Media and Christianity

This week, we we're going to be doing a class, entitled, music and film. Music and film, how to how to listen and how to judge. I went, one time to do a seminar at a college, Christian college in Canada, and I gave out a questionnaire to students about this, about films and music and so on and so forth, and the most repeated problem that they had about music and film and you know, this whole issue was how do they decide what they ought to listen to. You know, how do we listen? How do we judge what we ought to consume as far as media is, is concerned.

And of course I understand this because there's always a conflict between, one generation and another, between one culture and another subculture. I don't mean, you know Greek and Jew and Italian and Polish, I mean one culture, our culture, the 40s culture, the 50s culture and the younger culture and generations. There's always a conflict between what is acceptable and what is not. And of course, the question for us always, where do we as Christians draw the line? And how do we go about drawing that line?

What do we do? Do we toss out the TV set? Do we say never watch a movie? Never, you know, there's always something that might offend us, might not be okay. What do we become media hermits, so to speak?

How do we decide? Well, tonight's lesson deals with this problem and hopefully gives us some guidelines on how to listen and how to judge, very practical, I'm a practical kind of a guy and my teaching and preaching is usually pretty practical because I figure people need simple answers to the some problems that we, at least clear ones to some of the problems that we face. Well, first thing I want to look at is, a phenomenon that all of us experience in our generation and it is the information boom, information boom. Have you got, have you got the control for these lights up here? Maybe we turn down some of the front ones to get a better view.

It's important to have an effective way to select what we see and hear because in this generation, our generation, more than in any other generation in the history of mankind, we are bombarded with new and different information at an incredible rate. More than any other time in history, we are literally inundated with information, and this is so because of three reasons. First of all, there are more people than ever in the business of producing information and producing products dealing with information. There are more idea people, spreading their ideas and having vehicles to spread their ideas now, than at other times in history. Technology has allowed more people to write, more people to create, more people to think, more people to produce and invent things than at any other time.

I mean, you can sit at home with your home computer and create art and create graphics that would have taken months yet even years to produce, not even a century ago. In the Middle Ages, we know that one artist perhaps was commissioned to paint or to sculpt by a one patron. Today, you know, just for example, we have, you know, a guy like Johnny Carson, who's got a dozen writers, helping him write witty one line commentary on the day's politics and the day's events. We live in a time where we can mass produce art. We can mass produce ideas and so we're inundated by these things.

Another reason for this information boom and the inundation is that there are more ways of receiving information. I look in my son's room, he's 13 years old. He has a TV monitor Nintendo hooked up to it. He has a radio, AMFM, which has a tape connected to it. He's got books.

He can, you know, he can draw in information from a dozen radio stations. He can play tapes for music or words. He can watch something, he can read all in his little, you know, 10 by 12 room. There is a lot of technology to help us receive information, TV, radio, movies, print, telephone, political action groups are free to move, especially in this country, schools, public school system and so on and so forth. Just think of your day to day and see how much of it finds you in the process of receiving information from one of these sources.

We spend so much processing information. I mean, you go in the elevator and there's somebody there telling you about, you can't go from 3rd floor to 5th floor without somebody explaining something to you about a product or listening to somebody's lyrics about music or his political statement, impossible. So there's a lot of ways to get to us with information. 3rd reason, is that the information itself is transmitted at an ever increasing rate. You see since there's only 24 hours in one particular day, what happens is that there is a faster turnover of new people.

I mean, there's just so much time in a day. So, what happens is that we get a faster turnover of new people, new ideas, and new products. And so, the result is that not only are we inundated with information from all sides, but it's moving at us at a faster and faster rate. It would seem that in the forties, the information would become If you wanted a kind of an analogy, the information was coming at us, say in the forties, like a gunshot. Bang.

Bang. Bang. In the nineties, the same information is coming to us but like a machine gun, ra ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta ta, you know, you have to process more information because there's only 24 hours in the day. Well, when things are coming at us so quickly, what do we do? You can't get away from it.

It's you know, I remember when I was a kid, if there was a movie playing downtown, you know, some of you can relate, the movie would be there for a month, 2 months. You know, what's playing downtown? Such a John Wayne movie was there all summer. Now, you know, I mean, the movie is there, 1 week it's gone and there's another, there's a dozen others taking its place, this type of thing is happening. So what do we do?

When so much information is coming at us so quickly from all sides, what do we do? Well, a lot of people, what they do is they just consume it all. Media hogs, you know, they just they just take it all in, you know, one symptom is the channel hopping, marvelous thing in the nineties, you know, you got that channel thing there and you just beep, we don't watch anything anymore, we just bought from place to place, you know, maybe if we just pick up a little bit of everything, I got a little Super Bowl, I got a little Miss America, I got a little bit of the movie, you know, and that's what we do. Did you know that that is one of the most nerve racking things you can do, don't ever watch TV with a channel hopper and hope to relax. It won't happen.

I always say they should make the channel hopper like a gun, you know, and that way if you wanted to get mad, you could kind of shoot at the TV, but anyways. Other people, their way of reacting to this inundation is by avoiding it totally. They just avoid it all. No TV, let's throw the TV out, you know, media hermits, that's their reaction, they just, you know, close their eyes, block their ears, they don't want to hear anything. But the Bible teaches us a better way.

The Bible teaches us to discern. The Bible teaches us to discern, to learn how to choose. In Hebrews chapter 5, verse 14, it wasn't talking about TV necessarily, but it certainly is talking about the ability to choose. The writer says, but solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. We have this muscle, this spiritual muscle, the discerning muscle.

The Bible teaches us, we're not to run away, we're not to consume everything that comes, our job is to discern, to choose, to select what is good, and to leave what is bad. It comes with practice, you have to practice, the Bible teaches us we need to choose, and all the information that is coming at us, we need to be able to tell the difference between what is good and what is not good, because gobbling everything down is laziness, and avoiding everything is cowardliness. Spiritual maturity comes from exercising the discerning muscle. That's what we need to do, we need to learn how to discern. Well, what does the right choice look like then, is the next question.

What does the right choice look like, if I must choose, if I'm inundated with all this information, how do I know what to choose? Well the Bible helps us there too. In Philippians chapter 4 verse 8, Paul gives us a kind of a strainer, you know what a strainer is, you know, you're cooking, you want some stuff not to come through and you want the gravy to come through. And Philippians chapter 4, verse 8 is a kind of a strainer if you wish, a mental strainer, the strainer through which information should pass to help us select what we ought to, you know, retain and what we ought to reject. As I said, the Bible teaches us what the right choice looks like and it also teaches us why we should choose what is good or rather what is excellent.

He says in, Philippians 4:8, finally brethren whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. What does it look like the right choice? What determines what is acceptable or not? Well, what is good, what is acceptable in all of this information that you're receiving, are those things, those images that are true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and of good repute and excellent and worthy of praise. And then in verse 9, Paul goes on to tell us, why ought we to choose those things which are of this quality.

He says in verse 9, the things you have learned and received and heard, seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace shall be with you. You see, Paul was able in his life through his example, to demonstrate the choice of whatever was true and honorable and so on and so forth. And he says, you should copy me, and when we do, when we learn to discern that muscle, the God of peace shall be with us. We grow in the knowledge of God. Choosing these things will help us maintain our peace with God in the following ways.

In choosing good, we can grow in our knowledge and our appreciation of God who is the ultimate source of what is true. In other words, when I choose what is true and good and what is around me, I am able to understand through the creation, through the images, through the words that I receive in this earth, a little bit more of the image of God. I grow in the the knowledge of God. When I find truth, I found to a certain extent God. When I find what is pure, when I see what is pure, when I discern what is pure, I have found to a certain degree the purity of God.

Okay. Another reason why we ought to choose those things that are like this is that it brings us joy. Rejoice in the appreciation of the those things which are truly good because these are, the the truly good things in life. When I have found a piece of art for example that is good and that matches this qualification here, I found something valuable, something worthy, something that I can rejoice in, something that I can pass on to someone else, with a clear conscience. Another reason why I should choose this, is that I can, as I say, preserve it and pass it on to the next generation.

We will be able to pass along to the next generation those things which we have been able to discern, which are good, that's usually the struggle between the 2 generations. The accept our choice of what is good. We ought to preserve what is good and right and honorable and true in those things that we see and hear, so we can build a heritage of those things to pass on to the next generation. For the Christian choosing to visually or audibly or actively participate in things which do not live up to this criteria, will in proportion spoil his communion with God. It leads to confusion, it leads to doubt, it leads to guilt.

For the non Christians, even worse, for the non Christian it blinds them totally to who God is. And so, we ought to choose what is right, we ought to learn to discern what is right, because in doing so, we are able to grow in the knowledge of God and to rejoice in having found something which is pure and honorable and we're able to now preserve and pass along something which is valuable to the next, to the next generation. That's the motivation. You know, why choose this book and not that book? Why choose this film and not that film?

Because of these reasons, because we have a criteria to follow as Christians and because we are motivated in choosing the very best, we grow in spiritual, in spiritual maturity. Well, I want to look at something more practical, although this is practical, I want to help us in a more practical way in this, in this idea, this idea of discerning. You know, what we've just talked about are very idealistic things, what is, you know, what is noble, what is true, what is right, what is worthy of praise, you know, we're talking about high and noble ideas here. But how about some of the more down to earth guidelines and helping us choose those movies and that type of book and the music and the shows and all those type of things that we will watch. When it comes to art, when I say art now, get me straight, I mean art, music, film, books, opera, whatever, you know, expression, artistic expression.

We can determine if it is good and honorable and pure by looking at 2 things in particular. First of all, we look at the quality of the art itself. Alright? You're faced with a book or you're faced with a movie and I wanna know, is it honorable? Is it good?

Is it worthy of praise and so on and so forth, will it do for me what I want it to do for me as a Christian, I need to ask myself a couple of questions. 1, I need to ask myself, what quality is this art that I'm looking at? What is the quality of it? And then secondly, I need to ask myself the question, how accurate is the message that this art, is trying to convey to me? Okay?

Those are the questions to ask. Is this is this good art? And is the message true? Those are the 2 questions that will determine if the art form that we're looking at, music film, whatever, is of value. And that brings us to the the difference in in good art and bad art, and that's what I want.

This is kind of the philosophy of art idea. Let's look at this first idea here, the quality of art. Let's look at some of the qualities of good art. How can you tell what is you know, you don't have to be a connoisseur of painting to tell the difference between good art and bad art. There's some basic guidelines.

You don't have to be an expert, you don't have to have a PhD in in art and, to to understand good art and bad art for for your own consumption. Ask yourself some questions. First of all, is it good art? Is it is the quality good? And how do you know?

Well, first of all, is it unique? Does this piece of art, whatever it is, now book, film, dance, whatever it is, does this thing, is it unique? Is it a one of a kind quality? Is it original in style? Does it break new ground, for example?

Does it accurately recreate a classic form? I'll give you an example, something we can relate to because it happened in our generation and a lot of you can relate to this. You know, the fusing, for example, of electricity and musical instruments was a kind of a modern breakthrough in art. Some may not think so, some may think it's just a lot of noise, but it was, it was it was a breakthrough, never been done, you know, electricity and musical instruments fused together, created all a whole new realm of possibilities for, for music and for a musician. There's something unique about that.

Another thing we look at is perhaps craftsmanship. Is it well put together? Does it does it use all the elements properly? Another example of craftsmanship, you know, you can have a dress for example, and it may have a nice style and a nice design and the color is really pretty, but when you look at the way it is sewn, does it fit right? Is it sloppily put together, you know, sometimes they they get away with that, they sell a nice style and it's catchy on the on on the hanger and then when you try it on, you know, the stitching is not properly done and it doesn't fit properly.

How is the craftsmanship? You know, a book may have a novel idea, but how is it written? Is it well written? Another thing we look for is intelligence. Does the art form that you're considering demonstrate imagination?

I mean, does it really say something important or does it merely appeal to the baser instinct of man? Is it high, is it noble, is it lofty? How about honesty? Good art is honest. Does the artist say something, true to you or does he just want your money?

A lot of times, a lot of books that come out just want your money. And something happens and 3 days later, there's a book. They just want your money. Music and art and film that portrays mindless sex and mindless violence are only trying to get your money, because people know that sex and violence appeal to a man's baser instincts. I mean sex sells, simple as that.

Otherwise, they wouldn't use half naked girls to sell ratchet wrenches or you know, or or car parts, you know, what does one have to do with the other? And yet it works, doesn't it? Somehow somehow it works. The sexist ploy always work. And so is is the art honest?

You know, is it using the medium in the proper way? Is it whole, wholeness? Is the art satisfying? Does it say something final? Does it say something real?

You know, I I like jazz as a as a music form, I like other kinds, but I really enjoy that kind of music form and oh, maybe 30 years ago, a group called the Modern Jazz Quartet got together at Carnegie Hall in New York City and recorded a live album, in which they did something called, take 5, a song called take 5 and the thing lasted 5, 6 minutes, 7 minutes long, was unheard of to make a record so long by, by an instrumental group. That was a very special moment. It was never to be duplicated again. A lot of groups, record music, but no one has ever tried to recreate this thing. It was a once in a lifetime thing.

I wasn't high art or anything, but it was unique, it was whole. When you hear it, you're satisfied. You know, you've heard the whole thing and and it and it always has that sense of wholeness. 30 years later, I hear that record on the radio and I'm satisfied that they have done a once in a lifetime job with that piece of music. How about spontaneity?

Spontaneity. Does the art have a life of its own? You know, you don't have to explain it. It's like a joke. If you have to explain the joke, there's no use giving the joke.

Good art is like that. The artist doesn't have to prepare you for it. You don't even have to know who the artist is. It just says what it says, you know, is it spontaneous? It is said that Michelangelo said that when he sculpted a great piece of stone, he said that the finished work was already in the marble.

All he did was chip away and release it. That type of spontaneity, that is one of the qualities of good art. And so when we're looking at art and trying to decide, is this good art or is this bad art, no matter what it is, look at it and ask yourself, is it unique? Is it well crafted? Is it smart?

Is it honest? It is is it satisfying for me spiritually? Okay. I I I I quoted the Bible first. Is it satisfying spiritually?

Do I go away from it feeling guilty, feeling offended? You know what I'm saying? Is it satisfying for me spiritually and emotionally and physically? You know, all those things. Is it is it spontaneous?

Is there something about it that brings it to life? That's what art is all about. For these are the the sum of the characteristics of any good film, any good book or art or music or play or picture of which you can say that it is true and lovely and worthy of praise and honorable and acceptable for a Christian. And so the first basis for judging art is to answer the question, is it good art or is it bad art? Now the second question is, of course, as I said, is the message true?

Is the message that the art conveying true or false? A true message is one that that is true according to God's truth, not man's truth, because God is the source of truth, not man. That's the question. Not just is it true according to what I think, is this true? Is this saying something true according to what I know God has said?

And here's where the Christian, the one who is the consumer of art, and here is where the Christian who is the producer of art, there's two responsibilities, sometimes as Christians, we produce art, and sometimes as Christians, we consume art. This is where the Christian has a great advantage, because the Christian knows the truth, because he has access to God's word. We can accurately measure the truth of art, because we know truth. Right? You see the great advantage we have as as Christians?

Now a point to remember, however, is that even though art may not always quote the bible chapter and verse or may not acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, it doesn't mean that it's not true. Okay? You know, a film depicting the beauty of loyalty and love in a marriage is still accurate, even if it doesn't say that this is God's will and in the Bible, Truth is truth, even if that truth doesn't directly refer to God openly. Not every piece of art has to have a religious theme in order to be true. Okay?

Now, we get to something really practical now and that is putting it all together. Now that we have some tools to help us in our discerning process, here's what we look for. There are 4 types of art. Okay, we're gonna put all these ideas together now. There are 4 types of art.

First of all, there is good art with a true message. And by the way, did I tell you, you don't have to take notes, this tonight's lesson, I've got the entire outline here, I've got 50 copies, so those of you who like to, I've got it here. So you can come get it after. Okay? There's good art with a true message and this is what you need to be looking for, actively looking for.

Don't hide, it's out there. People are producing it. This is the best possible combination. For example, there was a movie by Dino De Laurentiis called Jesus of Nazareth. If you ever remember, a lot of Jesus films came out, but this one in particular came out.

What a well made film it was. Oh boy, the the craftsmanship was beautiful. They they got very good actors. The cinematography was excellent. The story was good.

The screenplay, everything was good about it. And the message was terrific because the movie did not hold back. It showed the life, the miracles, the death, the burial, the resurrection of Christ and the ascension of Christ. It didn't hold back the gospel message at all. It was beautiful.

The movie was well made, they didn't cheap out on the money, and the message was accurate to what the gospel says, not like, quote, you know, the last temptation of Christ. That movie is also a well made movie, but it wasn't true. See the difference? Another movie, for example, came out a few years ago, was entitled Children of a Lesser God. Anybody remember that movie, Children of a Lesser God?

And that was a movie with a girl named Marlee Matlin. She was deaf in that, well she is deaf, But she, in that movie, she played the part of a girl who was learning and it was a marvelous movie. Again, this movie had nothing to do with God. It was only incidental that they they used the children of a lesser God in the in the title. But the movie itself was well made, well acted.

It was a one of a kind story. I'd never seen a story quite like that about the relationship between this deaf girl and her teacher and the girl won an Academy Award of Excellence in in her craft for for this movie, along with William Hart, I think was nominated or something like that. Anyways, the point was, even if this movie reflected a a worldly moral system, its message was true. The message of the movie was, genuine love requires mutual respect. That was the message.

That was a true message. Even though you didn't agree with some of the things they said, if the guy said a a curse word in the movie and so on and so forth, Okay. We don't agree with that. But the message was true and the and the movie was beautifully made. It was a good piece of film.

You went away from these kinds of movies with some insight. You were satisfied. You felt you had seen a once in a lifetime piece of work. I guarantee you, you will never see Children of a Lesser God part 2. It was a once in a lifetime thing.

I mean, the story said it all. Good art with a true message. It didn't talk about God, it didn't even portray things we agree with as Christians, but it was good and true. Now here's the point I wanna make here. It was not perfect, this movie, but we don't look for perfect perfection in art.

Okay, we don't look for perfect in art. Art is only a reflection. It's never perfect. Only Jesus is perfect. Only his heavenly kingdom is perfect.

So we don't look for perfect in art. We look for excellence in art. We we need to learn the difference between what's perfect and what's excellent. Excellence has degrees. Perfection, we don't, we can't have here.

Only Jesus is perfect. Only Christians are perfect in the eyes of Christ. Art, art is never perfect, but art can be can be excellent. Another type of art is bad art with a true message, bad art with a true message. Now I dare say that most of the efforts at graphics and television and radio and mass media and film, in the name of Jesus Christ, falls into this category, unfortunately.

Most of our efforts at mass communications, in either the electronic media and until recently in the print media, falls into this bad art true message thing. The message, of course, is the truest of all. If many times the craftsmanship and the imagination, the effort in production is far below what the world or even God for that matter, considers as good art. We seem to think if we have a true message, it doesn't matter what the package is like, and that's not so. For people in the world, people in the world many times judge the message by the package, and we do ourselves a grave injustice when we do not careful in packaging the message in the most acceptable and most excellent way possible.

So a lot of times we see bad art with the true message. Number 3 is, good art, false message. This is the most dangerous kind of art of all. Modern music for example, which is complex and well produced and lavish, lavish in style and very slick in its packaging falls in this. They use the best artists, the best musicians, the best technicians, they finance it properly and they they they put all of this to work to produce something which says, killing yourself is a good idea.

They they use the greatest talent, to produce a film that has as its only message, that it's okay to cheat on your wife. They write books, which are mass produced and have fancy covers, and use men and women who are truly gifted in communicating with words to say that it's okay that God is dead and that we ought to do what we wanna do. They spend 1,000,000 of dollars to send musicians all over the world to play music, which to the ear is so sweet and so delectable. But the message of it says, forget what is right and good. Do only what you want to do.

Good art, false message. The danger here is that the quality of the art gives value to the message. And especially young people are susceptible to this. That's why most of this good art, bad message is aimed at young people. You know, it's got a good beat.

What could be wrong? It's got nice, you know, diminished chords or whatever. You know, it's got a nice chord progression. What could be wrong? They don't hear the message, or they don't discern the message.

They just swallow it whole, in films, in books, so on and so forth. Good art, false message. And then the 4th kind, bad art, bad art, false message. You know this one's easy. The best example of bad art, false message are pornographic movies.

You know the ones, the ones on the top shelf at the video store, it looks like they were all made by the same person using the same roll of film. You ever see those? Same plot too, you know, same storyline. Or those splatter movies where people are cut apart with chainsaws and don't even talk about it, you know. Bad art, bad movies.

You know, the the cheapness of the art is a tip-off to the falseness of the message. You know it's gonna be bad because the art's so bad. Now, you can become addicted to poor art with a false message, but only on purpose, only on purpose. You're not watching because it's art, you're watching because it's perversion. And you like perversion, not you personally, I'm not accusing you brethren, I'm just saying, you know, bad art, bad message.

That's the 4th time. Well, let me conclude by saying this, in our lifetimes, we will have to exercise judgment on 1,000 upon 1,000 of films and songs and books and magazines and all kinds of things. We will see good art, we will see bad art, we will see truth, we will see lies. And we will grow in spiritual and emotional maturity if we learn to open our minds to that art which is beautiful and true, Art which is a joy to the senses. Art which lifts and builds the inner man.

If a man can sing, it's because God gave him a voice. If a woman can paint, it's because God gave her an eye. If a person can can can do ballet, it's because God has given them the strength to express beauty through movement. If a person can can create a film, it's because God has allowed that person to have the breath of vision to translate beauty using that art form. Beauty comes from God.

Beauty comes from God. The ability to create comes from God, and needs to be used to honor God and to build man. You ever wonder what the purpose of art is? The purpose of art is not to make money. The purpose of art is to build man, to make man rejoice, to comfort man.

Art which is a joy to the senses, art which builds the inner man. And so my exhortation seems a kind of a strange exhortation, is not to be afraid. This type of art that I speak of exists, and you will find it, and you will savor it, and it will bless you if you look for it carefully. And when looking at the world and what it has to offer, learn to reject what is ugly and what is false, and God's peace in Christ Jesus will remain with you forever. Pray that God blesses you in your search for good art with the true message.

God can bless you even in this. God can find a way to bless us. Alright. That's our lesson for this week. That's our lesson for this week.

That's our lesson for this week. That's our lesson for this week. That's our lesson for this week. That's our lesson.