Whether this is a relationship between theological and media communication is a type of question that resolves into an immediate resolution, because it implies an inherent connection between media communication and theology. This suggests that theos (God) and logos (word, reason, or discourse) – the discourse about God – are unified through koionia (κοινωνία), the Greek root of ‘communication’ which signifies sharing, communion, or fellowship. In essence, to truly know God is to engage in communion with Him. It presupposes that communication is the foundation of theology.
Indeed, faith is dialogue, or as Saint Anselm famously said, “faith seeks understanding.” This means that faith is not a static belief but an active pursuit of deeper comprehension and connection with the divine. Anselm believed that faith and reason are intimately intertwined and that true faith involves a continuous quest for knowledge and understanding of God. Therefore, the dialogue of communication is a crucial element of faith.
Communication is so essential to faith that God spoke first, and He sent His living Word, Christ Jesus, to commune with us in spirit and truth. In paragraph 11 of Communio et Progressio, the Church articulates this truth even better in writing: “While He was on earth Christ revealed Himself as the Perfect Communicator. Through His ‘incarnation’, He utterly identified Himself with those who were to receive His communication, and He gave His message not only in words but in the whole manner of His life. He spoke from within, that is to say, from out of the press of His people.”[1]
In God speaking first, man is only in the position to respond to the divine utterance by either proclaiming his fiat or anti-fiat, which has become an increasingly complex challenge in the digital age.
An Age of Abstraction
According to Ripatrazone, around 1959, Marshall McLuhan, a Catholic Canadian media theorist, coined and began consistently using the term global village”[2] to characterize the sense of connected and interdependent people around the world who are increasingly able to communicate and interact with one another in real time. This connection transcends the boundaries of space and time, allowing people to communicate and share information instantly across great distances.
Again, Ripatrazone quotes McLuhan: “[In such an electronic world], any marginal area can become center, and marginal experience can be had as any center.”[3] Here, McLuhan envisions the digital space as akin to a Jackson Pollock abstract painting, characterized by a fluid interplay of elements where traditional boundaries dissolve, allowing decentralized and interconnected experiences. This highlights digital communication’s transformative potential in reshaping our understanding of space, time, and cultural interactions.
McLuhan’s vision of the electronic age, blurring the center and margins, resonates with Pollock’s chaotic yet interconnected paintings. Just as Pollock’s canvases have no single dominant area, digital information circulates non-linearly, making it hard to define mainstream and marginal. Social media amplifies previously unheard voices, while viral moments can displace dominant narratives.
McLuhan also embraced the idea that the medium shapes the message, similar to how Pollock’s techniques dictated his work’s emotional impact. The internet, as an interconnected web of data and communication, creates meaning through its structure, much like abstract expressionism conveys emotion through form rather than representational imagery.
Around the same time, McLuhan envisioned an abstract digital space, Pollock was creating abstract art, and the liturgical reforms of the Catholic Church finally culminated in an abstract liturgy in which the traditional center of worship, from facing one Christ (ad orientem), was now obscured to facing the multitude gathered together in fellowship.
However, the abstract global village is not without hope. Perhaps Bishop Maxim Vasiljevic’s has a valuable insertion into this fateful segue, where he writes about “an era of trans-human technology,” those who engage with the social media trends devolve from McLuhan’s global village to “becoming a tribe with one member” where the glamorization of our lives via modern social media is just one of the symptoms of this “self-idolatry.”[4] Then he writes as a solution, “What is needed is a willing effort, because in the end we decide how to use our machines, and not vice versa.”
Reorienting Communication Towards the Common Good and True Theological Logos
“The media of social communication can contribute a great deal to human unity. If, however, men’s minds and hearts are ill-disposed, if goodwill is not there, this outpouring of technology may produce an opposite effect so that there is less understanding and more discord and, as a result, evils are multiplied.”[5]
The Church seeks to counter today’s abstracted communication landscape, which often leads people astray and towards the anti-fiat, by emphasizing the use of social media for the common good. In this way, communication should uphold human dignity, promote collective well-being, and foster peace. By leveraging technology to educate, build solidarity, and foster respect, we can mitigate its negative impacts and steer towards divine truth and authentic theological values. Imagine using social media to create a living liturgy, guiding people into the communion of theo-logos.
[1] Pontifical Council for Social Communications. Communio et Progressio. Vatican, 23 May 1971, https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/pccs/documents/rc_pc_pccs_doc_23051971_communio_en.html.
[2] Nick Ripatrazone, Digital Communication: Marshall McLuhan’s Spiritual Vision for a Virtual Age, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2022, p. 73.
[3] Ripatrazone, 75.
[4] Bishop Maxim Vasiljevic, “On Digital Iconicity,” Communication Research Trends, 37, no. 2,1 (2018): 20-24.
[5] Communio et Progressio, 11.
A 2006 convert from Agnosticism, David L. Gray has emerged as a prolific Catholic theologian, author, and humorist. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Central State University, Ohio, and a Master of Arts in Catholic Theology (ThM) from Ohio Dominican University. He is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry (DMin) in Liturgical Catechesis at the Catholic University of America. For more information about Mr. Gray, please visit davidlgray.info
