Conversations - Christianity Today

Video is no messiah

He looked at me, this multimedia-user-friendly, nationally prominent, always-on-the-cutting-edge preacher and said, “You know, don’t you, that any church without a drop-down screen will be dead in a decade.”

What? In my mind I immediately began chiseling away the neogothic limestone from inside Duke Chapel in order to enable us to survive into the next decade with video.

Look, I’m no Luddite. I’m writing this response to using video in church (mentioned in LEADERSHIP’s last two issues, The Value of Video) on a computer. I go to movies. But really now, the gospel of Christ—having survived Nero, the Inquisition, Mao, the Total Woman, Benny Hinn, and my insipid sermons—will it survive technochurch? Multimedia praise, drop-down screens, TV technology may be the death of us rather than our key to the future.

The virtue of visual media is that they tend to be engaging, stressing concrete images rather than abstract ideas. But they do more than that. Video tends to stress image over idea. It is the nature of TV to be fast-paced, not to linger, to constantly move from image to image.

Not long ago, I watched Bill Moyers’s PBS series Genesis. Moyers is intelligent and thoughtful. Furthermore, he assembled a studio full of thoughtful, intelligent people to discuss passages in Genesis.

But the programs tended to be frustrating. What we got were sound bites, pieces of commentary by the individuals, little interaction, almost no development of ideas once the ideas were expressed. I thought, If Moyers can’t pull off intelligent examination of material on TV, perhaps it just can’t be done.

Video tends toward the superficial. It does a good job of giving the illusion of experience, of drawing the viewer into the story. But that’s about all.

When used in worship, video tends to re-form the worship (malform, I should say). What ought to be participatory praise, people actively worshiping God, becomes a show watched by an audience. When a huge drop-down screen is used in a worship setting, one gets the “King Kong Effect”—a gigantic talking head towering over a miniaturized congregation. Who’s being magnified here?

Furthermore, multimedia in church runs the risk of playing into the hands of our other experiences with media.

A generation fed a steady diet of TV, with its barrage of advertisements and bamboozlements, develops a suspicion of TV. When people see a video image, they are conditioned to know that they are being treated mostly as consumers. The link between the televisual and consumerism is inextricable.

TV is intimate, yes, but down deep we know it is artificial intimacy, fabricated by a medium that implies the talking head on the screen knows and cares about me. Furthermore, it is a distinctive quality of video to manage the viewer. It determines our point of view, our angle of vision. When the camera shoots up at an individual, the person is given god-like stature. Fast cuts make whatever is shown appear exciting, dynamic. Background music determines audience mood.

Admittedly, we preachers also manipulate when we speak. But we do not have video’s power to so exclusively determine the congregation’s point of view and scope of vision.

So before you lobby the church board for that drop-down screen, think. Do you really want to descend to that level? There’s a reason why Jerry Springer has done well on TV.

—William H. Willimon Duke University Chapel Durham, North Carolina

Moral Fences: Protect or Divide?

James MacDonald’s “5 Moral Fences” (Summer 1999) offered one pastor’s prescription for avoiding sexual temptation and leading a life above reproach. We invited your responses, and we got plenty! Here’s a sampling.

A hearty “Amen” to James MacDonald. In our urban ministry, I work with single moms and children and practice all of his principles, plus a couple more. I think Billy Graham’s practice of not eating lunch alone with a woman other than his wife should be added.

—Andy Bales Des Moines, Iowa

When I read the article, I had visions of the “bruised and bleeding” Pharisees who walked around with eyes closed so they wouldn’t lust after women they’d possibly meet on their stroll downtown.

I’ve long suspected that limiting the role of women in the church could well have less to do with the stated theological reasons and more to do with male leaders who find it easier to bar women from the inner circle of leadership than to deal straightforwardly with the personal problem of relating to women as sex objects.

Women and men need to protect their moral integrity, but surely there’s a better way than building fences which all too often prevent men and women from teaming together to do fruitful ministry.

—Pamela Heim Colorado Springs, Colorado

I too have set several “thick hedges and high fences” against moral failure.

I recently offended a woman who was making flirtatious remarks and gestures toward me. I confronted her and told her to stop it. I did the same thing several years ago with a young lady in the church who gave everyone (men and women) full-body hugs. She didn’t have bad intentions, but I stopped it because I know my heart. As a final step (in both cases), I made the incident known to my wife as soon as we could be alone to discuss it.

—Timothy Mills Whitton, Arkansas

I agree with all five “fences,” but I would have added another: Pray for strength, because you need supernatural support for a supernatural attack. Alexander Solshenitsyn said it best: “the line between good and evil … occilates within the human heart, and even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless unless there is the will to do what is right.” Fences are practical and needed, but without the power of the Holy Spirit they are incomplete.

—Ross Ramsey Ramrossj@aol.com

To expand on MacDonald’s experience, I have invited my wife into my mind, and especially my computer. She knows how to access every Web page that I have ever hit. I’ve invited her to see where I’ve been, in order to limit where I go.

—Mark Matson Salt Lake City, Utah

MacDonald’s article reflects a paranoia, of which we must rid ourselves or face increasingly isolated and mistrusting relationships between clergy and laity.

I have a “no fence” solution to MacDonald’s concerns: Don’t!

Alone with a person of the opposite sex? Feeling tempted to misbehave? Don’t!

Alone in a hotel room? Feeling tempted to do something you’ll regret? Don’t!

This is not rocket science. Life is filled with temptations; we can’t avoid them, but we don’t have to give in to them, either (see Matt. 4:1-11 and James 4:7, for starters).

Were I searching for a church home, I would likely walk away from a congregation whose pastor did not have the moral and ethical strength to be alone with a person of the opposite sex without serious temptation. If a pastor can’t trust himself alone with a person who happens to be a woman, why should I have any great confidence that I can trust him with me?

If a pastor isn’t sure he or she can resist moral failure without artificial fences, then the problem is not the ambient temptations; it’s the pastor’s moral and ethical integrity.

We’ve been called by God to love people where we find them. How can we do that if we’re not willing to join them, except when behind our fences?

—Bill Coley East Moline, Illinois