ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes how mediation of religion has been articulated with politics, particularly in this broader sense. Bryan Turner shows that body control is a major concern among religious denominations. In terms of mediation, a singing Roman Catholic priest and a singing Evangelical televangelist are very alike: they use the same codes and references to convey a message that otherwise would be differentthe 'traditional' rituals and messages of Roman Catholicism and Evangelical Protestantism are quite different. Media use thus seems to create a sort of homogenization among those high-mediated churches: in spite of their theological and institutional differences, all seem to stick to the same group of practices and values that are related to media and popular culture.
