“The Medium is the Message” (Marshall McLuhan)

Written By: Pastor Ryun
As we find ourselves having to minister to people through the medium of internet, it is my hope that our ministries and those who impart them will benefit by considering sobering thoughts shared by Neil Postman (1931-2003), a secular Jew, in his seminal work, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985).  I also highly recommend his Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1993).  Called by some as the secular C.S. Lewis, Postman was a longtime professor of communication arts and science at New York University.    

I am going to share excerpts from his book and raise a few questions (in italics). Please consider whether his thoughts expressed at the height of television as the dominant medium of communication is still relevant in our age of internet. Excuse me for saying the obvious but whenever you see the word “television” in the excepts, replace it with “internet,” “cyberspace” or “online”. The meaning of Postman's words hardly changes when substitutions are made.  

My desire is that as we move into the mode of dispensing ministries almost exclusively through the medium of internet, we don’t become “one-eye prophets who see only what new technologies can do and are incapable of imaging what they will undo” (Technopoly, p. 5).  

Postman: “I met McLuhan thirty years ago when I was a graduate student and he an unknown English professor. I believed then, as I believe now, that he spoke in the tradition of Orwell and Huxley—that is, as a prophesier, and I have remained steadfast to his teaching that the clearest way to see through a culture is to attend to its tools for conversation.” (p. 8).
“I use the word ‘conversation’ metaphorically to refer not only to speech but to all techniques and technologies that permit people of a particular culture to exchange messages.  In this sense, all culture is a conversation or, more precisely, a corporation of conversations, conducted in a variety of symbolic modes. . . To take an example . . ., on television, discourse is conducted largely through visual imagery, which is to say that television gives us a conversation in images, not words . . . [In fact,] television demands a different kind of content from other media.  You cannot do political philosophy on television.  Its form works against the content” (pp. 7-8). “Each medium, like language itself, makes possible a unique mode of discourse by providing a new orientation for thought, for expression, for sensibility.  Which, of course, is what McLuhan meant in saying the medium is the message” (p. 10).

Can we ‘do’ the Christian faith on internet? Does the medium of internet necessarily affect the biblical content in any way?

Postman: “What makes these television preachers the enemy of religious experience is not so much their weaknesses [mostly uneducated, provincial and even bigoted] but the weaknesses of the medium in which they work.  

Most Americans, including preachers, have difficulty accepting the truth, if they think about it at all, that not all forms of discourse can be converted from one medium to another. It is naïve to suppose that something that has been expressed in one form can be expressed in another without significantly changing its meaning, texture and value.  Much prose translates fairly well from one language to another, but we know that poetry does not; we may get a rough idea of the sense of a translated poem but usually everything else is lost, especially that which makes it an object of beauty.  The translation makes it into something it was not.

To take another example: We may find it convenient to send a condolence cards to a bereaved friend, but we delude ourselves if we believe that our card conveys the same meaning as our broken and whispered words when we are present.  The card not only changes the words but eliminates the context from which the words take their meaning.  Similarly, we delude ourselves if we believe that most everything a teacher normally does can be replicated with greater efficiency by a micro-computer. Perhaps some things can, but there is always the question, ‘What is lost in the translation?’  The answer may even be: Everything that is significant about education” (pp. 117-8).

Can we pose the same question with respect to the usage of internet in dispensing our Christian services? Can everything a minister normally does be replicated with greater efficiency by internet? If not, then, what is it that which we should never allow technology to replace?  
Postman: “Though it may be un-American to say it, not everything is televisible. Or to put it more precisely, what is televised is transformed from what it was to something else, which may or may not preserve its former essence.  For the most part, television preachers have not seriously addressed this matter.  They have assumed that what had formerly been done in a church or a tent, and face-to-face, can be done on television without loss of meaning, without changing the quality of the religious experience.  Perhaps their failure to address the translation issue has its origin in the hubris engendered by the dazzling number of people to whom television gives them access” (p. 118).  

Have we considered the possibility of loss of biblical/spiritual meaning, in whatever degrees, when preaching or teaching to a cyber audience?

Postman: “Pat Robertson [The 700 Club] adds: ‘To say that the church shouldn’t be involved with television is utter folly.  The needs are the same, the message is the same, but the delivery can change . . . It would be folly for the church not to get involved with the most formative force in America.’ This is gross technological naiveté. If the delivery is not the same, then the message, quite likely, is not the same.  And if the context in which the message is experienced is altogether different from what it was in Jesus’ time, we may assume that its social and psychological meaning is different, as well.

To come to the point, there are several characteristics of television and its surround that converge to make authentic religious experience impossible.  The first has to do with the fact that there is no way to consecrate the space in which a television show is experienced.  It is an essential condition of any traditional religious service that the space in which it is conducted must be invested with some measure of sacrality. . . . But a religious service need not occur only in a church or synagogue.  Almost any place will do, provided it is first decontaminated; that is, divested of its profane uses.  This can be done by placing a cross on a wall, or candle on a table, or a sacred document in public view.  Through such acts, gymnasium or dining hall or hotel room can be transformed into a place of worship; a slice of space-time can be removed from the world of profane events, and be recreated into a reality that does not belong to our world.  But for this transformation to be made, it is essential that certain rules of conduct be observed.  There will be no eating or idle conversation, for example.  One may be required to put on a skull cap or to kneel down at appropriate moments.  Or simply to contemplate in silence.  Our conduct must be congruent with the otherworldliness of the space.  

But this condition is not usually met when we are watching a religious television program.  The activities in one’s living room or bedroom or—God help us—one’s kitchen are usually the same whether a religious program is being presented or “The A-Team” [Daredevil?] or “Dallas” [Modern Family?] is being presented.  People will eat, talk, go to the bathroom, do push-ups or any of the things they are accustomed to doing in the presence of an animated television screen.  If an audience is not immersed in an aura of mystery and symbolic of otherworldliness, then it is unlikely that it can call forth the state of mind required for a nontrivial religious experience.”

Moreover, the television screen itself has a strong bias toward a psychology of secularism.  The screen is so saturated with our memories of profane events, so deeply associated with the commercial and entertainment worlds that it is difficult for it to be recreated as a frame for sacred events.  Among other things, the viewer is at all times aware that a flick of the switch [mouse or touch] will produce a different and secular event on the screen—a hockey game, a commercial, a carton . . . Both the history and the ever-present possibilities of the television screen work against the idea that introspection or spiritual transcendence is desirable in its presence. The television [computer, tablet or I-Phone] screen wants you to remember that its imagery is always available for your amusement and pleasure” (pp. 118-120).

To the extent that Postman’s observation is valid, how would you instruct your cyberspace congregation, some of whom—after having tasted the “realness” and convenience of worshiping God in the comforts of home—may continue to worship through online even after things return to normalcy?
 
Postman: “The executive director of the National Religious Broadcasters Association sums up what he calls the unwritten law of all television preachers: ‘You can get your share of the audience only by offering people something they want.’
You will note, I am sure, that this is an unusual religious credo.  There is no great religious leader—from the Buddha to Moses to Jesus to Mohammed to Luther—who offered people what they want.  Only what they need.  But television is not well suited to offering people what they need.  It is ‘user friendly.’ It is too easy to turn off.  It is at its most alluring when it speaks the language of dynamic visual imagery. It does not accommodate complex language or stringent demands.  As a consequence, what is preached on television is not anything like the Sermon on the Mount.  Religious programs are filled with good cheer.  They celebrate affluence.  Their featured players become celebrities.  Though their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings, or rather, because their messages are trivial, the shows have high ratings. I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion.  When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether” (p. 121).  

The Church Growth Movement was largely about discovering methods to increase the numeric size of a church met in physical location.  Corollary to that, numerous preachers “shr[a]nk from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27 ESV).  Something to think about as we instinctively aim for high ratings.
This blog was initially just shared with pastors, staff and key leaders of AMI.  Upon reading this, one leader responded:

“Thank you for sharing this; it is thought-provoking and challenging for me. In light of this, what are your thoughts in the present circumstance? Should we hold . . . services via live stream or should we not at all? If we are to continue holding live stream services, how can we do our best as participants? I'm really challenged by the call to ‘decontaminate’ the place of worship, ‘divesting it from its profane uses. What a good word!”

My response was as follows: “The historical culture-formation that has been in the works for a while, aided and abetted by communication and transportation breakthroughs at a breathtaking pace, and greatly punctuated by what just happened in a matter of weeks, has muted the question of whether the church should enter the cyberspace (almost exclusively, at least for the time being): of course, it must.  It's not like we have a choice.  It's a consequential move and the effects of it will likely linger on even after we return to normalcy.

I shared what I shared so that we don't blindly enter cyberspace ministry as if technology is an unqualified good, especially when it is used for spiritual matters.  We should talk about it, be aware of its downside and suggest ways to adequately transmit spiritual contents through online. That is to say, I didn't share what I shared in favor of the Luddites; rather, I want us to be aware of ramifications and move deliberately as we find ourselves having to enter cyberspace almost exclusively, not by choice but because of an unexpected tsunami.

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