O problema adventismo-televisão: uma análise do pensamento adventista sobre a TV a partir da tipologia de H. Richard Niebuhr em cristo e cultura

Abstract

This thesis seeks to identify and analyze the Adventist thinking about television based on H. Richard Niebuhr’s typology presented in Christ and culture. The research aimed to trace the theological, social and communicational presuppositions behind the Adventist thinking about TV that were inherited from the social history of the denomination. Thus, it was chosen as a corpus of analysis the English-speaking Adventists editorial publications about the relationship between the believer and the television. After a historiagrafic analysis about the Adventism-TV problem and the reading of the Adventist literature about TV a Niebuhrian typology was constructed based in a binomial structure. As research results, it was observed that the responses of the religious movement to Adventism-TV problem are multifaceted and complex, and can be better understood through: (1) the identity marks revealed by the social history of the denomination, which Millerite legacy is very influent and (2) the binary oppositions image-text, demonizationsacralization, autonomy-manipulation, protagonism-assistance and abstinencemoderation. In the analyzed literature, the Adventist thinking between the 1950s until the early 1990s is characterized by strong rejection to the television media, because of the idea of rivalry that is perceived between image and text in a denomination orientated by the text. Furthermore, it is believed that the best option on the interaction with the TV is abstinence because of the belief in the subliminal power and the mind control skill of media. The Adventist thinking was also characterized by the notion that TV is the protagonist of Christian spirituality, being responsible for promoting the sanctification or eternal damnation. Adventist literature justifies the use of television only in a religious context and missionary purposes, mainly due to the eschatological vocation and the religious imperative of the proclamation of Jesus' return to Earth. However, the later books of the corpus, published between 1990 and 2000, represent a shift in the understanding of how should be the believer's interaction with the TV. Despite the prevalence of text on the image endures and the predominance of idea of emergency, other perspectives are privileged, among them the sacredness of the TV, which can now also be used in “secular” context and not exclusively for evangelistic purposes, and moderation as a practical solution to the problem Adventism-TV