Reflection

Michelle Slone
Nov 5 · 2 min read

Of all of the texts covered by the presentations, I found Communicating for Life by Shultze to be the most interesting. The idea of symbolic ambiguity was one I had not considered before. I knew beforehand that our communication is corrupted due to sin but I had never really thought deeper about it. I found St. Augustine’s three ways for overcoming symbolic ambiguity to be quite interesting: know the author, know the text, know the context for the message. In SSFT we have been discussing different interpretations of Genesis that leads to certain creation views. I wondered why the context of the whole of Genesis wasn’t taken into context, but now I can see how symbolic ambiguity was taking place.

I also had not previously considered how communication can be a gift. I just always thought of it as something everyone can do, but I did not consider how some people communicate better than others. Augustine’s two ideas about the gift of communication being the ability to craft messages and the skill in delivering them are two things I usually take for granted. One of the biggest takeaways I had from the presentations, is that I need to think more critically about what I am consuming as a whole. Whether it is through media or another form, there is a lot more thought that goes into things than I previously noticed. I hadn’t known before about technophobia or media idolatry and how both those things heavily influence people’s opinions. I also had not considered Schultze’s point that media can provide an opportunity for Christians to work. I had grown up believing that media was basically sinful and did not have a place in the church, but now I understand how media can be used to serve God.