Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion and Celebrity Culture

Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, David Beckham and the Spice Girls and Reality TV are part of the cultural and social context in which Christians live and which we therefore cannot ignore.Pete Ward shows how Christian theologians can not only comment critically on celebrity culture as a cultural phenomenon, but more positively engage with it as theological capital .Pete Ward develops a notion of theology in a celebrity culture based on the plausibility of faith in relation to the circulation of stories within cultural representation. Linked to the plausibility of Christian theology is the notion of theological capital i.e. that celebrity culture is a theological resource. Finally, theologizing will be linked to issues of missiology using ideas such as inculturation and acculturation. The theological expression of the Church will be presented as circulating discourse being affected by and in turn affecting the wider culture.