Veering Off the Via Media: Emerging Church, Alternative Worship, and New Media Technologies in the United States and United Kingdom

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes In this article, while the terms media and technology are not seen as equivalents, we do not explore a more nuanced philosophical distinction between them. We use media to refer to broader communicative and expressive activities and technology to refer to specific material objects that enable or facilitate such activities. In The Sense of the Sacramental, David Brown and Ann Loades remark that, “Nowadays, for instance, we tend to think of the organ as an essentially religious instrument, but for several centuries its greatest popularity lay in accompanying dance music” (London: SPCK, 1995), 10. Scholars report that liturgical cultural adaptation, assimilation, and inculturation has been a feature of Christian worship ever since early Christians adapted Jewish and Greek worship forms, rhetoric, and prayer postures. See especially the work of liturgical scholar Anscar Chupungco, who provides examples from throughout the history of Christian worship. For a history of media in U.S. Christian worship, see Eileen D. Crowley, Liturgical Art in a Media Culture (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 18–36. For one of the better commercial examples, see the Visual Liturgy site: www.theworkofthepeople.com. See, for example, Jonny Baker and Doug Gay, Alternative Worship (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003); Dan Kimball, Emerging Worship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004); Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger, Emerging Churches (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005); and many others. Greenbelt has for three decades been the United Kingdom's leading Christian Arts festival, moving from evangelical roots to a broad ecumenical base today and combining an extensive program of live music, theater, and visual arts with a wide-ranging offering of worship services and seminars on Christianity and contemporary culture.