6/14/07
MORE ON MOVIE ENTERTAINMENT
Al Hembd recently forwarded to me the following insightful article
relating to movies by A.W. Tozer, entitled “The Menace of the Religious Movie”:
When God gave to Moses the blueprint of the Tabernacle He
was careful to include every detail; then, lest Moses should get the notion
that he could improve on the original plan, God warned him solemnly, "And
look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shown thee in the
mount." God, not Moses, was the architect. To decide the plan was the
prerogative of the Deity. No one dare alter it so much as a hairbreadth.
The New Testament Church also is built after a pattern. Not
the doctrines only but the methods are divinely given. The doctrines are
expressly stated in so many words. Some of the methods followed by the early
New Testament Church had been given by direct command; others were used by
God's specific approval, having obviously been commanded the apostles by the
Spirit. The point is that when the New Testament canon was closed the blueprint
for the age was complete. God has added nothing since that time.
From God's revealed plan we depart at our peril. Every
departure has two consequences, the immediate and the remote. The immediate
touches the individual and those close to him; the remote extends into the
future to unknown times, and may expand so far as to influence for evil the
whole Church of God on earth.
The temptation to introduce "new" things into the
work of God has always been too strong for some people to resist. The Church
has suffered untold injury at the hands of well intentioned but misguided
persons who have felt that they know more about running God's work than Christ
and His apostles did. A solid train of box cars would not suffice to haul away
the religious truck which has been brought into the service of the Church with
the hope of improving on the original pattern. These things have been, one and
all, positive hindrances to the progress of the Truth, and have so altered the
divinely-planned structure that the apostles, were they to return to earth
today, would scarcely recognize the misshapen thing which has resulted.
Our Lord while on earth cleansed the Temple, and periodic
cleansings have been necessary in the Church of God throughout the centuries.
Every generation is sure to have its ambitious amateur to come up with some
shiny gadget which he proceeds to urge upon the priests before the altar. That
the Scriptures do not justify its existence does not seem to bother him at all.
It is brought in anyway and presented in the very name of Orthodoxy. Soon it is
identified in the minds of the Christian public with all that is good and holy.
Then, of course, to attack the gadget is to attack the Truth itself. This is an
old familiar technique so often and so long practiced by the devotees of error
that I marvel how the children of God can be taken in by it.
We of the evangelical faith are in the rather awkward
position of criticizing Roman Catholicism for its weight of unscriptural
impedimenta and at the same time tolerating in our own churches a world of
religious fribble as bad as holy water or the elevated host. Heresy of method
may be as deadly as heresy of message. Old-line Protestantism has long ago been
smothered to death by extra-scriptural rubbish. Unless we of the gospel
churches wake up soon we shall most surely die by the same means.
Within the last few years a new method has been invented
for imparting spiritual knowledge; or, to be more accurate, it is not new at
all, but is an adaptation of a gadget of some years standing, one which by its
origin and background belongs not to the Church but to the world. Some within
the fold of the Church have thrown their mantle over it, have "blessed it
with a text" and are now trying to show that it is the very gift of God
for our day. But, however eloquent the sales talk, it is an unauthorized
addition nevertheless, and was never a part of the pattern shown us on the
mount.
I refer, of course, to the religious movie.
For the motion picture as such I have no irrational
allergy. It is a mechanical invention merely and is in its essence amoral; that
is, it is neither good nor bad, but neutral. With any physical object or any
creature lacking the power of choice it could not be otherwise. Whether such an
object is useful or harmful depends altogether upon who uses it and what he
uses it for. No moral quality attaches where there is no free choice. Sin and
righteousness lie in the will. The motion picture is in the same class as the
automobile, the typewriter, or the radio: a powerful instrument for good or
evil, depending upon how it is applied.
For teaching the facts of physical science the motion
picture has been useful. The public schools have used it successfully to teach
health habits to children. The army employed it to speed up instruction during
the war. That it has been of real service within its limited field is freely
acknowledged here.
Over against this is the fact that the motion picture in
evil hands has been a source of moral corruption to millions. No one who values
his reputation as a responsible adult will deny that the sex movie and the
crime movie have done untold injury to the lives of countless young people in our
generation. The harm lies not in the instrument itself, but in the evil will of
those who use it for their own selfish ends.
I am convinced that the modern religious movie is an
example of the harmful misuse of a neutral instrument. There are sound reasons
for my belief. I am prepared to state them.
That I may be as clear as possible, let me explain what I
do and do not mean by the religious movie. I do not mean the missionary picture
nor the travel picture which aims to focus attention upon one or another
section of the world's great harvest field. These do not come under
consideration here.
By the religious movie I mean that type of motion picture
which attempts to treat spiritual themes by dramatic representation. These are
(as their advocates dare not deny) frank imitations of the authentic Hollywood
variety, but the truth requires me to say that they are infinitely below their
models, being mostly awkward, amateurish and, from an artistic standpoint,
hopelessly and piteously bad.
These pictures are produced by acting a religious story
before the camera. Take for example the famous and beautiful story of the
Prodigal Son. This would be made into a movie by treating the narrative as a scenario.
Stage scenery would be set up, actors would take the roles of Father, Prodigal
Son, Elder Brother, etc. There would be plot, sequence and dramatic denouement
as in the ordinary tear jerker shown at the Bijou movie house on Main Street in
any one of a thousand American towns. The story would be acted out,
photographed, run onto reels and shipped around the country to be shown for a
few wherever desired.
The "service" where such a movie would be shown might
seem much like any other service until time for the message from the Word of
God. Then the lights would be put out and the picture turned on. The
"message" would consist of this movie. What followed the picture
would, of course, vary with the circumstances, but often an invitation song is
sung and a tender appeal is made for erring sinners to return to God.
Now, what is wrong with all this? Why should any man object
to this or go out of his way to oppose its use in the house of God? Here is my
answer:
1.
It violates the scriptural law of hearing.
The power of speech is a noble gift of God. In his ability
to open his mouth and by means of words make his fellows know what is going on
inside his mind, a man shares one of the prerogatives of the Creator. In its
ability to understand the spoken word the human mind rises unique above all the
lower creation. The gift which enables a man to translate abstract ideas into
sounds is a badge of his honor as made in the image of God.
Written or printed words are sound symbols and are
translated by the mind into hearing. Hieroglyphics and ideograms were, in
effect, not pictures but letters, and the letters were agreed-upon marks which
stood for agreed-upon ideas. Thus words, whether spoken or written, are a
medium for the communication of ideas. This is basic in human nature and stems
from our divine origin.
It is significant that when God gave to mankind His great
redemptive revelation He couched it in words. "And God spake all these
words" very well sums up the Bible's own account of how it got here. "Thus
saith the Lord" is the constant refrain of the prophets. "The words
that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," said our Lord
to His hearers. Again He said, "He that heareth my word, and believeth on
him that sent me, hath everlasting life." Paul made words
and faith to be inseparable: "Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God." And he also said, "How shall they hear
without a preacher?" (Romans 10:14)
Surely it requires no genius to see that the Bible rules
out pictures and dramatics as media for bringing faith and life
to the human soul.
The plain fact is that no vital spiritual truth can be
expressed by a picture. Actually all any picture can do is to recall to mind
some truth already learned through the familiar medium of the spoken or written
word. Religious instruction and words are bound together by a living cord and
cannot be separated without fatal loss. The Spirit Himself, teaching
soundlessly within the heart, makes use of ideas previously received into the
mind by means of words.
If I am reminded that modern religious movies are
"sound" pictures, making use of the human voice to augment the
dramatic action, the answer is easy. Just as far as the movie depends upon
spoken words it makes pictures unnecessary; the picture is the very thing that
differentiates between the movie and the sermon. The movie addresses its
message primarily to the eye, and the ear only incidentally. Were the message
addressed to the ear as in the Scriptures, the picture would have
no meaning and could be omitted without loss to the intended effect. Words can
say all that God intends them to say, and this they can do without the aid of
pictures.
According to one popular theory the mind receives through
the eye five times as much information as the ear. As far as the external shell
of physical facts is concerned this may hold good, but when we come to
spiritual truth we are in another world entirely. In that world the outer eye
is not too important. God addresses His message to the hearing ear. "We
look," says Paul, "not at the things which are seen, but at the
things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the
things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). This agrees
with the whole burden of the Bible, which teaches us that we should withdraw
our eyes from beholding visible things, and fasten the eyes of our hearts upon
God while we reverently listen to His uttered words.
"The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy
heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach" (Romans 10:8). Here,
and not somewhere else, is the New Testament pattern, and no human being, and
no angel from heaven has any right to alter that pattern.
2.
The religious movie embodies the mischievous notion that religion is, or can
be made, a form of entertainment.
This notion has come upon us lately like a tidal wave and
is either openly taught or tacitly assumed by increasing numbers of people.
Since it is inextricably bound up with the subject under discussion I had
better say more about it.
The idea that religion should be entertaining has made some
radical changes in the evangelical picture within this generation. It has given
us not only the "gospel" movie but a new type of religious journalism
as well. It has created a new kind of magazine for church people, which can be
read from cover to cover without effort, without thought--and without
profit. It has also brought a veritable flood of religious fiction with
plastic heroines and bloodless heroes like no one who has ever lived upon this
well known terrestrial ball.
That religion and amusement are forever opposed to each
other by their very essential natures is apparently not known to this new
school of religious entertainers. Their effort to slip up on the reader and
administer a quick shot of saving truth while his mind is on something else is
not only futile, it is, in fact, not too far short of being plain dishonest.
The hope that they can convert a man while he is occupied with the doings of
some imaginary hero reminds one of the story of the Catholic missionary who
used to sneak up on sick people and children and splash a little holy water on
them to guarantee their passage to the city of gold.
I believe that most responsible religious teachers will
agree that any effort to teach spiritual truth through entertainment is at best
futile and at worst positively injurious to the soul. But entertainment pays
off, and the economic consideration is always a powerful one in deciding what
shall and what shall not be offered to the public--even in the churches.
Deep spiritual experiences come only from much study,
earnest prayer and long meditation. It is true that men by thinking cannot find
God; it is also true that men cannot know God very well without a lot of
reverent thinking. Religious movies, by appealing directly to the shallowest
stratum of our minds, cannot but create bad mental habits which unfit the soul
for the reception of genuine spiritual impressions.
Religious movies are mistakenly thought by some people to
be blessed of the Lord because many come away from them with moist eyes. If
this is a proof of God's blessing, then we might as well go the whole way and
assert that every show that brings tears is of God. Those who attend the
theater know how often the audiences are moved to tears by the joys and sorrows
of the highly paid entertainers who kiss and emote and murder and die for the
purpose of exciting the spectators to a high pitch of emotional excitement. Men
and women who are dedicated to sin and appointed to death may nevertheless weep
in sympathy for the painted actors and be not one bit the better for it. The
emotions have had a beautiful time, but the will is left untouched. The
religious movie is sure to draw together a goodly number of persons who cannot
distinguish the twinges of vicarious sympathy from the true operations of the
Holy Ghost.
3.
The religious movie is a menace to true religion because it embodies acting, a
violation of sincerity.
Without doubt the most precious thing any man possesses is
his individuated being; that by which he is himself and not someone else; that
which cannot be finally voided by the man himself nor shared with another. Each
one of us, however humble our place in the social scheme, is unique in
creation. Each is a new whole man possessing his own separate
"I-ness" which makes him forever something apart, an individual human
being. It is this quality of uniqueness which permits a man to enjoy every reward
of virtue and makes him responsible for every sin. It is his selfness,
which will persist forever, and which distinguishes him from every creature
which has been or ever will be created.
Because man is such a being as this all moral teachers, and
especially Christ and His apostles, make sincerity to be basic in
the good life. The word, as the New Testament uses it, refers to the practice
of holding fine pottery up to the sun to test it for purity. In the white light
of the sun all foreign substances were instantly exposed. So the test of
sincerity is basic in human character. The sincere man is one in whom is found
nothing foreign; he is all of one piece; he has preserved his individuality
unviolated.
Sincerity for each man means staying in character
with himself. Christ's controversy with the Pharisees centered around
their incurable habit of moral play acting. The Pharisee constantly pretended
to be what he was not. He attempted to vacate his own "I-ness" and
appear in that of another and better man. He assumed a false character and
played it for effect. Christ said he was a hypocrite.
It is more than an etymological accident that the word
"hypocrite" comes from the stage. It means actor. With
that instinct for fitness which usually marks word origins, it has been used to
signify one who has violated his sincerity and is playing a false part. An
actor is one who assumes a character other than his own and plays it for
effect. The more fully he can become possessed by another personality the
better he is as an actor.
Bacon has said something to the effect that there are some
professions of such nature that the more skillfully a man can work at them the
worse man he is. That perfectly describes the profession of acting. Stepping
out of our own character for any reason is always dangerous, and may be fatal
to the soul. However innocent his intentions, a man who assumes a false
character has betrayed his own soul and has deeply injured something sacred
within him.
No one who has been in the presence of the Most Holy One,
who has felt how high is the solemn privilege of bearing His image, will ever
again consent to play a part or to trifle with that most sacred thing, his own
deep sincere heart. He will thereafter be constrained to be no one but himself,
to preserve reverently the sincerity of his own soul.
In order to produce a religious movie someone must, for the
time, disguise his individuality and simulate that of another. His actions must
be judged fraudulent, and those who watch them with approval share in the
fraud. To pretend to pray, to simulate godly
sorrow, to play at worship before the camera for effect--how
utterly shocking to the reverent heart! How can Christians who approve this
gross pretense ever understand the value of sincerity as taught by our Lord?
What will be the end of a generation of Christians fed on such a diet of
deception disguised as the faith of our fathers?
The plea that all this must be good because it is done for
the glory of God is a gossamer-thin bit of rationalizing which should not fool
anyone above the mental age of six. Such an argument parallels the evil rule of
expediency which holds the end is everything, and sanctifies the
means, however evil, if only the end be commendable. The wise student of
history will recognize this immoral doctrine. The Spirit-led Church will have
no part of it.
It is not uncommon to find around the theater human flotsam
and jetsam washed up by the years, men and women who have played false parts so
long that the power to be sincere has forever gone from them. They are doomed
to everlasting duplicity. Every act of their lives is faked, every smile is
false, every tone of their voice artificial. The curse does not come causeless.
It is not by chance that the actor's profession has been notoriously dissolute.
Hollywood and Broadway are two sources of corruption which may yet turn America
into a Sodom and lay her glory in the dust.
The profession of acting did not originate with the
Hebrews. It is not a part of the divine pattern. The Bible mentions it, but never
approves it. Drama, as it has come down to us, had its rise in Greece. It was
originally a part of the worship of the god Dionysus and was carried on with
drunken revelry.
The Miracle Plays of medieval times have been brought
forward to justify the modern religious movie. That is an unfortunate weapon to
choose for the defense of the movie, for it will surely harm the man who uses
it more than any argument I could think of just offhand.
The Miracle Plays had their big run in the Middle Ages.
They were dramatic performances with religious themes staged for the
entertainment of the populace. At their best they were misguided efforts to
teach spiritual truths by dramatic representation; at their worst they were
shockingly irreverent and thoroughly reprehensible. In some of them the Eternal
God was portrayed as an old man dressed in white with a gilt wig! To furnish
low comedy, the devil himself was introduced on the stage and allowed to cavort
for the amusement of the spectators. Bible themes were used, as in the modern
movie, but this did not save the whole thing from becoming so corrupt that the
Roman Church had finally to prohibit its priests from having any further part
in it.
Those who would appeal for precedent to the Miracle Plays
have certainly overlooked some important facts. For instance, the vogue
of the Miracle Play coincided exactly with the most dismally corrupt period the
Church has ever known. When the Church emerged at last from its long
moral night these plays lost popularity and finally passed away. And be it
remembered, the instrument God used to bring the Church out of the
darkness was not drama; it was the biblical one of Spirit-baptized preaching.
Serious-minded men thundered the truth and the people turned to God.
Indeed, history will show that no spiritual advance,
no revival, no upsurge of spiritual life has ever been associated with acting
in any form. The Holy Spirit never honors pretense.
Can it be that the historic pattern is being repeated? That
the appearance of the religious movie is symptomatic of the low state of
spiritual health we are in today? I fear so. Only the absence of the Holy
Spirit from the pulpit and lack of true discernment on the part of professing
Christians can account for the spread of religious drama among so-called
evangelical churches. A Spirit-filled church could not tolerate it.
4.
They who present the gospel movie owe it to the public to give biblical
authority for their act: and this they have not done.
The Church, as long as it is following the Lord, goes along
in Bible ways and can give a scriptural reason for its conduct. Its members
meet at stated times to pray together: This has biblical authority back of it.
They gather to hear the Word of God expounded: this goes back in almost
unbroken continuity to Moses. They sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs:
so they are commanded by the apostle. They visit the sick and relieve the
sufferings of the poor: for this they have both precept and example in Holy
Writ. They lay up their gifts and bring them at stated times to the church or
chapel to be used in the Lord's work: this also follows the scriptural pattern.
They teach and train and instruct; they appoint teachers and pastors and
missionaries and send them out to do the work for which the Spirit has gifted
them: all this has plain scriptural authority behind it. They baptize, then
break bread and witness to the lost; they cling together through thick and
thin; they bear each other's burdens and share each other's sorrows: this is as
it should be, and for all this there is full authority.
Now, for the religious movie where is the authority?
For such a serious departure from the ancient pattern, where is the authority?
For introducing into the Church the pagan art of acting, where is the
authority? Let the movie advocates quote just one verse, from any
book of the Bible, in any translation, to justify its use. This they cannot do.
The best they can do is to appeal to the world's psychology or repeat brightly
that "modern times call for modern methods." But the
Scriptures--quote from them one verse to authorize movie acting as an
instrument of the Holy Ghost. This they cannot do.
Every sincere Christian must find scriptural authority for
the religious movie or reject it, and every producer of such movies, if he
would square himself before the faces of honest and reverent men, must either
show scriptural credentials or go out of business.
But, says someone, there is nothing unscriptural about the
religious movie; it is merely a new medium for the utterance of the old
message, as printing is a newer and better method of writing and the radio an
amplification of familiar human speech.
To this I reply: The movie is not the modernization or
improvement of any scriptural method; rather it is a medium in itself wholly
foreign to the Bible and altogether unauthorized therein. It is play
acting---just that, and nothing more. It is the introduction into the work of
God of that which is not neutral, but entirely bad. The printing press is neutral;
so is the radio; so is the camera. They may be used for good or bad purposes at
the will of the user. But play acting is bad in its essence in that it involves
the simulation of emotions not actually felt. It embodies a gross moral
contradiction in that it calls a lie to the service of truth.
Arguments for the religious movie are sometimes clever and
always shallow, but there is never any real attempt to cite scriptural
authority. Anything that can be said for the movie can be said also for
aesthetic dancing, which is a highly touted medium for teaching religious truth
by appeal to the eye. Its advocates grow eloquent in its praise--but where is
it indicated in the blueprint?
5.
God has ordained four methods only by which Truth shall prevail---and the
religious movie is not one of them.
Without attempting to arrange these methods in order of
importance, they are (1) prayer, (2) song, (3) proclamation of the
message by means of words, and (4) good works. These are the four main methods
which God has blessed. All other biblical methods are subdivisions of these and
stay within their framework.
Notice these in order:
(1) Spirit-burdened prayer. This has been through the
centuries a powerful agent for the spread of saving truth among men. A praying
Church carried the message of the cross to the whole known world within two
centuries after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Read the book of
Acts and see what prayer has done and can do when it is made in true faith.
(2) Spirit-inspired song has been another mighty instrument
in the spread of the Word among mankind. When the Church sings in the Spirit she draws men unto
Christ. Where her song has been ecstatic expression of resurrection joy, it has
acted wonderfully to prepare hearts for the saving message. This has no
reference to professional religious singers, expensive choirs nor the popular
"gospel" chorus. These for the time we leave out of consideration.
But I think no one will deny that the sound of a Christian hymn sung by sincere
and humble persons can have a tremendous and permanent effect for good. The
Welsh revival is a fair modern example of this.
(3) In the Old Testament, as well as in the New, when God
would impart His mind to men He embodied it in a message and sent men out to
proclaim it.
This was done by means of speaking and writing on the part of the messenger. It
was received by hearing and reading on the part of those to whom it was sent.
We are all familiar with the verse, "Speak ye comfortably to
Jerusalem, and cry unto her" (Isaiah 40:2). John the Baptist
was called "The voice of one crying in the wilderness"
(Matthew 3:3). Again we have, "And I heard a voice from
heaven saying unto me, Write " (Revelation 14:13). And the
Apostle John opens his great work called the Revelation by pronouncing a
blessing upon him that readeth and them that bear and keep the
words of the prophecy and the things which are written therein.
The two words "proclaim" and "publish"
sum up God's will as it touches His Word. In the Bible, men for the most part wrote
what had been spoken; in our time men are commissioned to speak
what has been written. In both cases the agent is a word
, never a picture, a dance or a pageant.
(4) By His healing deeds our Lord opened the way for His
saving Words.
He went about doing good, and His Church is commanded to do the same. Faber
understood this when he wrote:
"And preach thee too, as love knows how
By kindly deeds and virtuous life."
Church history is replete with instances of missionaries
and teachers who prepared the way for their message with deeds of mercy shown
to men and women who were at first hostile but who melted under the warm rays
of practical kindnesses shown to them in time of need. If anyone should object
to calling good works a method, I would not argue the point. Perhaps it would
be more accurate to say that they are an overflow into everyday life of the
reality of what is being proclaimed.
These are God's appointed methods, set forth in the Bible
and confirmed in centuries of practical application. The intrusion of other
methods is unscriptural, unwarranted and in violation of spiritual laws as old
as the world.
The whole preach-the gospel-with-movies idea is founded
upon the same basic assumptions as modernism--namely, that the Word of God is
not final, and that we of this day have a perfect right to add to it or alter
it wherever we think we can improve it.
A brazen example of this attitude came to my attention
recently. Preliminary printed matter has been sent out announcing that a new
organization is in process of being formed. It is to be called the
"International Radio and Screen Artists Guild," and one of its two
major objectives is to promote the movie as a medium for the spread of the
gospel. Its sponsors, apparently, are not Modernists, but confessed
Fundamentalists. Some of its declared purposes are: to produce movies
"with or without a Christian slant"; to raise and maintain higher
standards in the movie field (this would be done, it says here, by having
"much prayer" with leaders of the movie industry); to "challenge
people, especially young people, to those fields as they are challenged to go
to foreign fields."
This last point should not be allowed to pass without some
of us doing a little challenging on our own account. Does this new organization
actually propose in seriousness to add another gift to the gifts of the Spirit
listed in the New Testament? To the number of the Spirit's gifts, such as
pastor, teacher, evangelist, is there now to be added another, the gift
of the movie actor? To the appeal for consecrated Christian young
people to serve as missionaries on the foreign field is there to be added an
appeal for young people to serve as movie actors? That is exactly what this new
organization does propose in cold type over the signature of its temporary
chairman. Instead of the Holy Spirit saying, "Separate me Barnabas and
Saul for the work whereunto I have called them" (Acts 13:2), these people
will make use of what they call a "Christian talent listing," to
consist of the names of "Christian" actors who have received the
Spirit's gift to be used in making religious movies.
Thus the order set up in the New Testament is openly
violated, and by professed lovers of the gospel who say unto Jesus, "Lord,
Lord," but openly set aside His Lordship whenever they desire. No amount
of smooth talk can explain away this serious act of insubordination.
Saul lost a kingdom when he "forced" himself and
took profane liberties with the priesthood. Let these movie preachers look to
their crown. They may find themselves on the road to En-dor some dark night
soon.
6.
The religious movie is out of harmony with the whole spirit of the
Scriptures and contrary to the mood of true godliness.
To harmonize the spirit of the religious movie with the
spirit of the Sacred Scriptures is impossible. Any comparison is grotesque and,
if it were not so serious, would be downright funny. To imagine Elijah
appearing before Ahab with a roll of film! Imagine Peter standing up at
Pentecost and saying, "Let's have the lights out, please." When
Jeremiah hesitated to prophesy, on the plea that he was not a fluent speaker,
God touched his mouth and said, "I have put my words in thy mouth."
Perhaps Jeremiah could have gotten on well enough without the divine touch if
he had had a good 16mm projector and a reel of home-talent film.
Let a man dare to compare his religious movie show with the
spirit of the Book of Acts. Let him try to find a place for it in the twelfth
chapter of First Corinthians. Let him set it beside Savonarola's passionate
preaching or Luther's thundering or Wesley's heavenly sermons or Edwards' awful
appeals. If he cannot see the difference in kind, then he is too blind to
be trusted with leadership in the Church of the Living God. The
only thing that he can do appropriate to the circumstances is to drop to his
knees and cry with poor Bartimaeus, "Lord, that I might receive my
sight."
But some say, "We do not propose to displace the
regular method of preaching the gospel. We only want to supplement it." To
this I answer: If the movie is needed to supplement anointed preaching it can
only be because God's appointed method is inadequate and the movie can do
something which God's appointed method cannot do. What is that thing? We freely
grant that the movie can produce effects which preaching cannot produce (and
which it should never try to produce), but dare we strive for such effects in
the light of God's revealed will and in the face of the judgment and a long
eternity?
7.
I am against the religious movie because of the harmful effect upon everyone
associated with it.
First, the evil effect upon the "actors" who play
the part of the various characters in the show; this is not the less because it
is unsuspected. Who can, while in a state of fellowship with God, dare to play
at being a prophet? Who has the gall to pretend to be an apostle,
even in a show? Where is his reverence? Where is his fear? Where is his
humility? Any one who can bring himself to act a part for any purpose,
must first have grieved the Spirit and silenced His voice within the heart.
Then the whole business will appear good to him. "He feedeth on ashes; a
deceived heart has turned him aside" (Isaiah 44:20). But he cannot escape
the secret working of the ancient laws of the soul. Something high and fine and
grand will die within him; and worst of all he will never suspect it. That is
the curse that follows self-injury always. The Pharisees were examples of this.
They were walking dead men, and they never dreamed how dead they were.
Secondly, it identifies religion with the theatrical world.
I have seen recently in a fundamentalist magazine an advertisement of a
religious film which would be altogether at home on the theatrical page on any
city newspaper. Illustrated with the usual sex-bate picture of a young man and
young woman in tender embrace, and spangled with such words as
"feature-length, drama, pathos, romance," it reeked of Hollywood and
the cheap movie house. By such business we are selling out our Christian
separation, and nothing but grief can come of it late or soon.
Thirdly, the taste for drama which these pictures develop
in the minds of the young will not long remain satisfied with the inferior
stuff the religious movie can offer. Our young people will demand the real
thing; and what can we reply when they ask why they should not patronize the
regular movie house?
Fourthly, the rising generation will naturally come to look
upon religion as another, and inferior, form of amusement. In fact, the present
generation Yahwist has done this to an alarming extent already,
and the gospel movie feeds the notion by fusing religion and fun in the name of
orthodoxy. It takes no great insight to see that the religious movie must
become increasingly more thrilling as the tastes of the spectators become more
and more stimulated.
Fifthly, the religious movie is the lazy preacher's
friend. If the present vogue continues to spread it will not be long
before any man with enough ability to make an audible prayer, and mentality
enough to focus a projector, will be able to pass for a prophet of the Most
High God. The man of God can play around all week long and come up to the
Lord's Day without a care. Everything has been done for him at the studio. He
has only to set up the screen and lower the lights, and the rest follows
painlessly.
Wherever the movie is used the prophet is displaced by the
projector. The least that such displaced prophets can do is to admit that they
are technicians and not preachers. Let them admit that they are not God-sent
men, ordained of God for a sacred work. Let them put away their pretense.
Allowing that there may be some who have been truly called
and gifted of God but who have allowed themselves to be taken in by this new
plaything, the danger to such is still great. As long as they can fall back
upon the movie, the pressure that makes preachers will be
wanting. The habit and rhythm which belong to great preaching
will be missing from their ministry. However great their natural gifts, however
real their enduement of power, still they will never rise. They cannot while
this broken reed lies close at hand to aid them in the crisis. The movie will
doom them to be ordinary.
In conclusion
One thing may bother some earnest souls: why so many good
people approve the religious movie. The list of those who are enthusiastic
about it includes many who cannot be written off as borderline Christians. If
it is an evil, why have not these denounced it?
The answer is, lack of spiritual discernment.
Many who are turning to the movie are the same who have, by direct teaching or
by neglect, discredited the work of the Holy Spirit. They have apologized for
the Spirit and so hedged Him in by their unbelief that it has amounted to an out-and-out
repudiation. Now we are paying the price for our folly. The light has gone out
and good men are forced to stumble around in the darkness of the human
intellect.
The religious movie is at present undergoing a period of
gestation and seems about to swarm over the churches like a cloud of locusts
out of the earth. The figure is accurate; they are coming from below, not from
above. The whole modern psychology has been prepared for this invasion of
insects. The fundamentalists have become weary of manna and are longing for red
flesh. What they are getting is a sorry substitute for the lusty and
uninhibited pleasures of the world, but I suppose it is better than nothing,
and it saves face by pretending to be spiritual.
Let us not for the sake of peace keep still while men
without spiritual insight dictate the diet upon which God's children
shall feed. I heard the president of a Christian college say some time ago that
the Church is suffering from an "epidemic of amateurism." That remark
is sadly true, and the religious movie represents amateurism gone wild. Unity
among professing Christians is to be desired, but not at the expense of
righteousness. It is good to go with the flock, but I for one refuse mutely to
follow a misled flock over a precipice.
If
God has given wisdom to see the error of religious shows we owe it to the
Church to oppose them openly. We dare not take refuge in "guilty
silence." Error is not silent; it is highly vocal and amazingly
aggressive. We dare not be less so. But let us take heart: there are still many
thousands of Christian people who grieve to see the world take over. If we draw
the line and call attention to it we may be surprised how many people will come
over on our side and help us drive from the Church this latest invader, the
spirit of Hollywood.