This collection of essays addresses the issue of communication and ministry in a mass-media dominated society.

The rise of the fundamental religious broadcasters in the United States has triggered an intense popular interest in mediated Christianity and prompted the traditional churches to reexamine their own policies toward mass communication. The ensuing dramatic increase in the number of studies on the subject has prompted a corresponding need for a comprehensive index of valuable materials. Christian Communication is the first wide-ranging annotated bibliography of available books, articles, theses, and dissertations in English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian that deals with all forms and aspects of Christian communication, even comic books and the computer. The bibliographies for this collection were drawn from several sources including the Library of Congress; several important computerized databases; manual searches of such institutions as the Billy Graham Center and the Graduate Theological Union, among others; and references in dissertations. Most importantly, only accessible items which could be checked and reviewed by Soukup and his research staff have been included here. The volume is arranged to maximize ease of access and use and is based on the general academic division of communication studies. The first chapter contains an introduction, cross-referenced to the bibliographies, that reviews the history of church communication, the major issues that characterize it, and suggests possibilities for future study. Next, a resource chapter lists periodicals which address specific areas of religious communication or frequently published articles of interest; cites bibliographic guides to the material and surveys directories of both personnel working in the field of Christiancommunication and of catalogs of relevant materials. The following seven chapters contain the major bibliographical sections that review communication theory, history, rhetoric, interpersonal communication, mass communication, intercultural communication, and other media. The volume closes with helpful name, title, and subject indexes that make this guide thoroughly user-friendly and an important research tool for church communicators, theological students, and communications scholars working in philosophical or qualitative areas.

Essays about communication and the thought of Canadian Jesuit philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan.

In the Christian tradition, the faithful do theology-defined in Anselm's phrase as "faith seeking understanding"-in different media. The contemporary emphasis on written or academic theology obscures the long history in which people sought to understand and express their faith by way of various outlets and formats. Because historical Christianity has embraced every communication medium, the media ecology approach to communication study offers a powerful tool to examine that history and the affordances of the media for theological expression. Just so, the history of theology offers a variety of test cases to illustrate media ecology at work. In A Media Ecology of Theology Paul Soukup invites us to explore the interaction between communication media, broadly defined, and the Christian theological heritage. Soukup follows a media ecology methodology, moving from a description of a communication medium to an examination of its affordances to a discussion of how those affordances shape the faith-seeking-understanding practiced in each. He shows that, in some cases, different media support different theological conclusions, and different theological stances shape the media. The case studies range from the first to the twenty-first centuries, with a limitation imposed by selection, language, and culture. As an interdisciplinary and introductory work, A Media Ecology of Theology addresses communication scholars and students, theological scholars and students (primarily those interested in the history of theology or in practical theology), and those with an interest in various media (art, architecture, etc.). With its interdisciplinary focus and its willingness to argue for a wider theological ecosystem-one in which the medium influences both content and selection of ideas-Soukup creates new vistas for understanding the life of faith, and how societies and communities express their most cherished ideas.