Summary: We argue in this paper that a dualist tension exists within Christianity which limits the potential comprehensiveness of ‘religious communication’. The tension to which we allude has its theological aetiology in the disparate interpretations which have been made of the concept of Logos. On what might be called the ‘fundamentalist’ construct of Logos the written word, i.e., the Bible is the fundamental, if not the sole source of genuine communication between God and his people. The emphasis on what is written, or ‘spelt out’ we shall argue, can in its own way, serve as the casting of a spell, thereby fossilising a living language of interactive dynamic into an inert and lifeless discourse of intellect, dogma and rules. We endeavour to explain this idea in terms of what Professor Laura has elsewhere termed ‘transformative subjugation’, resulting in the technologisation of religion through its intellectualisation. Once this task has been achieved, we argue for a philosophical framework within which a better balance can be achieved between the obvious importance of the ‘Word of God’ in Christianity on the one hand, and the various modalities of its mediation by way of religious experience on the other. We argue that self-transformation and the evolution of spirituality is rarely, if ever, solely an intellectual matter. The experience of God depends upon forms of religious communication which preserve the living dynamics of what we call ‘affective resonance’, engendered by symbolic forms of interface enshrined in music, art, dance, meditation and prayer which give life and meaning to the ‘Word’.
