Westernized Visual Representation of Jesus and the Construction of Religious Meanings

Description

This book provides a critical and cultural analysis of the reception of the Jesus film among the indigenous Mangyan people in the Philippines as a means of evangelism.  Guided by Hall’s encoding/decoding theory (1980) and the social construction of reality by Berger and Luckmann (1966) with the interpretive community of the audience (Fish, 1980), this reception analysis employed qualitative methods, such as interviews, observation of participation and film analysis.  The Jesus film explicitly propagated fundamental theological stances such as biblical inerrancy and Western Supremacy.  The Mangyan evangelicals mainly used a dominate-ideological reading the affirmed ideological fundamentalism, confirmed their religious beliefs, clarified their vague biblical knowledge by shared interactions, and reinforced Western superiority discourse.  More importantly, Mangyan audiences experienced the visualized signification process that transforms the abstract and personal religious beliefs into more concrete and material visualization through film media for the life of Jesus and its Western identity.  The family served as the signifier that constructs the fundamental evangelical beliefs and reinforces the Westernized image of Jesus among Mangyan religious audiences.