Religion as a Medium

In the article titled ‘Religion as a Medium – the Media of Religion,’ (2011) Weibel aims to privilege religion as a characteristic of media. He begins by foregrounding that all religions rely on the written word, through which God exists. In Holy Scriptures, the written word is the voice of the hidden God. Or, Sigmund Freud (1930) defines it as “the voice of an absent person (Weibel, 2011, p.33).” Religion needs writing to be transcendent, too last through space and time. It is the medium of belief, guaranteeing that Jesus existed, that He was the Messiah and the Son of God.

In other words, religion needs media. With the development of media (from written word to electronic media etc), religions also change. Media influences religious change (Hjavard, 2008). For example, nowadays many religious groupings utilise electronic media to foreground the physical presence of religious leaders and to communicate religious news and religious content (e.g. the Bible can be found online etc.). Weibel (2011) states that media is “essentially the technical redemption of the religious promise (p.41).”

It is interesting to think of technical media as taking on the promise of eternal life, a promise of religions. In other words, all media basically adopts the religious promise as a medium. According to the article, religion is the “original medium of all media” (Weibel, 2011, p.41). It is strange, yet somewhat logical to develop the thought that all mediated life has developed because of religion as a medium. Was the computer, and its hard drive, invented from the religious promise of immortality of the soul? Were airplanes and hovercraft vessels developed due to a religious promise of antigravity phenomena such as prophets walking on water? Can scientists convert various substances using chemistry because Jesus could turn water into wine? What would the world be like if there was never any religion?

Due to secularization, there has been a loss of religion in the traditional sense (Weibel, 2011, p.42). Media utilises religious traits, such as the phenomena of repetition, to create a sense of media religiousness. For example, watching your favourite television show every night or checking Facebook every morning when you wake up are untraditional mediated religious rituals. A second form of media utilising religion as a medium, or characteristic, is art. Art “acts as if it were a religion (Weibel, 2011, p.43).” The artist becomes some sort of “god,” a being of creation. Thus, art becomes a rival of religion. However, it takes on religious characteristics to become, in its own sense, a “popular” religion. Hjavard (2008), states that the concept of a popular religion reflects on how religion blurs into popular culture. In this case, religion and spirituality merges into the lives of everyday artists, where art has taken on the role of religion (Elkins, 2007). Therefore, art and other forms of the media can be substitute religions.

Religion needs the media and the media needs religion.

References:

Elkins, J. 2007. Bridging the Gap Between Modern Art and Religion. Artstyle Blog, Nov 30. Received from: http://www.chicagoarts-lifestyle.com/cac-perspectives-can-modern-art-and-religion-get-along/#more-660

Hjarvard, S. 2008. The Mediatization of Religion: A Theory of the Media as Agents of Religious Change. Northern Lights. 6(1). (RL)

Weibel, P. 2011. Religion as a Medium – the Media of Religion. In B Groys and P. Weibel, Eds., Medium Religion: Faith, Geopolitics, Art. 30-43. Kȍln: Verlag der Buchhandlung, Walther Kȍnig. 

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