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Prophetically Incorrect: A Christian Introduction to Media Criticism. By Robert H. Woods Jr. and Paul D. Patton. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2010; pp. xxli + 182. $19.99 paper.
Introductory texts pursue an admittedly difficult task of making specialized scholarship accessible to the uninitiated while also equipping them to continue effectively beyond an introductory level. Texts that seek also to offer a fresh approach bear an additional burden of making a case for the plausibility and fruitfulness of the new perspective. Prophetically Incorrect takes on both challenges and adds a third by addressing a Christian readership of diverse denominational sensibilities, calling for correctives to typical tendencies in faith-based media criticism. The book aspires to foster "thinking that resists the dominant forces of our culture while simultaneously helping others imagine alternative, hope-filled ways of thinking and being" (xxxiii). In the span of seven concise chapters, Woods and Patton sketch the value of, and propose a program for, developing "prophetic" sensibilities. Offered as a work inspired by the biblical scholarship of Abraham Heschel and Walter Breuggemann, the social-critical scholarship of Michael Walzer, and the media ecology work of a variety of communication critics-and commended by Quentin Schultze's Forward and Clifford Christians' Preface-the book promises intriguing possibilities.
The book's introduction, and chapters 1 and 2, develop a rationale for a fresh perspective. The authors contend that prophetic criticism will cut across the biases of particular communities' critical agendas and methodologies, and serve to engender "moral literacy by calling popular media content, institutions, and technologies to their appropriate role in opening windows on the moral landscape" (33). The orientation builds around two contrastive tropes: "priestly" vs. "prophetic" and "dominant consciousness" vs. "alternative consciousness." North America's dominant consciousness is characterized by an "ethos of consumerism," cultivated and created by the priestly justificatory functions of most popular media, secular and faith-based alike. Prophetic sensibilities and practices cultivate...