Dialogic Thickness in a Monologic Culture

This essay considers the context of the contemporary church in the United States as an environment of monologue in which one-way communication is prized and practiced as religious authoritarianism, market ideology that has no interest in communication, and imperial politics that proceeds from the top down. In such an environment, a primal task of the church is to advocate and practice a mode of life that honors the thickness of human interaction and engages in faithful interaction with God as a two-way practice. A specific consideration of dialogic practice is a case study of Psalm 35 in which “the many selves of the self are given voice in discourse with God in a way that submits to and yet insists on leverage with the Holy One. This transaction may be a model for human transaction as well in the strange world where truth speaks to power

Aesthetics · Authoritarianism · Context (archaeology) · Database transaction · Democracy · Dialogic · Epistemology · Ideology · Leverage (statistics) · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Theology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Christian Theology and Mission · Computer Science · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Society, and Development