About 250 people attended the IFED conference in Padova. Tim Challies addressed the interaction of the Gospel and new communication technologies. ‘Evangelical Focus’ was one of the media projects presented.
Interaction in one of the sessions of IFED's Giornate Teologiche 2024, in Padova, 6-7 September. / Photo: Joel Forster, Evangelical Focus.
“I have believed therefore I have spoken, 2 Corinthians 4:13: this is how Paul links belief and communication, this is how our responsibility to the media challenges our faith”.
With these words, Leonardo De Chirico kicked off the 36th edition of the Giornate Teologiche 2024, the annual theology conference of the IFED, Italy’s Evangelical Institute of Formation and Documentation.
Cropped.jpg "Italian evangelicals reflected on their use of the media")
[photo_footer] Participants during a pause of the conference, 6 September 2024. / J.F., EF [/photo_footer] Celebrated in the entity’s building just outside of the northeastern city of Padova and attended by over 250 people coming from several regions of the country, the 48-hour gathering had the theme “Evangelicals and the media”.
“All communication has a creed behind it. The evangelical responsibility is to combine a sound creed with proper communication”, the organisers said.
The Giornate were attended by both experienced Christian leaders and many young people as well. The yearly event seeks to be a place of “thought and dialogue for evangelical witness in Italy”.
Tim Challies, a Toronto-based blogger and evangelical pastor, addressed themes of his book The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion (2012). He invited attendants to inhabit the digital and media world not with a naive embrace, nor with total rejection, but by exercising the disciplined discernment that is nourished by the biblical worldview.
.jpg "Italian evangelicals reflected on their use of the media")
[photo_footer] Tim Challies (right) speaks about Gospel and communication, with translator Gianlucca Picirillo and Peitro Bolognesi (left). / J.F., EF. [/photo_footer] Giuseppe Rizza of the Evangelical Reformed Baptist Churches in Italy essayed on the relationship between ecclesiology and technology, identifying this topic as a sensitive terrain in which evangelicals with a poor ecclesiology too often tend to chase after technology, getting caught up in it, without governing it.
Two panel discussions allowed for dialogue with worlds other than the evangelical one. In the first one, Nazzareno Ulfo (Alfa & Omega Publishing House) and Dario Voltolin (Theological Faculty of Triveneto) started from documents produced by the evangelical and Catholic worlds. On the evangelical side, Lausanne Movement's ‘The Church in the Digital Age’.
[photo_footer] Nazzareno Ulfo, Giaccomo Chiccone and Dario Voltolin, in one of the roundtables. / J.F., EF. [/photo_footer] Ulfo emphasised the fact that the evangelical church enters the digital world with elasticity but always at the service of the mission assigned to it in the cultural and missionary mandate and within biblical parameters.
Another round table discussed the question ‘Religious pluralism and information: where do we stand?’, with Chiara Lamberti (Ideaitalia, the news channel of the Italian Evangelical Alliance), Alberto Corsani (Riforma magazine) and Riccardo Cristiano (for many years a Vatican expert of public radio RAI).
The picture that emerged is that information in Italy is not pluralist and is ‘closed’ to minorities, with a deficit of pluralism in culture that is also reflected in the national communication context. This does not detract from the evangelical responsibility to develop professionalism that is up to the task, it was said.
In other sessions, the audience learned about evangelical experiences in the field of media, at the Italian level with Calogero Sorce (Notiziario ADI, a news service of the Italian Assemblies of God) and Liberato Vitale (of culture and faith magazine locicommunes.it).
[photo_footer] Joel Forster, sharing about the story and vision of Evangelical Focus. / Photo: Klay Cannard. [/photo_footer] At the international level, journalist from Spain Joel Forster explained the vision and story of Evangelical Focus and how it could be replicated in countries like Italy.
In his concluding remarks, IFED founder Pietro Bolognesi recalled how the Giornate Theologiche, despite being an expression of the evangelical minority, can be an example of how to listen carefully to plural voices. A model from which larger Italian cultural institutions and media could learn.
[photo_footer] The building of the IFED institute, which belongs to the Chies Evangelical Padova. / J.F., EF. [/photo_footer] As every year, space was dedicated during the conference to the Theology and Culture Course, with the presentation of the programme planned for the 2024/25 academic year.
It was also an opportunity to congratulate the four students who received their diplomas at the end of the five-year course.
The Theological Days were a chance to “appreciate in all its force what the Apostle Paul wrote and to apply it to our situation as Italian evangelicals who believe and, for this reason, want to communicate in all the media squares”.
The Giornate Teologiche 2025 will be held on 12-13 September with the theme “The Politics of the Gospel”.
[analysis]
[title]One more year[/title]
[photo][/photo]
[text]At Evangelical Focus, we have a sustainability challenge ahead. We invite you to join those across Europe and beyond who are committed with our mission. Together, we will ensure the continuity of Evangelical Focus and Protestante Digital (Spanish) in 2024.
Learn all about our #OneMoreYearEF campaign here (English).
[/text][/analysis]
Las opiniones vertidas por nuestros colaboradores se realizan a nivel personal, pudiendo coincidir o no con la postura de la dirección de Protestante Digital.
Si quieres comentar o