© 1991 Byron Belitsos
© 1991 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
| Hymns in Worship | Spring 1991 — First Issue — Index | Significant Books: No Other Name? By Paul F. Knitter |
Watching MTV one Sunday morning, I was amazed to see a music video that celebrated the practice of prayer. Even more surprising was its creator: the famous rap artist, M. C. Hammer. Hammer’s lyrics moved rhythmically through clever rhymes, each ending with glib variations on the refrain, “You’ve got to pray, just to make it today.” The piece was supported by gyrating dancers, sometimes in robes or otherworldly garb, each projecting a glow of wholesomeness. In the finale, a woman in a white robe, with a bright light behind her head, raises her arms to heaven in an attitude of praise and worship, as the music slowly fades.
Here was an astonishing blend of an explicitly spiritual message poured into a rather secular, even banal, art form — MTV rap music. I wondered: Can syncopated rhythms and fast-paced video edits play any part in a valid religious ministry? Didn’t the style of the piece cancel out its spiritual message? Quite the contrary. I was uplifted and even persuaded by the video. Strange to admit, I was led to turn off the TV and engage in prayer.
In this example, M. C. Hammer forces home a point that many of us, so disillusioned with televangelism, have overlooked: the untapped potential of electronic media for ministry. Yet most of us are convinced that television and other media are a detriment to our ministries, especially those toward young people.
I believe both propositions are true. Commercial television and radio are among the leading corrupter of morals, but nothing intrinsic to electronic media requires that it be used this way. Media arts can just as well serve religious and spiritual needs, as long as its production values are on par stylistically and technically with what’s produced in the commercial sector.
I also believe that a huge and overlooked audience exists for spiritualized media in all its forms. After all, what was I doing watching MTV on a Sunday morning? If you’re like me, you are pining away for convenient access to music, images, or words of religious consolation, something to offset the daily assault of commercialized media. MTV, banal as it is, was preferable for me to the “religious” programs that were available that morning.
To stay strong in faith, believers need direct ministry at times other than Sunday morning, and this should be brought to them where they are, in the home, in their cars, even at work. To reach believers in this way, teachers and healers and religious artists of the future will increasingly turn to electronic media as a tool. Otherwise, they may face the consequences of yielding the soul of postmodern men and women to commercial and secular media and its debased values.
Unfortunately, the only religious groups that have so far taken up this challenge, (at least in conventional broadcast media), are the most conservative and narrow-minded elements of the Christian community. Much of their work can be considered no more than a variant on the general trend of media commercialization.
To be fair, it should be understood that mass media is massively expensive, both to produce and distribute. Just to get air time takes very deep pockets, and strong, ongoing backing — and ultimately appeals for funds must come over the air. It’s not too long before a kind of corruption sets in, a confusion of means and ends. It would take the guidance of a mighty teaching and outstanding leadership to overcome the seductive power that television holds over its own producers. With few exceptions, the conservative Christian evangelists have not proven equal to the task.
The beacon of a new revelation, which can encourage critical thought at each step of the way, can hopefully go a long way toward addressing these betrayals of the potential of electronic ministry. Critical thinking has infused liberal Christianity, but has failed to generate a body of uplifting, artistic treatments of Biblical or religious themes. (Consider the crushing disappointment of Martin Scorcese’s film, “Last Temptation of Christ,” one of the few creative interpretations of the Bible to appear in a major Hollywood production.) The Urantia Book upsteps the old content enough that the creative energies of media workers will be liberated. And its much needed corrective philosophy, to my mind, will support media producers in retaining their integrity in the face of commercializing temptations.
Even so, we need to guard against the naive idea that a wondrous new world of spiritual media will unfold for those of us with good intentions and a little seed money. My own experience in television production taught me the danger of harboring such illusions. And yet, even if we have the greatest of successes, we must not forget how deeply entrenched are those who stand for the banalization of electronic media. Our attempts to enlighten through truthful art are likely to be dwarfed by those forces for a long time to come.
A more encouraging hope is the decentralization of electronic media implied by new computer technologies. New telecommunications technology that combines the power of computers with fiber optic transmission will allow an increasing range of choice to viewers: video on demand (VOD) will allow viewers to scan menus of educational or entertainment videos or movies, and download these for a fee to home viewing stations. (The same technique would allow ad hoc music selections.) Emerging teleconferencing tools will make it increasingly cheaper for ad hoc groups to meet electronically and to see one another in real time, where they can share in many of the same ways that congregations do when they gather in a church. Computer conferencing software, which allows participants to crystallize and diffuse in an endless array of permutations for communication of information, entertainment, and even ministry, is becoming more ubiquitous. And many other new forms of interactive and broadcast media are on the horizon. In the next Media & Values column we will consider some of these new media technologies and their potentials for supporting enlightened ministry.
Byron has been a journalist and television producer and is now a consultant in the telecommunications industry.
| Hymns in Worship | Spring 1991 — First Issue — Index | Significant Books: No Other Name? By Paul F. Knitter |