A Digital Storytelling Workshop

This Monday through Wednesday, I had the rather unexpected opportunity to participate in a digital storytelling workshop led by Dr. Jason Ohler. It was unexpected because I had been anticipating a fairly uneventful and quiet week. But on Monday morning as I was sipping coffee I got a text message informing me that there was a spot available in this workshop and was I interested. I had no idea what it was about. I asked and got a very short response. It sounded interesting enough to find out, so I went and discovered that each participant would be putting together a 3-5 minute multimedia story of some aspect of their lives. I looked at my calendar and saw that I had the period available, so why not?

The workshop was hosted by Petersburg Mental Health Services and the participants were mostly their clients. I’ve been their client for a short period, volunteer with some of their grant programs, worked as a contractor for them – so I fill a number of roles for the agency. Telling one’s own story can have significant and valuable therapeutic effects.

The question for me was what could I tell about myself? As we went around with our initial introductions, I mentioned how over the course of the last couple of years I had become more outspoken on the issue of women’s rights and feminism, especially within the church setting. That seemed to resonate with a number of individuals in the room.

I worked on brainstorming and listing topics and pivotal moments in my life. Nearly all items seemed related to one another in some way. I showed Jason the list and after a few minutes suggested that my experiences with isolation, bullying, and rejection had made me more sensitive to seeing other types of marginalization and rejection around me, and that my interest in feminism could be traced to my various life experiences. With that as the broad thesis, I went to work.

The workshop was held each morning (i.e., half-days for three days). The first morning was introductions, coming up with a storyline, and writing the story. The homework was to collect photos and images that could illustrate the storyline. The second day consisted of recording the story and putting together the video timeline. The third day was finishing up the video, rendering it, and viewing the final results.

The results were touching and poignant. They described the struggles, victories, and hopes of each participant. It was a way to bring coherence to events from the past and place meaning into them as seen from the present.

For me I didn’t know what to expect when I entered the room that first morning. By the end I saw that my experience with religion resonates with others, especially with women who may have been a part of it themselves. This workshop was a way for me to show to a handful of people that there are other ways of expressing religion that don’t require a population group to be silenced and controlled. I hope that I was able to demonstrate that people can grow away from patriarchy and misogyny, however great or small.

Most of all, I hope that without any evangelizing, I was able to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ to the group.

I was given the encouragement to continue my work as a Jesus Feminist in advocating for the equality of women and men in church and society.

I did all my work on an iPad and an iPhone. It is amazing how much technology has advanced, even in the last handful of years, that allows full video production to be done with just a couple of mobile devices. You no longer need a full production environment. Anyone can do something like this. The door is wide open for others to come forward to tell their stories.

Book Review: The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion

The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion: A Guide to Good Religion for Seekers, Skeptics, and Believers by Martin Thielen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are tired of a rigid, black-and-white religious environment, this book might be for you.

Martin Thielen draws upon his own experiences in his book The Answer to Bad Religion Is Not No Religion: A Guide to Good Religion for Seekers, Skeptics, and Believers. His is a journey that begins when his denomination makes a shift toward fundamentalism. He feels he does not belong, but stays for some time because the costs of leaving seem too high. It is hard to leave a family that has nurtured you and helped you along in your spiritual growth. But eventually he is forced to face that the costs of staying are too high. And thus he leaves to a more progressive denomination - in his case, the United Methodists.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes what Martin sees as characterizing bad religion. These include judgmentalism and condemnation, a spirit of negativity, arrogance, absolutism, and intolerance. At the end of this first part he lists other characteristics but does not discuss them in detail.

The second part discusses why the decision of some who have exited toxic religion into "no religion" is not the right answer. He discusses how religion, in spite of its many imperfections, has been and continues to be a force for and a motivation for good in society. He discusses how human beings seemed to be wired to need religion.

The third part discusses characteristics that Martin believes are exhibited in good religion. These include prioritization of love, engagement in service, community building, forgiveness, and integrity. At the end of this part, in similarity to the first part, a list of additional good characteristic are given.

In the Conclusion chapter Martin recommends that those who want a good religion to try some of the mainline and moderate Christian churches. He specifically recommends trying out United Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, UCC, American Baptist, Cooperative Baptist, and Alliance of Baptists churches.

There two appendices. The first lists additional reading and study materials. The second is a discussion of non-literal biblical hermeneutics.

I see a fairly narrow audience for this book. Those who are happy in conservative and fundamentalist churches and accept this way of biblical interpretations will be rather unhappy with this book. Those who are happy with their abandonment of or antipathy to any religion will likely not be swayed by this book. To those who are already in moderate, mainline churches will feel like this book is preaching to the choir.

That leaves those who have been disillusioned by their conservative and fundamentalist churches, and those who are currently on their way to abandoning religion but haven't quite got there yet. To these groups, this book is a call to take a pause and take a little more time exploring religion that, hopefully, is different from their pasts.

This review is based on an ARC supplied by the publisher through NetGalley.

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