ABSTRACT
In Chapter 18, Richard Harries offers some reflections ‘towards a theology of news’. Christian theologians should pay attention to the news, he argues, because media ‘is part of the world which God creates and redeems’. According to Christian theology, Harries argues, human beings are both made in the image of God, and crucifiers of the God who came amongst us: we have the capacity for altruism and self-transcendence, and also the capacity for great evil and selfishness. The line between ‘goodie’ and ‘baddie’ runs through each of us. This leads Harries to emphasise the importance of the free press, and he draws on Niebuhr’s theological defence of liberal democracy to argue that ‘Our capacity for truth makes a free press possible: but our inclination to untruth makes a free press necessary’. Harries then draws out practical lessons for the UK context: Christians should oppose press monopolies, support a strong legal framework to maintain the balance between privacy and public interest. Church and media share the vocation to truth-telling, Harries concludes: ‘In a highly corrupt world dominated by the collusion of political power and money, often allied to the management of what is reported and what is left out, this vocation can be both crucial and dangerous’.
