Page 270 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Public religious culture post-09/11/01 259

percentage they gave “pro-choice groups.” Robertson scored higher, at
34 percent, but still lower than labor unions (36%) and far below
Pope John Paul II (44%) and James Dobson (40%).
The real spokesperson for evangelicalism, said Brooks, is John
Stott, who is “always bringing people back to the concrete reality of
Jesus’ life and sacrifice.” 64

Olsen laments the situation of undue influence by figures like Robertson
and Falwell, echoing long-standing elite ideas about the nature of
authority in the media age.

But the kind of gospel that Joe Disciple follows, how he communicates
his faith, what emphases he puts in his life are increasingly determined
by a media diet of both sacred and secular victuals.
In a sense, Robertson and Falwell get quoted in papers and booked
on talk shows because they get quoted and booked on talk shows:
Rolodexes don’t get cleaned out very often. But they also get booked
because they’re quick with the quote: they help to feed an omnivorous
media machine hungry for thoughts (or lack thereof) condensable into
a dozen words that will make one side or another angry. 65

The interviews we’ve seen here can help address these concerns raised
about the emerging role of religion in American politics. We began the
project of this book by intending to test a notion very like the concern
raised by Olsen over the way that the media diet might relate to religious
and spiritual understanding. In the process, we’ve heard from people from
across the religious and spiritual spectrum about the ways they integrate
their spiritual, religious, and media lives. We’ve wanted to view these rela-
tionships in a way that contrasts with Olsen’s assumptions. While he, and
others, are quick to assume that media can influence the way people are
religious and spiritual, we’ve wanted to be open to the possibility that
media and religion/spirituality can influence each other in the making of
the meanings and identities through which we live our lives. Media
celebrity may be pragmatic, even capricious, but should we fear that those
logics (or lack thereof) become the determining factor?
In a larger sense, too, Olsen’s concerns deserve some analysis and reflec-
tion (and not just because they are so widely shared). If, indeed, the
current religious/political alignment is skewed in the direction of conserva-
tive (Evangelical and conservative Catholic) ideas, should we be concerned
with the seeming entropic circularity implicit here? That is, is it a problem
that the source of religious authority that is influencing important aspects
of public policy is itself authoritative because of its public mediation, not
because of its rootedness in fundamental and consensual ideas that are
authentic to the religious cultures for which it seems to speak? In a sense,