Media, Religion, History, Culture: Selected Essays from the 4Th Elon University Media and Religion Conference

By AuthorHouse

This volume contains papers presented at the fourth Elon University Media and Religion Conference held at Elon University, April 13, 2013

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496909657

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© 2014 Edited by Anthony Hatcher. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/28/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0964-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0965-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014908829

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Contents

Comparing Hostility In The Editorials Of Three Modern Stone-Campbell Journals

Comparing Hostility In The Editorials Of 3 Modern Stone-Campbell Journals

Bibliography

Bollywood And Hollywood; Comparing & Contrasting Bollywood’s Implicitly Religious View Of Life Underlying All Their Films With The More Secular Hollywood Approach

Abstract

Liberal Theology, Postliberal Theology, And Comment Policies In The Feminist Blogosphere

Abstract

References

Christ-Figures In Film: Moving Beyond Definitions To Theological Discussion In I Am Legend And Gran Torino

Introduction

The Concept Of ‘Christ-Figure’

Analysis

Discussion

Conclusion

References

Interfaith Communication An Examination Of The Practices Of Anne Frank And Thomas Merton

Abstract

References

In America But Not Of It:Early Newspapers And The First Catholic Church In New York City, 1780-1790

Conclusions

The Intersection Model Of The Student Press At Faith-Base Universities With Special Attention To Campbell University

Works Cited

(Endnotes)

Abstract

Introduction

Religious Identity, Pastoral Challenges, And Social Media

Interviews With Pastors Using Two Facebook Accounts

Challenges

Conclusion

Works Cited

Comparing Hostility in the Editorials of Three Modern Stone-Campbell Journals

Doug Mendenhall

Abilene Christian University Graduate School of Theology

Advanced Restoration History BIBH 664.01

Comparing hostility in the editorials of 3 modern Stone-Campbell journals

This paper represents an effort to compare levels of hostility in the language of editorials in three contemporary periodicals that broadly represent progressive, centrist, and conservative elements of the Churches of Christ. Using a small sample, the study is meant to serve as an introduction to the concept of measuring hostility, in hopes that larger, farther-reaching analyses will be forthcoming.

Because of the lack of a hierarchy, administrative infrastructure, or even an ordained clergy in Churches of Christ, it has always been more difficult to accurately and succinctly identify the beliefs and practices of this stream of the Stone-Campbell Movement than to do so with most other Christian denominations. In the absence of denomination-wide administrators, who speaks for the group? One solid answer to this question was seen in the early 20th century when Churches of Christ first became identified as a separate entity from other elements of the Stone-Campbell Movement. With no other clear source of information, the director of the 1906 U.S. religious census asked Gospel Advocate editor David Lipscomb whether the Disciples of Christ and Churches of Christ should be considered a single entity—and used his negative answer to separate the two in official government records from that date forward.¹ As an early Stone-Campbell historian noted, Disciples don’t have bishops, they have editors.² The sentiment of that quotation holds true a century later, with the directors of newspapers, journals, magazines, newsletters, and now online web sites still helping to distill doctrine, practices, and attitudes for the Churches of Christ. As might be expected, the intervening century has often been marked by a freewheeling discourse, in which unencumbered editors speaking for both progressive and conservative elements have strongly disagreed and not minced words about the rightness of their own position and the folly of their opponents’. This paper seeks to begin studying the language used in this discourse. If this movement still has editors instead of bishops, seeing the relative levels of hostility in the editors’ words may help understand the underlying attitudes, tensions, and machinations within the entire movement.

Representative journals

Selected for this limited, initial study are four editorials each from 2010 editions of three of the best-known monthly publications within the Churches of Christ:

Firm Foundation: Established in 1884 by Austin McGrary to dispute positions espoused in David Lipscomb’s Gospel Advocate,³ this monthly journal continues to combat progressivism and change agents under the current editorship of Buster Dobbs.

The Christian Chronicle: Established in 1954, this newspaper sees its mission as using objective journalism to inform, inspire, and unite the Churches of Christ.4 Lynn McMillon is the editor of the Chronicle, which publishes print and electronic versions with assistance from Oklahoma Christian University, a liberal arts university affiliated with Churches of Christ.⁵

New Wineskins: Established in 1992, this magazine, first titled Wineskins, set out to promote bold but responsible change under the leadership of ministers Phillip Morrison, Rubel Shelly, and Mike Cope.6 Early in the millennium, New Wineskins became an online-only entity, shifting in 2010 to quarterly publication on its way to turning into a weblog without distinct, periodical editions.⁷ Indeed, Wineskins’ frequency of only four editions a year was the determinant in the ability to select a 2010 sample for this study.

Analyzing hostility in written language

A sizable body of literature spanning a number of social scientific disciplines has conceptualized and quantified the presence of hostility within various texts. Of primary importance in the field of psychometric measurement is the work of Gottschalk, whose scales developed in the 1950s include three aimed directly at measuring types of hostile language—inward, outward, and ambivalent.⁸ However, the Gottschalk scales utilize only 100-word samples from verbal exchanges with patients—much shorter than the extended written passages that the present study wishes to examine. This limitation, the fine-toothed measurement of his 25-item scale, and the requirement that Gottschalk scales be administered by highly trained coders⁹ make them a poor fit for the current proposal, in which it is not necessary to diagnose the root causes or medical condition leading to the use of hostile words, but simply their existence. Similarly, the often-used Cook-Medley Hostility Scale, developed from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory¹⁰ is pertinent to quantifying hostility, but too precise for the present task.

A more promising, if blunter, instrument comes from the field of dispute resolution. Tucked into a multifaceted study of behaviors affecting short-term success in mediation is a content analysis of hostile language seen in transcripts of mediation sessions at community dispute-resolution centers in New York.¹¹ This hostility index contains five components, as follows:

1. Hostile questions: interrogative statements that are harsh and/or include accusatory content.

2. Sarcasm: scornful, taunting, jeering or ironical remarks.

3. Angry displays: swearing, shouting, yelling, table hitting or any other clear indication of the disputant’s anger.

4. Behavior putdowns: Negative evaluation of the other’s behavior or attitudes.

5. Character assassinations: Attributing negative characteristics or negative stable attributes to the other.

This hostility index was linked by the authors to a separate index of contentious behavior that contains two components:

1. Threats: suggestion of harmful consequences if the other disputant fails to comply with a request.

2. Heavy positional commitments: indication of absolute refusal to move from one’s position or to comply with a request from the other disputant.

A subsequent adaptation of the Zubek scales expands these two contentious components to five: threats, warnings, persuasive arguments, self-enhancing statements, and self-favorable comparisons.¹²

Although on the one hand quantifying the language used in attempts to mediate disputes between family members and neighbors may seem far removed from efforts to quantify the language used by editors of competing journals within a single religious movement, closer inspection shows that the two types of discourse have much in common. Historically, the sometimes-heated assertions made by Church of Christ journals can resemble the boil-over of a long-simmering dispute between longtime family members unable to resolve matters of extreme importance to all sides. With minor adjustments so that an index designed for verbal exchanges can accommodate written ones instead, the Zubek coding scheme can serve as the basis for contrasting expressions of disagreement if they go beyond neighborly, brotherly, or academic planes into outright hostility.

The proposed revision that will be employed in this study is in the form of a single index of hostile and contentious language. Three major adjustments have been made from the original Zubek index. First, the angry displays component has been shifted from verbal/physical displays to the use of written language that displays anger. Second, the components of behavior putdowns and character assassination have been collapsed into a single component labeled putdowns. Third, a component has been added to capture name-calling, unaccounted for in the Zubek system. Finally, the five components of the expanded McGillicuddy contentious behavior scale have been dropped, using the rationale that in debates of a spiritual nature, it may be unavoidable that threats, warnings and persuasive arguments must be used to make a point. For example, within Christian doctrine, pointing out the possibility of hell as a punishment for holding a heretical viewpoint or unacceptable lifestyle should not necessarily be assumed to be a hostile threat, nor would a writer’s unwillingness to change his scriptural position. On the other hand, it seems likely that if the writer wished, such a point could be made without resorting to any of the five components of the hostility scale.

Therefore, within this study, hostile language is an operational measure of the amount of hostility contained within a written passage and falls into these five categories:

1. Hostile question is conceptually defined as an interrogative statement that is harsh and/or includes accusatory content.

2. Sarcasm is conceptually defined as a scornful, taunting, jeering or ironical remark. Humor at the expense of the opposing person or view is often a trigger for sarcasm, but may also indicate the presence of categories 4 and/or 5.

3. Angry display is defined as a manifest admission or indication of the disputant’s anger, regardless of whether there is a suggestion that this emotion might lead to angry actions. Simply stating that anger exists is enough to indicate the presence of this dimension.

4. Putdown is defined as a negative evaluation of the other’s behavior, character or attitudes.

5. Name-calling is defined as addressing or labeling the other with a derogatory name, phrase or description.

The portions of New Wineskins, Christian Chronicle, and Firm Foundation to be analyzed will be their primary editorials. Whether in a publication that is primarily objective news reporting, such as the Chronicle, or one that is primarily the sharing of subjective opinion, such as Firm Foundation, the editorials are recognized as a special class, representing not just a personal opinion of the writer, but an opinion of the leadership of the publication itself. Thus, analysis of the language contained in editorials should come the closest to unveiling the prevailing attitude of each publication. In the case of Wineskins, each editorial during 2010 takes the form of a signed column by the guest editor of that edition and serves as a broad explanation of the positioning of Wineskins within the context of the issue to which the edition is devoted.

Using the sentence as the basic unit of analysis, each editorial will be coded for the presence of any of the five indicators of hostile language. Coding will include categorization to one or more of the five indicators. Because editorials will contain different numbers of sentences, raw numbers of hostility incidences will be adjusted to percentages to allow for uniform comparison.

Table 1: Total indications of hostile/contentious language in selected 2010 editorials

Christian Chronicle editorials

Firm Foundation editorials

Here is a case-by-case explanation of the rationale used in determining each sentence that has