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I started to title this post, “We are All Semioticians”. We are visual people. We think visually and interpret visually. We also comprehend visually. Pastors spend too much time putting together logical and reasoned arguments in their sermons when they should be incorporating visually and emotionally stimulating images that move people to action. Below is why that is the case.

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I want to move back to a discussion of thinking through a theology of transformational change by integrating theology and emerging science. In my research, I observed through the writings of Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, particularly in his book “The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life that our emotions receive sensory information first and can literally hijack us, what Emotional Intelligence author Daniel Goleman termed the “emotional hijack”. Research into the mind and communication gave me a better understanding of the importance of all of this.

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If the following from my previous post in this series is true, then an acknowledgment must be made about how we construct theology:

What we “see” in the world, then, is really a function of our brain, an image that integrates past experiences, memory, cultural learning and other multi-sensory information. What a person perceives or sees is not the world. It is actually a prediction of what should be in the world based on what a person has experienced. This prediction is constantly tested by action. (1)

We must understand that our theology is culturally constructed. Culture provides framing, which in sociological and communication terms is a schema for determining interpretation and how we make meaning out of life. For instance, among those in the LDS sect recently raided in Texas, many were born into that sect. Marriage, for them, is framed in a specific way and it has meaning outside of what the rest of the country would have for marriage. Church for a neo-landmark Baptist from rural Kentucky or Texas has a different meaning than for most Baptists.

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I want to begin disseminating some of my research over the past two years. I have been focusing on the integration of emerging sciences and scripture to develop a theology of transformational change. What I find wonderfully interesting is that in this area, science and theology play nice. The neurosciences fit well with much of scripture. The area of emotional intelligence flows well with scripture. Generational sin is found in scripture. Communication science plays well with scripture.

I want begin by discussing my last paper and talk about designing communication environments. And I want to begin this discussion by describing how we construct reality.

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