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Article Excerpt
Abstract
Liberationist theologies gave rise to a re-emphasis on Christian life as being primarily historical life, and Christian spirituality as rooted in faithful and honest attention to the immediacy of historical reality. However, for many people living in media-saturated, overdeveloped societies, any distinction between actual reality and a mediated pseudo-reality is blurred. Another facet of life in a media-saturated context is that of being regularly confronted with impressions of destitution, violence and ecological degradation, whilst at the same time being further distanced from the realities represented through communications media and their 'virtualizing' tendency. This rapid change in our relation to reality has, I suggest, profound theological and missiological consequences. The ways in which electronic media have modified life, including religious life, are complex and varied. Consumption of electronic media does not seem to have replaced religion as such but it has tended to shape religious life in its own image. With particular reference to Slavoj Zizek's reading of "the Real" after "9/11", I have attempted to sketch how some of these sweeping social and cultural changes may impact on the interpretation of Christian discipleship and mission. In the end, either the Christian life is vulnerable to potentially disruptive reality, or it is at risk of collapsing into a version of the pursuit of happiness mediated by and through late-capitalist culture.
The problem with reality
In light of certain Latin American realities of the 1970s and early 1980s, Jon Sobrino identified three prerequisites of a genuine spirituality which might maintain and foster the vitality of faith: "(1) honesty about the real, (2) fidelity to the real, and (3) a certain 'correspondence' by which we permit ourselves to be carried along by the 'more' of the real." (1)
By "the real", Sobrino simply means actual, historical experience: life as it is lived, rather than the kind of alienating idea that "spiritual life" can become if detached from its historical foundation. There are times when, and places where historical realities demand attention. In the face of widespread poverty and oppression across Latin America, Christian life, "gradually came to be seen as a practice in the midst of the poor," (2) and a "re-discovery of the real life of the impoverished majorities." This real life experience is not only a necessary starting point. Rather, "Honesty with and fidelity to reality is more than a prerequisite for spiritual experience of God. It is its very material as well. Apart from and independent of this honesty and fidelity, we neither grasp revelation nor respond to it." (3)
To someone embedded in a context of committed pastoral practice amongst impoverished or disenfranchised people, the meaning of "honesty with and fidelity to reality" may need little explanation. Is the same true for people who, in a media-saturated context, have become accustomed to experiencing reality as simulated, recorded or "time-shifted"? There is a problem with reality, and it is one that simply did not exist in the 1970s, when liberation theology was maturing. Much of humanity now lives with unprecedented access to information about life on earth, including unprecedented awareness of critical human and ecological conditions. This information, and these impressions and images, however, are not experienced with the kind of immediacy Sobrino was describing. Inhabitants of a media-dominated, globalizing society are not so much living Christianity, "as a practice in the midst of the poor", as living with an array of persistent impressions of the poor, of violent conflict, ecological crises and endless contradictory images and entertainments. If, as Sobrino states, we can neither grasp revelation nor respond to it apart from fidelity to reality, then the recent and rapid shifts in our relation to the real have profound theological and missiological consequences.
Context-less life
The supposedly three-dimensional virtual world known as Second Life (www.secondlife.com) was born in 2003 and by early 2007 had attracted an official population of more than eight and a half million residents. (4) The way in which Second Life meshes with first lives becomes increasingly sophisticated (in form rather than content) as computers evolve and participants collaborate. One social commentator predicts that if, in virtual worlds such as Second Life, "potential sources of growth, leisure, education and commerce take off together, then the distinction between virtual and real worlds will become hazy to the point of disappearance."(5)
The experience of virtualization is not just about participation in virtual online worlds or similar pursuits. Those who live in a media-saturated world, have, claims Thomas de Zengotita, "been consigned to a new plane of being engendered by mediating representations of fabulous quality and inescapable ubiquity, a place where everything is addressed to us, everything is for us, and nothing is beyond us anymore." (6) Whether intentionally spending time in virtual worlds or not, many people have experienced a relatively rapid virtualization of everyday life that continually modifies (and arguably confuses) our sense of the world and of life itself. Although the experience of virtualization or media saturation is far from universal, the implications extend beyond the immediate worlds of those directly impacted. De Zengotita acknowledges the limitations of his own thesis, whilst highlighting its implications:
[M]illions of human beings are trapped in realities so restrictive, so desperate, that the possibility of applying to them what I have to say ... does not arise at all. But the issue of the trend remains, for it is global. And so does the issue of mediated reality in relation to the immiseration of those millions, not as it is lived but as it is experienced by the rest of us, by privileged citizens of the overdeveloped world who can choose to deal with it. Or not. (7)
The global trend towards ever-greater media-saturation and virtualization changes the way in which we conceive of and participate in urgent or critical realities. That trend is symptomatic of a technological...
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