Recently, Dr. Qian Jie was invited to speak on the topic of "From Ancient Times to the Future: Changes in Media Forms and the Development of Christianity" to share how the global religion was spread in different eras.
Qian Jie, a scholar in communication who has devoted herself to communication research for more than ten years, spoke on the "Born Because of Love" virtual platform. In recent years, she has begun to focus on religious communication, especially the research on Christian communication in the context of new media.
The following is a summary of the day's seminar:
I. Media once ignored
We can all see clearly the influence of the media on us today. This era has been called the era of new media, and in today's society the community of the Internet. Historically, it seemed that only the mode of production and productive forces would become indicators of society or the times, such as "industrial society" and "agricultural society."
Prior to the Internet era, the form of the media had undergone changes from speech, writing, print, radio, to television alike. Since the popularization of printing, we have entered the era of "mass communication," and the media has also begun to influence the lives of the public profoundly. Books, newspapers, radio, and television alike are all known as mass media. In the perception of the general public, the media is a channel, and it is the information in the media that deserves attention. However, communication science believes that the media is more than a channel. What deserves our attention is not only the information in the media but also the forms of media themselves.
A famous proposition from the well-known communication scholar, Herbert Marshall McLuhan, is that "the medium is the message." That is to say, the form of the medium plays a significant role in the information it carries. His other proposition is, "The media is extensions of the human body." He believes that every new medium will introduce a scale into our lives.
II. Oral and written communication, and early Christianity
Oral communication is the earliest communicating mode and the one used throughout the history of Christianity. In the Bible, we can see "the power of the word" everywhere. For example, God said, "let there be light," and there was light,” at the beginning of Genesis.
The thirty years between the beginning of Jesus' ministry and the writing of the first Gospel, the Book of Mark (written in 60-70 AD), are known as the oral tradition stage of Christianity. There was certainly some writing during this period, but the main channel of dissemination of the Gospel was oral. Oral communication has two characteristics. It is often contextualized. Secondly, the message is easily distorted in the process of oral communication because it is "going in one ear and out the other." As the story of Jesus was told repeatedly, different perspectives and experiences were pieced together into a relatively complete version of the story. Furthermore, these materials were reintegrated to suit specific communication needs on different occasions.
In around 50 A.D., Paul, preaching the gospel throughout Asia Minor and Greece, began to write letters to the early churches that he helped to establish. Epistles are the earliest form of Christian writing. Paul's letters to the church at Thessalonica are considered the earliest writing in the New Testament. The letters written by the apostles to the churches are required to be read in public at the church and to be disseminated among different churches. As the earliest authoritative texts, these letters were not only for the reformation of certain churches but also connected the faith groups in different regions and integrated Christian beliefs and practices.
By the end of the 1st century, all the New Testament books were completed. It was not until more than a thousand years later that the Catholic Church made its first decision on the New Testament canon at the Council of Florence in 1439-1443. The Holy See reaffirmed the contents of Athanasius’ canon, stipulating that the New Testament canon constitutes the four Gospels, Acts, the eight ecumenical epistles (Hebrews, James, two letters of Peter, three letters of John, and Jude), and Paul’s thirteen epistles.
III. Parchment civilization and medieval church authority
The birth and development of Christianity have always been accompanied by the dissemination of writing. In the Middle Ages, the authority of the church reached its peak. During that period, the media played an important role. Some scholars pointed out: "The civilization dominated by the parchment medium led to the monopoly of knowledge through the monastic system."
The parchment scroll was a time-consuming medium. It worked together with the monastic system to create the pinnacle of church authority. During the long period of its prevalence, parchment was so expensive that a parchment Bible was worth as much as a vineyard. Moreover, writing on parchment was very labor-intensive. Scribes could only copy two or three pages in six hours a day, and it took 10-15 months to copy a Bible. The Bible at that time was written in Latin, and only a small number of people could read Latin. For these reasons, knowledge was limited within the high walls of the monastery. The authority of the church reached its peak as a result.
IV. Print communication and the Reformation
Western printing was invented by Gutenberg, a German. In the 15th century, he began to print the Bible in the Western world by movable type. It later became known as the forty-two-line Bible. Printing has directly improved the efficiency of book production and lowered production costs. The sale price of the Bible was also greatly reduced. Errors and omissions were inevitable in the process of manual copying, but the prevalence of printing led to the unification of Scripture. Printing standardized Scripture for communication, which in turn further normalized the religious practices.
In all Western countries that are subject to the Holy See, Latin has been preserved and become a unified worship medium. The entire Catholic world can read unified Scripture and perform unified practices. However, the spontaneous worship was excluded along with its development, modification, and adjustment. The worship in the Roman Catholic Church became rigid.
After the Reformation, the religious lifestyle of Protestants was very different from that of Catholics. One of the biggest differences was the way of receiving teaching, which had changed from relying on church interpretation to reading the Bible for themselves. Priests, who used to be held in sacred status, are no longer the center of religious life. This transformation depends on the integration of the Protestant notion of "everyone is a priest," universal education, and the consolidation of everyday language.
Walter Ong argued that the advent of typography had caused auditory dominance to give way to visual dominance. In his view, vision plays the role of separation, and hearing integration. When a person speaks to an audience, the listeners and the speaker become one. But when the audience becomes readers, the collective whole is broken, and each audience member starts an individual intellectual interaction with the text. The typographical logic develops the "bystander/alienated individual." Since the Reformation, the family has become the most basic unit of church management.
The public is increasingly atomized and individualized in print civilization. Self-help religion is a major change in people's religious lives. Since the Reformation, the family has become the most basic unit of church management. Parents have been told that it is their responsibility to practice religions at home and to educate children and apprentices. The printing business takes advantage of the opportunities to encourage self-help religions. "To help ourselves, fathers could rely on a steady feed of pocketbooks produced by the printing press, such as A Werke for Householders (1530) . . . or Godly private prayers for householders to meditate upon and to say in their families.”
V. Electronic media and the marketization of religion
In 1844, Morse invented the telegraph, which initiated a new era of electronic communication. From the very beginning, electronic communication has been closely related to religion. The content of a telegram sent by Morse is “What hath God Wrought.” In 1924, KFUO (Keep Forward, Upward, Onward) became the first religious radio station. The first to teach on television was Roman Catholic priest Fulton Sheen. He started to hold Mass on religious TV programs in 1952.
The well-known figure who preached through television was Billy Graham. Billy Graham once proudly proclaimed that television was the most powerful communication tool ever invented by man. The audience his live TV broadcast reached each time is millions more than that Jesus did in his lifetime.
When TV occupies people's lives, hidden worries follow. Compared with other religions, Christianity is the most tolerant and open to new media. Christianity often thinks of the development of media a gift from God to people. Every development of the media has disseminated the Gospel to a further distance in a shorter period of time. However, new technologies that people embrace are accompanied by concerns and rethinking. Neil Postman believes that the form of the media will favor certain content, which can ultimately manipulate the culture.
The print civilization has created an "era of interpretation." The era is characterized by complex logical thinking, a high degree of rationality and order, abhorrence of self-contradiction, extraordinary composure and objectivity, and patience to wait for the audience's reaction. Entertainment is the super-ideology of all discourse on television. Whatever the content, whatever the perspective, everything on TV is designed to entertain us. Stott believes that television realistically brings what people have never seen before to homes and conscience. When seeing all kinds of disasters and tragedies on TV, people slip away or turn off the emotional switch. Thus young people's "indifference to the Gospel" may be attributed to the permanent damage of their emotional response mechanism caused by television images.
VI. The logic of the Internet and digital religious life
Will the Internet Dismiss Religious Authority?
Many people think that the Internet is a decentralized, equal, and open space. Well then, will the Internet cause the destruction of religious authority? The Internet has completely broken up the monopoly of traditional information channels. The communication has transformed from a single narrative to today’s multi-narrative. Everyone has a microphone and a camera. There are increasingly more grassroots narratives, bringing completely different perspectives from traditional authoritative narratives.
In such a scenario, it is difficult for the social capital in reality to effectively migrate to the Internet. From a religious perspective, the legitimacy of religious authority is greatly impacted. It is challenging to transfer the social capital from reality to the Internet.
The Internet environment empowers people’s "self." People declare their own power increasingly and believe that they have the ability to find the truth online.
Because of the above, it is likely to cause the emergence of a "religious market" eventually. Today, we can see many religions and denominations presented on the Internet. They have to justify themselves and explain what benefits they can bring to their believers. We are facing a more competitive market nowadays. When the "self" is empowered, people try to assemble their own religion in the "religious market."
In the community of the Internet, we can always find like-minded people for almost any point of view and propositions similar to our own to back us up. These all present challenges to religion. While listening to a pastor’s sermon in the church, believers may use their mobile phones to look up the passage. Are there any information and explanations on Baidu or others? Is the pastor preaching accurately or not? Religious authority is no longer self-evident by nature. What the pastor says is not necessarily correct. A process of negotiation and construction is required for an authority to prove itself.
Can the online community impact the church's appeal of "unity?"
In such a world of uncontrolled and bewildering changes, people tend to regroup around "primitive identities" like religion, ethnic group, territory, nation, and so on.
In 1998, the Barna Group released a social survey report, The Internet Church is Coming. The report indicates "Our research shows that by 2010, 10%-20% of people will mainly or exclusively rely on the Internet as their religious source."
Our vigilance against online churches stems from "fluid identities" and "both isolated and connected ways of communicating." Anyone could hide their identity and join a certain online community without any pressure to commit to the church. If you are not completely satisfied, you can easily quit with a click of a mouse or a mobile phone. This is very different from the commitment and unity in the traditional church.
In 2002, the Vatican released a report entitled The Church and Internet. The following is stated in the report. “Virtual reality is no substitute for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sacramental reality of the other sacraments, and shared worship in a flesh-and-blood human community. There are no sacraments on the Internet; and even the religious experiences possible there by the grace of God are insufficient apart from real-world interaction with other persons of faith… Pastoral planning should consider how to lead people from cyberspace to true community and how, through teaching and catechesis, the Internet might subsequently be used to sustain and enrich them in their Christian commitment.”
In general, pastors emphasize the significance of the Internet in information dissemination. Yet, the majority of them are very careful about holding ceremonies or building churches on the Internet.
As COVID-19 began to spread and social distancing guidelines emerged, the vast majority of transactions quickly offered digital options. Based on Lifeway Research, 92% of Protestant pastors indicated that they provided some type of online sermon or worship service as of March 2020. By April 2020, that percentage had climbed to 97%.
According to the data of December 2020 from the Church of England's website, A Church Near You (allowing people to search for church services and events), the website listed more than 17,000 online services or events, including Sunday communion services, Bible studies, and morning and evening prayers alike. The online services had been viewed nearly 3 million times nationwide, and posts about the weekly broadcast had been viewed 23.6 million times. Among the contributors were the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Duke of Cambridge, Pope Francis, and so on. Viewers were of all ages. Approximately, one in five of them attended church rarely or not at all.
Even though social distancing restrictions in Western countries have been lifted, many are still used to gathering online. If online gatherings become the norm, how do you shepherd an online community? How can the boundaries of an online community be determined? How do you maintain order and who are the authorities in the online community? These are the questions that almost every pastor has to answer today.
The Internet and the Effectiveness of Religious Rituals
In the Internet age, we have seen many religious rituals transferred to cyberspace voluntarily or involuntarily. Can cyberspace be sanctified? Is there a sense of sacredness to rituals that are not attended in person? These questions have made many wonder.
Although we have many doubts, the reality is that online ceremonies do exist, and people do participate in them. Besides criticizing and questioning, it is imperative to ask what has made online rituals possible.
Today, people are entering the era of the metaverse. Perhaps the "metaverse" is a gimmick created by some businesses now. Yet, it is indisputable that the technologies of VR, AI, and even MR are being used more and more in social interactions. As for religious beliefs, some scholars believe that the spiritual life of human beings in the future will be embodied in the extension, crossing, and simultaneous presence of both cyberspace and physical space. People tend to separate the Internet from reality today. Moving forward, the Internet and reality, online and offline are likely to be inseparable. How will believers and pastors face such a new era? We don’t know exactly how it will be, but people’s religious lives will definitely become a blended state of online and offline in the future.
If the television era brings entertainment and secularization to human beings, people may see deeper secularization and further gratification of secular desires in the Internet era. Compared with all previous media, the Internet is a technology that can better cater to "human nature". The "human nature" here includes greed, laziness, pride, pleasure, and unearned gain, etc. In the world of the Internet, there are countless things tempting us and making us addicted. They will profoundly impact and challenge people's religious beliefs.
- Translated by June I. Chen
近日，一场题为“从古代到未来——媒介形态变迁与基督教的发展”的主题学术在“因爱而生”平台在线讲座，钱婕博士受邀为分享。
钱婕是一名传播学学者，十余年的时间致力于传播学研究，近年来开始关注宗教传播，尤其对新媒体背景下的基督教传播有着较多的研究。
以下是当天讲座的内容摘要：
一、曾被我们忽视的媒介
今天的我们都能够显而易见的感受到媒体对于我们的影响力，如今的时代很多人称之为新媒体时代，也有很多人说今天的社会是一个网络社会。而在此之前，能够成为社会或者时代指征的似乎就只有生产方式和生产力，比如“工业社会”“农业社会”。
在互联网之前，媒体形态先后经历了语言、文字、印刷物、广播、电视等的变迁。从印刷术普及开始，我们便进入了“大众传播”的时代，媒介也随即开始在大众的生活当中产生非常重要的影响力。书籍、报纸、广播、电视等都是大众所熟知的大众媒介。在公众的普遍认知中，媒介是一种渠道，值得关注的是媒介当中的信息，但传播学认为，媒介不止是一种渠道，值得关注的不止是媒介中的信息，更是媒介本身。
著名传播学学者麦克卢汉，有一个著名的论断——“媒介即信息”。也就是说有什么样的媒介，在很大程度上就决定了媒介所负载的信息是什么样的。他的另一个论断是：“媒介是人体的延伸”。他认为，每一种新媒介的出现，都会在我们的生活当中引入一种尺度。
二、口头、文字传播与早期基督教
语言传播是基督教历史当中最早而且也是贯穿始终的一种传播方式。在《圣经》当中，我们随处可以看见“话语的力量”。比如一开始创世纪中神说：“要有光”，就有了光。
从耶稣开始传播福音到第一部福音书马可福音（大约成书于公元60-70年）写成之间的三十年间，这一时期被称作是基督教口述传统阶段。在这个时期当然也会有一些文字，但是福音主要的传播方式却是口语传播。口语传播有着两个特质，第一，口语传播常常是情境化的，第二，口语传播是“过耳不留”的，因此在传播过程中容易变形。随着耶稣的事迹一再被传讲，一方面不同的视角与经历拼凑成了一个相对完整的故事版本；另一方面在不同的场合中，这些素材被重新整合以适应特定的传播需要。
大约公元50年左右，曾在整个小亚细亚和希腊传播福音的保罗，开始给那些早期他帮助建立起来的教会写信。书信是基督教文字传播的最早的形态，保罗写给贴撒罗尼迦教会的书信被认为是新约圣经中最早出现的文字。由使徒写给各教会的书信被要求在教会中当众宣读，并要在不同教会间传播，作为最早的权威文本，这些书信不仅是对某一家教会的归正，更维系了不同地区的信仰团体、统合了基督徒的信念和实践。
至1世纪结束之前，全部的新约经卷已经完成，但是直到一千多年以后，1439-1443年的佛罗伦萨会议上，天主教教廷才对新约正典做出首次决议。教廷重申阿塔那修正典目录，规定由四福音书、使徒行传、八封大公书信（希伯来书、雅各书、两封彼得书信、三封约翰书信以及犹大书）和十三封保罗书信共同构成新约正典。
三、羊皮纸文明与中世纪的教会权威
基督教的诞生与发展一直伴随着文字的传播。在中世纪，教会的权威达到了巅峰。在这其中，媒介起到了重要的作用，有学者指出：“羊皮纸媒介主导的文明通过修道院制度而发展了知识垄断。”
羊皮纸卷是一种偏向时间的媒介，羊皮纸卷文明和修道院制度同工打造出了教会权威的巅峰。在羊皮纸卷流行的漫长的时期内，羊皮纸的价值是非常昂贵的，一部羊皮纸卷圣经的价值与一个葡萄园相当。而且在羊皮纸上写字是非常耗费力气的，抄书人一天6个小时的时间只能抄写两三页，需要耗费10-15个月的漫长时间才能够抄完一部圣经。而且当时的圣经都是用拉丁文书写的，而只有极少数的人群才能够读懂拉丁文。因着上述的种种原因导致了知识被困于修道院的高墙之内，最终造成教会权威达到了巅峰。
四、印刷传播与宗教改革
西方的印刷术是由德国人古登堡发明的。他在15世纪的西方世界开始通过活字印刷术印刷圣经，即后来闻名于世的四十二行圣经。印刷术直接带来了书籍生产效率的提高和生产成本的降低，圣经的价格也因此大大降低。另外，人工抄书的过程中，难免造成错漏，而印刷术的普及则导致了圣经文本的统一。印刷术为传播带来文本的标准化，文本的标准化又进一步促进了宗教仪式的规范化和标准化。
在一切服从罗马教廷的西方国家里，拉丁语都保留下来，成为统一的崇拜媒介；同理，整个天主教世界都可以诵读统一的文本、举行统一的仪式。同时，礼拜仪式自发的发展、变化和调适就被杜绝了，罗马天主教会的崇拜仪式也就僵化了。
宗教改革后，新教徒的宗教生活方式较之天主教有了很大的分别，其中最大的一个分别就在于信仰领受的方式，由原本依赖教会释经到自己读经的转变。 原本享有神圣地位的教士，不再是宗教生活中的中心。这种转变，有赖于“人人皆祭司”的新教观念、教育的大众化、通俗语的定型等条件的相互配合。
沃尔特·翁认为，印刷术的出现导致听觉主导让位于视觉主导。在他看来，视觉起分离的作用，听觉起结合的作用。当一个人向听众说话时，听讲的人连同说话的人会成为一个整体。但当听众变成读者时，整体被打破了，每个人开始了与书本间单独的精神交往。而印刷逻辑创造了“旁观者/疏离的人”。宗教改革以来，家庭成了教会管理的最基本单位。
在公众日益原子化和个性化的印刷文明中，宗教自助是人们宗教生活的一大变化。宗教改革以来，家庭成了教会管理的最基本单位。家长被告知，在家里举行宗教仪式、教化孩子和学徒是自己的职责。印刷商抢占商机，鼓励宗教自助：“为了自助，父亲可以倚重印刷机源源不断生产的袖珍本手册，例子有《家用指南》（A Werke for Householders）(1530)……或《在家里静思和念诵的祈祷书》（Godly private prayers for householders to meditate upon and to say in their families）”
五、电子媒体与宗教的市场化
1844年，摩尔斯发明了电报，从而开启了电子传播的新时代。电子传播从它的开端，就和宗教息息相关——摩尔斯发出的地一封电报的内容就是：上帝创造了何等的奇迹（What hath God Wrought）。1924年，KFUO（Keep Forward,Upward,Onward）成为第一座宗教电台。第一个在电视上传教的是罗马天主教神父富尔顿.辛，1952年，他开始在电视台的宗教节目中主持弥撒。
我们所熟知的通过电视来传教的人物是葛培理。葛培理曾很自豪地宣称，电视是人类发明的最有力的交流工具，他一次电视直播的观众比耶稣一生中传教的对象要多千百万。
当电视占据了人们的生活以后，隐忧也随之而来。相对于其他宗教来说，基督教对于新媒体是最为宽容和开放的，因为基督教常常把媒介的发展看作为上帝所赐给人们的礼物，因为媒介的每一次的发展，都会让福音在更短的时间内传播到更远的距离。但是在拥抱新技术的同时，也都会伴随着一些隐忧和反思。尼尔.波兹曼认为，媒介的形式会偏好某些特殊的内容，从而能够最终控制文化。
印刷文明带来的是一个“阐释的时代”，它偏向于富有逻辑的复杂思维、高度的理性和秩序，对于自相矛盾的憎恶，超常的冷静和客观以及等待受众反应的耐心。娱乐是电视上所有话语的超意识形态。不管是什么内容，也不管采取什么视角，电视上的一切都是为了给我们提供娱乐。斯托得认为电视将人们之前绝对看不到的情景，真实地带到我们的家和良心中。面对电视中出现的种种灾难与悲剧，人们已经逃避或者关闭情感开关。因此年轻人“对福音的无动于衷”或许由于电视画面永久地损害了他们的情感反应机制。
六、互联网的逻辑与数字宗教生活
网络是否会消解宗教权威？
很多人认为网络是一个去中心的、平等的、开放的空间，那么网络是否会带来宗教权威的消解呢？网络化彻底打破了传统的信息渠道的垄断，从单一叙事转变为现在的多化元的叙事。人人都有麦克风和摄像头，草根叙事越来越多，带来了跟传统的权威叙事完全不一样的视角。
在这样的情景下，现实的社会资本是很难有效地迁移至网络的，从宗教角度来说，宗教权威的合法性也是受到极大的冲击的。在网络上人很难把现实的社会资本转移到网络当中。
互联网环境是人们对“自我”的赋权。在网络中，人们会越来越主张自己的力量，认为自己有能够寻找到真理的能力。
而由以上因素，最终很可能导致一个“宗教市场”的出现。今天，我们能够看到，很多的宗教、教派，它们被并置在了互联网上，需要向信徒证明自己的合理性，能够给信众带来怎样的回报。今天，呈现在我们面前的是一个更加有竞争性的市场。而当“自我”赋权的时候，人们会尝试在“宗教市场”当中拼凑自己的宗教。
网络社会中，几乎任何一种观点，我们都可以在网络中找到并且找到一些志同道合者，找到跟自己相似的理论，然后作为自己的支撑。这些都对宗教提出了挑战，信徒可能一边在教会里面听台上的牧者讲道，一边拿着手机查询这段经文，在百度或者其他什么地方有没有什么资料和解释，甚至看看牧者讲的到底对不对。宗教权威，不再是天然地不证自明的权威，不再是牧者说什么那就一定是正确的，而是需要经过一个协商和建构的过程，需要证明自己是权威。
网络社区能否影响教会“合一”的诉求？
在这样一个没有控制、令人困惑的变迁世界里，人们倾向于围绕着“原始认同”重新编组：宗教、族群、领域、民族等。
1998年，巴纳调查公司发布了一份社会调查报告：“网络教会来了”，其中说到“我们的研究显示，到2010年将会有10%—20%的人们主要或者唯独依赖网络作为他们的宗教来源。”
我们对于网络教会的警惕来源于“流动的身份”和“隔离又联结的交往方式”。每个人可能会隐去自己的真实身份，然后加入到某个网络社区，而没有任何委身于教会的压力，稍微有点不如意的话，点点鼠标或者手机，就能够轻易退出，与传统教会的那种教会的委身和合一有很大的区别。
2002年，梵蒂冈发布了题为《教会与网络》的报告。报告指出：“虚拟现实绝不可能代替圣餐礼中真实的主的存在，不可能取代其他圣事中的神圣现实，也不可能取代真实的人类社区中共享的敬拜。网络中没有神圣；即便网络中蒙主恩有宗教活动的可能，它也不可能与现实世界中的互动分离……牧养计划应该考虑如何将人们带出网络环境，带回到真实的社区中，以及如何通过教导，让网络支持和帮助人们在教会中委身。”
教会牧者普遍会重视网络在信息传播这个方面的意义，但是对于在网络上举行仪式，甚至在网络中建造教会，绝大多数牧者都是非常警惕的。
对着新型冠状病毒开始传播和社会疏离准则的出现，绝大多数交易迅速提供了数字选择。到2020年3月，Lifeway Research发现92%的新教牧师表示他们提供了某种类型的在线视频布道或者敬拜服务。到2020年4月，这一比例攀升至97%。
根据2020年12月英格兰教会的A Church Near You网站（允许人们搜索教堂服务和活动）的数据，网站列出了17000多个在线服务或活动，包括主日圣餐服务、圣经学习和早晚祈祷等。全国在线服务的浏览量已经接近300万次，有关每周广播的帖子已经被浏览2360万次。贡献者包括坎特伯雷和约克大主教、剑桥公爵和教皇弗朗西斯等人。全国性的在线服务正在被各个年龄段的人观看，大约五分之一的观看者很少去教堂甚至根本不去教堂。
今天，即使西方国家的社交隔离准则已经取消，很多人仍旧习惯了线上的聚集。如果网络聚会常成为一个常态，那么如何牧养一个网络社区？如何确定一个网络社区的边界？如何维持网络社区的秩序？谁是网络社区内的权威？这些成为了今天几乎每一位牧者都需要回答的问题。
互联网与宗教仪式的有效性
在互联网时代，我们看到了很多的宗教仪式主动或被动地转移到了网络空间进行。那么网络空间可以分别为圣吗？非亲身参与的仪式也有神圣感吗？这些问题引起了许多人的思考。
虽然我们提出很多质疑，但现实是网络仪式的确存在，确有人参加。因此除了批评和质疑，还同时要问，网络仪式何以成为可能。
今天的人们，即将甚至已经进入了元宇宙的时代，或许迄今为止“元宇宙”依然是一些商家营造的噱头，但是VR技术、AI技术甚至MR技术等确实在越来越多的应用于人们的社会交往却是一个不争的事实。而对于信仰来说，有学者认为，未来人类的信仰生活将具体表现为网络空间与现实空间的延伸、交叉和同时在场。把网络与现实二分，这是现在很多人的思维方式，但是在未来，网络和现实、线上和线下很可能不可分。信徒和牧者又将如何面对这样一个新时代的到来呢？具体会如何我们并不知道，但是在未来，人们的宗教信仰却一定会成为线上和线下这两者彼此相模糊的状态。
如果说电视时代带给人类的是娱乐化和世俗化的话，那么在网络时代人们可能会看到更深的世俗化以及更进一步的世俗欲望的满足，因为相比之前的所有媒介，网络是一门能够更加迎合“人性”的技术。这里的“人性”，包含人的贪心、懒惰、骄傲、享乐和不劳而获等等。在网络世界当中，有着无数的吸引我们、让我们上瘾的东西，这些东西会对人们的宗教信仰形成深刻的冲击和挑战。
学术讲座 从古代到未来：媒介形态变迁与基督教的发展
Recently, Dr. Qian Jie was invited to speak on the topic of "From Ancient Times to the Future: Changes in Media Forms and the Development of Christianity" to share how the global religion was spread in different eras.
Qian Jie, a scholar in communication who has devoted herself to communication research for more than ten years, spoke on the "Born Because of Love" virtual platform. In recent years, she has begun to focus on religious communication, especially the research on Christian communication in the context of new media.
The following is a summary of the day's seminar:
I. Media once ignored
We can all see clearly the influence of the media on us today. This era has been called the era of new media, and in today's society the community of the Internet. Historically, it seemed that only the mode of production and productive forces would become indicators of society or the times, such as "industrial society" and "agricultural society."
Prior to the Internet era, the form of the media had undergone changes from speech, writing, print, radio, to television alike. Since the popularization of printing, we have entered the era of "mass communication," and the media has also begun to influence the lives of the public profoundly. Books, newspapers, radio, and television alike are all known as mass media. In the perception of the general public, the media is a channel, and it is the information in the media that deserves attention. However, communication science believes that the media is more than a channel. What deserves our attention is not only the information in the media but also the forms of media themselves.
A famous proposition from the well-known communication scholar, Herbert Marshall McLuhan, is that "the medium is the message." That is to say, the form of the medium plays a significant role in the information it carries. His other proposition is, "The media is extensions of the human body." He believes that every new medium will introduce a scale into our lives.
II. Oral and written communication, and early Christianity
Oral communication is the earliest communicating mode and the one used throughout the history of Christianity. In the Bible, we can see "the power of the word" everywhere. For example, God said, "let there be light," and there was light,” at the beginning of Genesis.
The thirty years between the beginning of Jesus' ministry and the writing of the first Gospel, the Book of Mark (written in 60-70 AD), are known as the oral tradition stage of Christianity. There was certainly some writing during this period, but the main channel of dissemination of the Gospel was oral. Oral communication has two characteristics. It is often contextualized. Secondly, the message is easily distorted in the process of oral communication because it is "going in one ear and out the other." As the story of Jesus was told repeatedly, different perspectives and experiences were pieced together into a relatively complete version of the story. Furthermore, these materials were reintegrated to suit specific communication needs on different occasions.
In around 50 A.D., Paul, preaching the gospel throughout Asia Minor and Greece, began to write letters to the early churches that he helped to establish. Epistles are the earliest form of Christian writing. Paul's letters to the church at Thessalonica are considered the earliest writing in the New Testament. The letters written by the apostles to the churches are required to be read in public at the church and to be disseminated among different churches. As the earliest authoritative texts, these letters were not only for the reformation of certain churches but also connected the faith groups in different regions and integrated Christian beliefs and practices.
By the end of the 1st century, all the New Testament books were completed. It was not until more than a thousand years later that the Catholic Church made its first decision on the New Testament canon at the Council of Florence in 1439-1443. The Holy See reaffirmed the contents of Athanasius’ canon, stipulating that the New Testament canon constitutes the four Gospels, Acts, the eight ecumenical epistles (Hebrews, James, two letters of Peter, three letters of John, and Jude), and Paul’s thirteen epistles.
III. Parchment civilization and medieval church authority
The birth and development of Christianity have always been accompanied by the dissemination of writing. In the Middle Ages, the authority of the church reached its peak. During that period, the media played an important role. Some scholars pointed out: "The civilization dominated by the parchment medium led to the monopoly of knowledge through the monastic system."
The parchment scroll was a time-consuming medium. It worked together with the monastic system to create the pinnacle of church authority. During the long period of its prevalence, parchment was so expensive that a parchment Bible was worth as much as a vineyard. Moreover, writing on parchment was very labor-intensive. Scribes could only copy two or three pages in six hours a day, and it took 10-15 months to copy a Bible. The Bible at that time was written in Latin, and only a small number of people could read Latin. For these reasons, knowledge was limited within the high walls of the monastery. The authority of the church reached its peak as a result.
IV. Print communication and the Reformation
Western printing was invented by Gutenberg, a German. In the 15th century, he began to print the Bible in the Western world by movable type. It later became known as the forty-two-line Bible. Printing has directly improved the efficiency of book production and lowered production costs. The sale price of the Bible was also greatly reduced. Errors and omissions were inevitable in the process of manual copying, but the prevalence of printing led to the unification of Scripture. Printing standardized Scripture for communication, which in turn further normalized the religious practices.
In all Western countries that are subject to the Holy See, Latin has been preserved and become a unified worship medium. The entire Catholic world can read unified Scripture and perform unified practices. However, the spontaneous worship was excluded along with its development, modification, and adjustment. The worship in the Roman Catholic Church became rigid.
After the Reformation, the religious lifestyle of Protestants was very different from that of Catholics. One of the biggest differences was the way of receiving teaching, which had changed from relying on church interpretation to reading the Bible for themselves. Priests, who used to be held in sacred status, are no longer the center of religious life. This transformation depends on the integration of the Protestant notion of "everyone is a priest," universal education, and the consolidation of everyday language.
Walter Ong argued that the advent of typography had caused auditory dominance to give way to visual dominance. In his view, vision plays the role of separation, and hearing integration. When a person speaks to an audience, the listeners and the speaker become one. But when the audience becomes readers, the collective whole is broken, and each audience member starts an individual intellectual interaction with the text. The typographical logic develops the "bystander/alienated individual." Since the Reformation, the family has become the most basic unit of church management.
The public is increasingly atomized and individualized in print civilization. Self-help religion is a major change in people's religious lives. Since the Reformation, the family has become the most basic unit of church management. Parents have been told that it is their responsibility to practice religions at home and to educate children and apprentices. The printing business takes advantage of the opportunities to encourage self-help religions. "To help ourselves, fathers could rely on a steady feed of pocketbooks produced by the printing press, such as A Werke for Householders (1530) . . . or Godly private prayers for householders to meditate upon and to say in their families.”
V. Electronic media and the marketization of religion
In 1844, Morse invented the telegraph, which initiated a new era of electronic communication. From the very beginning, electronic communication has been closely related to religion. The content of a telegram sent by Morse is “What hath God Wrought.” In 1924, KFUO (Keep Forward, Upward, Onward) became the first religious radio station. The first to teach on television was Roman Catholic priest Fulton Sheen. He started to hold Mass on religious TV programs in 1952.
The well-known figure who preached through television was Billy Graham. Billy Graham once proudly proclaimed that television was the most powerful communication tool ever invented by man. The audience his live TV broadcast reached each time is millions more than that Jesus did in his lifetime.
When TV occupies people's lives, hidden worries follow. Compared with other religions, Christianity is the most tolerant and open to new media. Christianity often thinks of the development of media a gift from God to people. Every development of the media has disseminated the Gospel to a further distance in a shorter period of time. However, new technologies that people embrace are accompanied by concerns and rethinking. Neil Postman believes that the form of the media will favor certain content, which can ultimately manipulate the culture.
The print civilization has created an "era of interpretation." The era is characterized by complex logical thinking, a high degree of rationality and order, abhorrence of self-contradiction, extraordinary composure and objectivity, and patience to wait for the audience's reaction. Entertainment is the super-ideology of all discourse on television. Whatever the content, whatever the perspective, everything on TV is designed to entertain us. Stott believes that television realistically brings what people have never seen before to homes and conscience. When seeing all kinds of disasters and tragedies on TV, people slip away or turn off the emotional switch. Thus young people's "indifference to the Gospel" may be attributed to the permanent damage of their emotional response mechanism caused by television images.
VI. The logic of the Internet and digital religious life
Will the Internet Dismiss Religious Authority?
Many people think that the Internet is a decentralized, equal, and open space. Well then, will the Internet cause the destruction of religious authority? The Internet has completely broken up the monopoly of traditional information channels. The communication has transformed from a single narrative to today’s multi-narrative. Everyone has a microphone and a camera. There are increasingly more grassroots narratives, bringing completely different perspectives from traditional authoritative narratives.
In such a scenario, it is difficult for the social capital in reality to effectively migrate to the Internet. From a religious perspective, the legitimacy of religious authority is greatly impacted. It is challenging to transfer the social capital from reality to the Internet.
The Internet environment empowers people’s "self." People declare their own power increasingly and believe that they have the ability to find the truth online.
Because of the above, it is likely to cause the emergence of a "religious market" eventually. Today, we can see many religions and denominations presented on the Internet. They have to justify themselves and explain what benefits they can bring to their believers. We are facing a more competitive market nowadays. When the "self" is empowered, people try to assemble their own religion in the "religious market."
In the community of the Internet, we can always find like-minded people for almost any point of view and propositions similar to our own to back us up. These all present challenges to religion. While listening to a pastor’s sermon in the church, believers may use their mobile phones to look up the passage. Are there any information and explanations on Baidu or others? Is the pastor preaching accurately or not? Religious authority is no longer self-evident by nature. What the pastor says is not necessarily correct. A process of negotiation and construction is required for an authority to prove itself.
Can the online community impact the church's appeal of "unity?"
In such a world of uncontrolled and bewildering changes, people tend to regroup around "primitive identities" like religion, ethnic group, territory, nation, and so on.
In 1998, the Barna Group released a social survey report, The Internet Church is Coming. The report indicates "Our research shows that by 2010, 10%-20% of people will mainly or exclusively rely on the Internet as their religious source."
Our vigilance against online churches stems from "fluid identities" and "both isolated and connected ways of communicating." Anyone could hide their identity and join a certain online community without any pressure to commit to the church. If you are not completely satisfied, you can easily quit with a click of a mouse or a mobile phone. This is very different from the commitment and unity in the traditional church.
In 2002, the Vatican released a report entitled The Church and Internet. The following is stated in the report. “Virtual reality is no substitute for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sacramental reality of the other sacraments, and shared worship in a flesh-and-blood human community. There are no sacraments on the Internet; and even the religious experiences possible there by the grace of God are insufficient apart from real-world interaction with other persons of faith… Pastoral planning should consider how to lead people from cyberspace to true community and how, through teaching and catechesis, the Internet might subsequently be used to sustain and enrich them in their Christian commitment.”
In general, pastors emphasize the significance of the Internet in information dissemination. Yet, the majority of them are very careful about holding ceremonies or building churches on the Internet.
As COVID-19 began to spread and social distancing guidelines emerged, the vast majority of transactions quickly offered digital options. Based on Lifeway Research, 92% of Protestant pastors indicated that they provided some type of online sermon or worship service as of March 2020. By April 2020, that percentage had climbed to 97%.
According to the data of December 2020 from the Church of England's website, A Church Near You (allowing people to search for church services and events), the website listed more than 17,000 online services or events, including Sunday communion services, Bible studies, and morning and evening prayers alike. The online services had been viewed nearly 3 million times nationwide, and posts about the weekly broadcast had been viewed 23.6 million times. Among the contributors were the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Duke of Cambridge, Pope Francis, and so on. Viewers were of all ages. Approximately, one in five of them attended church rarely or not at all.
Even though social distancing restrictions in Western countries have been lifted, many are still used to gathering online. If online gatherings become the norm, how do you shepherd an online community? How can the boundaries of an online community be determined? How do you maintain order and who are the authorities in the online community? These are the questions that almost every pastor has to answer today.
The Internet and the Effectiveness of Religious Rituals
In the Internet age, we have seen many religious rituals transferred to cyberspace voluntarily or involuntarily. Can cyberspace be sanctified? Is there a sense of sacredness to rituals that are not attended in person? These questions have made many wonder.
Although we have many doubts, the reality is that online ceremonies do exist, and people do participate in them. Besides criticizing and questioning, it is imperative to ask what has made online rituals possible.
Today, people are entering the era of the metaverse. Perhaps the "metaverse" is a gimmick created by some businesses now. Yet, it is indisputable that the technologies of VR, AI, and even MR are being used more and more in social interactions. As for religious beliefs, some scholars believe that the spiritual life of human beings in the future will be embodied in the extension, crossing, and simultaneous presence of both cyberspace and physical space. People tend to separate the Internet from reality today. Moving forward, the Internet and reality, online and offline are likely to be inseparable. How will believers and pastors face such a new era? We don’t know exactly how it will be, but people’s religious lives will definitely become a blended state of online and offline in the future.
If the television era brings entertainment and secularization to human beings, people may see deeper secularization and further gratification of secular desires in the Internet era. Compared with all previous media, the Internet is a technology that can better cater to "human nature". The "human nature" here includes greed, laziness, pride, pleasure, and unearned gain, etc. In the world of the Internet, there are countless things tempting us and making us addicted. They will profoundly impact and challenge people's religious beliefs.
- Translated by June I. Chen
Academic Seminar From Past to Future: Changes in Media Forms and the Development of Christianity
