t called “religion.” All of culture is like this; films are full of myths promoting various worldviews, such as the myth of redemption through violence, the myth of romantic love, etc. And I want to emphasize, myths are not all bad! We can’t live without myth, but we need to identify the myths we are using, and be able to evaluate what myths we want to live by.

Morehead's Musings: Your book also includes a consideration of various genres of film. Given my interests I was pleased to see your inclusion of fantasy, science fiction, and the thriller or horror film. Unless you're a fan of these genres, I think most viewers are tempted to dismiss them as containing little important content, particularly from the perspective of theology or religion, and in my experience evangelicals are even more prone to dismiss these genres. Why did you include them in your study, and can you provide an example of what your research found in theological engagement with these genres?

John Lyden: These genres are clearly important ones to engage from a religious perspective as they tend to go beyond realistic narrative to the supernatural or fantastic, and in that way, they are like religions. Often they will utilize ideas explicitly drawn from Christianity or other religious sources. For example, Superman Returns was explicitly Christological, and The Matrix utilizes Buddhist and Gnostic religious ideas. But even when they don’t borrow explicitly from religions, they have a form that looks very much like the form of religious stories, in which we learn about ourselves by seeing analogous characters in a fantastic setting that somehow heightens the moral choices they make. It may be harder for people to appreciate horror, in particular, as it seems exploitative at times, but it deals very clearly with the reality of evil and the proper response to it. That idea is certainly at the center of religious discourse.

Morehead's Musings: In your chapter for Reframing Theology and Film you state that it is your "hope that Christian theologians who are interested in popular culture will see the relevance of viewing films-as-religion to their own task" and that you hope this dialogue moves beyond a simplistic embrace or rejection. In your view, are we starting to see more theologians engaging film, and in the way in which you suggest?

John Lyden: Definitely. The field is maturing rapidly, as a variety of scholars are coming to the study of theology and film from many backgrounds, and also filmmakers are getting more involved in the discussion. I have been very pleased with the quality of discussions on this topic now as opposed to ten years ago, when it seemed like we were stuck in the embrace-or-reject dichotomy. There are a lot more sophisticated analyses now of how film operates on us, how audiences appropriate films, and how films utilize and develop religious themes in creative ways.

Morehead's Musings: Dr. Lyden, thank you again for answering these questions and sharing the results of your research in this interesting area of theology and popular culture.

John Lyden: It’s been my pleasure!

Michael DeLashmutt: Techno-Theology and "Religionless Seattle"

Many of the papers presented at the Popular Culture Association's annual convention have proved to be a source of intellectual and reflective gems for me. I have commented on some of them in the past, and with this post I am privileged to interview Michael DeLashmutt, the author of "Religionless in Seattle" that will be part of the forthcoming book Explorations in Religion and Media Culture (London, Ashgate, Spring 2009). Michael is Lecturer in the Study of the Christian Church at the University of Exeter in the U.K. where he works in the area of practical theology and has done some fascinating research and writing on techno-theology and posthuman speculative science. He is also a prolific author and some of his work can be found at www.giffordlectures.org. He is an active member of the U.K. Research Network for Theology, Religion and Popular Culture, a film reviews editor for the journal Political Theology, and an aspirant for Holy Orders within the Episcopal Church (USA) in the Diocese of Olympia.

Morehead's Musings: Michael, thank you for agreeing to talk about your interesting research in this interview. I know that blog interviews are not something that you usually participate in, but I am trying to do something different with my blogs in the subject matter touched upon and the manner in which it is explored. I'd like to begin by exploring a little about you. How did you come to develop a personal and academic interest in theology and popular culture, and more specifically, how did you come to address specific research topics like information technology and posthuman speculative science?

Michael DeLashmutt: Thank you for asking me to take part. Your blog seems like an interesting space for discussing such issues and I’m very happy to be a part. I suppose, like most people who study theology and everyday life that my interests were born out of a desire to study things that appeal to me. I remember in the mid-1990s watching movies and hearing songs which talked about God and faith, love, and virtue and thinking to myself that popular forms of media culture were doing a better job at wrestling with these issues than were their correlates in the religious world. To be sure, the evangelical Christian church was keen to use media culture as a venue for the promulgation of the gospel, but the simplistic attitude towards faith and the shoddy production value made such attempts seem childish. Instead, mainstream culture appeared to be voicing more authentic theological concerns whilst maintaining commitment to artistry and craft. At the time, I was involved in Christian ministry and beginning to consider graduate theological education. I wanted to be able to bridge my interest in popular culture with my commitment to the church and my passion for rigorous and critical theological inquiry.

As for information technology, my foray into that field was quite by accident. A child of the 70s, I remember distinctly the first computer that was brought into our home in the early 1980s. I suppose, I’d always been keen to play with this new gadget and eventually found a way to supplement my book-buying budget as an undergraduate student with work in IT. I was living in Seattle at the time, and it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to have a part-time job in IT. After having a horrible experience working as a computer lackey at my undergraduate institution (where I was constantly belittled by my over-bearing tyrant of a boss), I moved on to find better and more lucrative work in IT, eventually taking part in the dot-com economy directly before and after the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001. All the while I was working on my Master’s degree at Fuller Seminary and preparing to start a PhD in the UK in 2002. With this heady mix of theology, millennial frenzy, and seemingly unlimited growth in the IT sector, it seemed to me that technology and the ways in which we approach technology, would soon be among the biggest issues for a practical theology to address.

Morehead's Musings: Earlier this year you presented a paper at the national convention for the Popular Culture Association that caught my attention titled "Religionless in Seattle" that looks at the issues of identity and spirituality as it relates to information technology in the Seattle, Washington area. Your paper has been revised for publication as a chapter in the forthcoming collection edited by Christopher Deacy, Exploring Religion and the Sacred in a Media Age (Ashgate Press). At the beginning of your article you reference a "techno-theology" which will likely be unfamiliar to most readers of this interview. Can you touch on what this is and what theologians you have interacted with to construct such a theology?

Michael DeLashmutt: Techno-Theology was a short-hand term that I started using when I was writing my PhD thesis. I’m sure other scholars have made us of the term quite independently of me, yet I find it to be a handy abbreviation. In sum, I view techno-theology as the antithesis of a theology of technology (something which in my current book I’m trying to outline). A techno-theology considers technology itself (or rather, a reified and essentialist understanding of ‘Technology’) to be the core facet in the construction of ethics, value, and identity. A techno-theology is an unreflective attitude towards technology which invests human agency and technical capacity with the power to alleviate all human suffering and fulfill the basics of human need. Where this becomes problematic is when the drive for technical mastery or technology development is pursued without concern for the human impact of continued technologization. The role played by theology in this portmanteau of a phrase is more abstract and diffuse than one would expect from the word. In sum, the theology within techno-theology represents an alternative system of values and concerns which strive for ultimate importance. When translated into the language of Christian systematic theology, techno-theologies appear to spawn heterodox eschatologies and soteriologies where the human certainty in human salvific activity in the future and present is exchange for contingent hope in the activity of the Divine. A theology of technology, on the other hand, places the role of the kerygma (the kernel of Christian proclamation) at the centre of our dealings with technology and material culture and asks first after the role of the other in governing our development and use of technology. Moreover, a theology of technology rightly regards technology as a part of the whole of our life-world, judging it alongside other elements of creaturely reality.

Morehead's Musings: Are many theologians aware of this techno-theology, and do you see this as an increasingly important realm for theologizing to take place?

Michael DeLashmutt: My interest in techno-theology is intended to point out the cultural, imaginative, material and scientific elements of technology and to examine how these disparate aspects of ‘technology’ each contribute to the construction of one’s theological world view. Amongst those working within the field of theology and popular culture, the input of media-studies and material culture into the sub discipline has elevated the profile of technology as a concept worth theological reflection. The work of Elaine Graham in post/humanism and Heidi Campbell in new-media are just two examples that come to mind – and to be sure, their projects were very influential for my own thinking on this subject. However, as a whole I have found technology to be an underdeveloped topic within contemporary theological discourse. Serious discussions of technology tend to be pushed to the fringe, whereas a related topic like the sciences still has a tremendous draw. The privileging of a science-theology dialogue over a technology-theology dialogue reveals the late modernist view of science which is still very much at play within contemporary theology. In more postmodern philosophy, however, the philosophical investigation of technology in its own right has become a very interesting field of research. Philosophers of technology who draw upon continental, phenomenological, or hermeneutic themes (Don Ihde, for example) or more conventionally Anglo-American philosophers who still address the philosophical issues raised specifically by technology (Albert Borgmann) have done terrific work in raising the profile of technology as an object of reflection. I believe that it is only a matter of time before theologians begin to more broadly engage with technology as a vital aspect of our lived-life.

Morehead's Musings: How have information technologies contributed "to the radical construction of identity, community, ethics, and even religious faith" as you discuss in your paper?

Michael DeLashmutt: Good question! Technologies of information have always placed formative pressures on the ways in which we construct the world around us, whether this is in terms of the technologies of information which were so influential during the Reformation (literacy in general, printing in particular), or the role played by new media in the expansion of Pentecostalism in the American west. Information technology (as most broadly understood) is a medium which transmits the stories we tell about ourselves and our world, though the transmission of these stories is no neutral matter. Early information theorists noted that all forms of data transmission resulted in the attenuation of the signal and the transformation of the content by means of its transmission. No matter how invisible, how seemingly benign or how ubiquitous a technology may become, its role in changing or suitably transmogrifying the underlying information being transmitted cannot be denied. This is why, for me, a theology of technology is ultimately reducible to a robust hermeneutical analysis, which reads not only the stories being conveyed by technologies, but the technologies themselves.

Morehead's Musings: Your article lists the top eleven cities for computer science related employment, including San Jose, Boulder, Framingham, Huntsville, Durham, Bethesda, Seattle, Colorado Springs, San Francisco, Austin, and the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria areas. How did you come to focus your research on Seattle, and do your observations apply equally well in general terms to these other parts of the country?

Michael DeLashmutt: Three factors played into my selection of Seattle: 1) I have lived in Seattle, on and off, for the last 15 years and I am well connected in the region and able to make use of those connections for the purposes of my research; 2) during the final stage of this research project my research was unfunded and as I was living in the city at the time, I didn’t have the resources of a University at my disposal to broaden the scope of my project; 3) the majority of my current research centres on the condition of the Christian Church in the UK and Seattle more closely matches the religious demographic of the United Kingdom than do most other regions in the United States.

Morehead's Musings: In reading your article I was surprised to find that your research indicates that computer science and information technology does not account for Seattle's low-rates of religious affiliation. Do you think others will be surprised by this, and if so, what does this say about our assumptions or biases about technology as it relates to traditional forms of religious commitment?

Michael DeLashmutt: I was certainly surprised. My assumption was that technological and scientific people just don’t have time for God. Though this may be the case, it seems from my research that other factors are far more significant in influencing one’s self-selection for religious identity. I believe that one of the things that this project points out is how complex one’s religious identity truly is. We often assume that by translating the message into a culturally relevant form we’ll be able to overcome people’s preconceived biases against the Christian story. The truth of the matter is far more complex than either metaphysical incredulity or subaltern presuppositions.

Morehead's Musings: What other factors are there that you suggest might contribute to the Seattle area's low-rates of religious affiliation?

Michael DeLashmutt: I would have to refer you to a fantastic book on the religious climate of the Pacific Northwest: Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest (AltaMira Press, 2004) edited by Killen and Silk. The book looks at historical and contemporary religious trends. In my mind, the entrepreneurialism and lack of a unified and singular religious presence in the region over time are the two principal reasons why the region has so dramatically differed from national religious affiliation norms. People in the Pacific Northwest, and Seattle in particular, see themselves as the chief arbiter of truth, goodness and value and the imposition made by organized religions upon the freedom of the individual are seen as meddlesome.

Morehead's Musings: In your interviews and ethnographic research you also found diversity in the spiritual habits and interests of those in Seattle. Can you summarize some of this?

Michael DeLashmutt: Well, interestingly many people conveyed some kind of latent spirituality, either in terms of a belief in a diffuse notion of God or gods, or through their respect for various spiritual practices (meditation, yoga, even spiritual cleansings). Yet when pushed as to the ways in which individuals practiced the beliefs which they posited, few showed any of the marks of discipline or even regularity which would, in effect, evince through their practices the centrality of the beliefs and values which they posited. In a sense, St Cyprian’s famous dictum ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation,’ resonates with my own view of religion and spirituality. One cannot confess to a particular kind of spirituality and not follow through with practices, if one wants to maintain any sense of credulity. Eschatological implications aside, you cannot reasonably call yourself a ‘Christian’ and not at the least attend Church with some frequency. Moreover, you can not call yourself ‘spiritual’ and not maintain some consistent set of spiritual practices. In my opinion, the spiritual landscape of the United States has increasingly become one that reduces spirituality to a matter of consumer choice.

Morehead's Musings: I enjoyed your conclusions in the article that are important for continuing research and theological reflection. One of your conclusions noted that computer science and information technology professionals are not the techno fetishists that we many times assume they are. You argue that there appears to be a trend toward the use of such technologies for "ubiquitous computing, social networking technologies, and high-touch." You then suggest that because of this that the ministry and mission of the church might need to rethink its assumptions about the use of technology in worship and the presentation of the Christian message. Can you touch on your thinking here and what the practical implications are, not only for churches in Seattle, but elsewhere in our media saturated culture?

Michael DeLashmutt: Well, Christian theology has a long and venerable ascetic tradition. If we were to put a moderated form of ascesis into practice today, it would reflect the material theology evinced by the episodic stories in the middle of Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Jesus consistently challenges his audience to re-consider their relationship with material wealth in light of Jesus call to self-sacrifice. Neither family, social status, nor material possessions should interfere with the disciples’ Jerusalem-ward journey alongside Jesus. Jesus’ call is one of self-sacrifice and other-oriented service. This may seem an unusual point to place at the center of a theology of technology, but I believe it is a concern for the other which must be at the heart of our decisions regarding the use and consumption of contemporary technology. Obsolescence is at the heart of contemporary technology. Items are purchased with expiry dates in mind, if only for the purpose of procuring the most recent version. Is it truly honoring to God, the creation, or the other for us to simply buy into the consumerist element of technology culture in order solely to keep up with the times? Does having the most recent gadget really make us happy? Is the latest hand held computer really that much better than the previous version or, moreover, a paper calendar? Though blind consumption of technological goods is a society-wide problem, for many an entrepreneurial Christian church, the consumption of technological goods has become a kind of sacramental duty. Executive pastors seem to think that if they don’t have digital projector, the latest AV equipment, and all the gadgets that come with it that their church is bound to fail. We assume that the obstacle which stands in the way of people attending Christian worship services are carpet color, seat materials, and the flashiness of the on screen display. Though the pre-green church of the 80s and 90s may have relied on tactics and technologies for the proclamation of the Gospel; I believe that the current culture-wide shift towards lower-tech and higher-touch uses of technology signals a move away from technological fetishism and a move towards more considered uses of technology.

Morehead's Musings: Michael, thanks again for making some time to explore this important area of cultural, social and theological reflection.