Page - 106 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

vital and existential themes that influence identity formation.4 This television series, as we will see, is a useful example of how film can reflect cultural and religious capital. Viewers connect to the series not just as entertainment but also in light of their own in- dividual and collective identity constructs. The Vikings series contributes to societal dis- course on religious tensions through its links to religious elements, rituals and symbols. Theoretical Framework and Method Both the relationship between religion and popular culture and a practical-theolog- ical lens are conceptually and methodologically significant for the interpretation of the Vikings series in this article. The concepts religion and culture are not unprob- lematic. The discussion employs a working definition of religion based on a range of characteristics that provide meaning: the formation of communities with shared understandings and values, ritualized behavior, language and language-constructs of transcendence and intimacy, sacred perceptions of time and space, and the (re) configuration of symbols and narratives.5 Culture is seen as a design of living, ex- pressed in forms that are experiential, ritual, social, mythic, ethical and doctrinal.6 Popular culture is treated not as distinct but as a shared set of activities and mean- ings prominent for some populations and conveyed through mass media or other means of communication.7 John Lyden’s categorizations in defining religion, culture and popular culture are helpful, picking up on the various ways in which religion and popular culture can be framed within healthy scholarly discourse.8 My approach in this article falls within his first category, religion in popular culture, for it does not seek to establish a particular Christian or theological reading or look at how reli- gious communities or communities of faith might read, connect and adapt to major cultural shifts as expressed in modern media. That instrumental approach could pro- duce a religious or theological domestication of the television series.9 As a practical theologian, I am interested in the ways religion is expressed and em- bodied in lived contexts and practices. In this sense, practical theology has a focus on lived religion. Rather than research a specific audience and its reconstruction and interpretation of the Vikings series, in this article I approach the production as an ex- pression of lived religion. Reflecting on the reality of religious film, Joseph Marty has 4 Van Hell 2016. 5 See Mazur/McCarthy 2011. 6 Erwich 2013, 173–180; Luzbetak 1998. 7 Lyden/Mazur 2015. 8 Lyden 2015, 15. 9 For a range of further theoretical perspectives see also Lynch 2007. “Someday Our Gods Will be Friends” | 105www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 103–126