Faith and Media - Finding Christ in Popular Culture

Well this is it. I am actually creating my first blog - thanks to my Faith and Media students. I figured it was about time that I use the same technology that I require them to use in class. I adapted the class this year taking it beyond the mediums of music, movies, and television to include Ipods, the Web, Blogging and Pod-Casting (both audio and video). A real challenge for me to learn as I hit my mid forties. But I caught the bug to become more media savvy or literate in graduate school last semester at Seton Hall. The course just got me thinking. How can faith reflect what we find in contemporary media today? And that's where I begin today...

How can I (and my students) use contemporary media to help us find Christ in the popular culture of today?

There are four sites that I am encouraging my students to look at and explore over the next couple of days: Jesus Goes to Disney Word (http://jesusindisney.blogspot.com/) by Fr. Austin Murphy - a priest/campus ministry from the Archdiocese of Baltimore); Catholic Youth Ministry Blog (http://www.dscottmiller.com/) by Scott Miller - Office of Youth Ministry from the Archdiocese of Baltimore; Cardinal Seán's Blog (http://www.cardinalseansblog.org/) by Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap, Cardinal-Archbishop of Boston; and Theology of the Body Taught at the Street Level in Six Lessons (http://tobonthestreet.blogspot.com/) by Father Samuel Medley.

Look over these sites. See what they have to say about faith, social justice, the dignity of life, the dignity of the human person, media literacy and how your can relate to them. And tomorrow in class we will take it from there.