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.DeLashmutt and Brannon Hancockorigination if not always in its object or import which, like the propheticvoice in the biblical tradition, employs profane speech and offensive imageryto issue a call to self-examination and a return to authenticity.Popular Culture as (Secular) ProphecyWe agree with those suspicious of the recent advent of religion-and-pop-cul-ture discourse that such endeavors should not be merely an excuse to baptizeone s hobbies and side interests but rather must seek to provide an academi-cally rigorous and mutually constructive critique of both religion/theology andpopular culture.In A Matrix of Meaning: Finding God in Pop Culture, CraigDetweiler and Barry Taylor offer four compelling reasons why theologians andscholars of religion might wish to engage in the study of popular culture(19 23).First, they note that popular cultural forms provide a formative influ-ence for the construction of identity, society, and value within contemporaryWestern society.Second, popular cultural forms are a means by which a cul-ture s implicit ethical framework, its strong evaluations to use CraigDetweiler and Barry Taylor s language, are expressed.Films, television, music,literature, and art not only influence popular conceptions of value, beauty, andthe good, but they also serve as the space in which such ideas are discussed.Third, literacy is no longer judged exclusively by way of one s familiarity withloci classicus of a particular discipline.Rather, to engage with the contempo-rary world, scholars of religion must be able to speak the lingua franca of thepostmodern world, which for Detweiler and Taylor, are the forms of popularculture.Finally, the authors argue that popular culture must be pursuedbecause, as Bruce Forbes has argued, religion appears not only in churches,synagogues, mosques, and temples; it also appears in popular culture (1),which is to say, religion is a frequent topic of popular cultural discourse, reveal-ing an underlying conversation about the sacred, which is deeply embeddedin the forms of the secular.In his Understanding Theology and Popular Culture, Gordon Lynch sum-marizes four ways in which scholars of religion and theologians have withinrecent scholarship pursued the task of relating theology and religious studieswith popular culture (21).The first such approach is described as the study ofreligion in relation to everyday life (including the environment, resources,and practices thereof).This includes both the way in which expressions ofreligion are shaped by cultural forms, how religion is represented in popularculture, and how religion responds to popular culture.3 Second, theology andreligious studies can approach popular culture to understand its religiousfunction.This approach seeks to understand how culture provides deepmeaning to its participants by offering what could be identified as UltimateConcern.4 One could also seek to understand how popular cultural practices Prophetic Profanity 175replace more well-established religious functions, such as the role of sportspectatorship as a substitute for religious community.5 A third approachinvolves the study of the missiological engagement with popular culture,where either a system of controls is established to prevent a contamination ofthe sacred by secular forms of popular culture (conservative), or where popu-lar culture forms are reread through a theological hermeneutic (liberal).Fourth, popular cultural forms can be understood as a source of theologicalreflection.Rather than rereading popular culture to force it to conform to apreexisting theological hermeneutic, this perspective encourages the culturalforms to speak on their own terms, whereby they are engaged dialogicallyfrom the perspective of theology and religious studies.6This chapter concerns not only South Park s depiction and critique ofreligion, but more significantly how South Park, wittingly or not, takes upthe task of theologizing or thinking religiously [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.DeLashmutt and Brannon Hancockorigination if not always in its object or import which, like the propheticvoice in the biblical tradition, employs profane speech and offensive imageryto issue a call to self-examination and a return to authenticity.Popular Culture as (Secular) ProphecyWe agree with those suspicious of the recent advent of religion-and-pop-cul-ture discourse that such endeavors should not be merely an excuse to baptizeone s hobbies and side interests but rather must seek to provide an academi-cally rigorous and mutually constructive critique of both religion/theology andpopular culture.In A Matrix of Meaning: Finding God in Pop Culture, CraigDetweiler and Barry Taylor offer four compelling reasons why theologians andscholars of religion might wish to engage in the study of popular culture(19 23).First, they note that popular cultural forms provide a formative influ-ence for the construction of identity, society, and value within contemporaryWestern society.Second, popular cultural forms are a means by which a cul-ture s implicit ethical framework, its strong evaluations to use CraigDetweiler and Barry Taylor s language, are expressed.Films, television, music,literature, and art not only influence popular conceptions of value, beauty, andthe good, but they also serve as the space in which such ideas are discussed.Third, literacy is no longer judged exclusively by way of one s familiarity withloci classicus of a particular discipline.Rather, to engage with the contempo-rary world, scholars of religion must be able to speak the lingua franca of thepostmodern world, which for Detweiler and Taylor, are the forms of popularculture.Finally, the authors argue that popular culture must be pursuedbecause, as Bruce Forbes has argued, religion appears not only in churches,synagogues, mosques, and temples; it also appears in popular culture (1),which is to say, religion is a frequent topic of popular cultural discourse, reveal-ing an underlying conversation about the sacred, which is deeply embeddedin the forms of the secular.In his Understanding Theology and Popular Culture, Gordon Lynch sum-marizes four ways in which scholars of religion and theologians have withinrecent scholarship pursued the task of relating theology and religious studieswith popular culture (21).The first such approach is described as the study ofreligion in relation to everyday life (including the environment, resources,and practices thereof).This includes both the way in which expressions ofreligion are shaped by cultural forms, how religion is represented in popularculture, and how religion responds to popular culture.3 Second, theology andreligious studies can approach popular culture to understand its religiousfunction.This approach seeks to understand how culture provides deepmeaning to its participants by offering what could be identified as UltimateConcern.4 One could also seek to understand how popular cultural practices Prophetic Profanity 175replace more well-established religious functions, such as the role of sportspectatorship as a substitute for religious community.5 A third approachinvolves the study of the missiological engagement with popular culture,where either a system of controls is established to prevent a contamination ofthe sacred by secular forms of popular culture (conservative), or where popu-lar culture forms are reread through a theological hermeneutic (liberal).Fourth, popular cultural forms can be understood as a source of theologicalreflection.Rather than rereading popular culture to force it to conform to apreexisting theological hermeneutic, this perspective encourages the culturalforms to speak on their own terms, whereby they are engaged dialogicallyfrom the perspective of theology and religious studies.6This chapter concerns not only South Park s depiction and critique ofreligion, but more significantly how South Park, wittingly or not, takes upthe task of theologizing or thinking religiously [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]