The Media⤒🔗

Professor H.R. Rookmaker wrote in his book, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, that Christians must go through a period of study, thought, and reevaluation that will take much of their energy.

Conflicts will arise within Christian circles as older people especially are not consciously aware of this need for re-orientation, and therefore think that the old answers are still valid and sufficient. It is not that the foundation has to change, or that the basic doctrines have lost their meaning. But the expression and formulation of them sometimes needs rethinking as we listen afresh to God's Word, and seek to present it to the new world in which we are living.p. 198

Accordingly, when inspecting the mass media of our time, we will evaluate them on the basis of God's Word and re-orientate our position toward them.

A medium is anything which acts or serves intermediately, as something which helps or serves communication between two parties. God created man as a sociable being; He said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” A medium which makes communication between two human parties possible is language, which we know in the form of speaking or gestures; if the parties are separated, this medium is put in the form of writing. In case of mass media (media being the plural of medium) one party is the masses, anyone who wants to read or listen. In mass communication one party may be the population of a town, country, or even the population of the whole world. Some examples of mass media are books, magazines, newspapers, radio, and television.

Two Kinds of Communication←⤒🔗

In order to understand the essence of our modern media, we will look at their origin. First we go to the beginning of history, to that very beginning in the Garden of Eden, where the first parties, Adam and Eve, are tilling the Garden, keeping it, enjoying it. They communicate, work, protect, hear God walking in the breeze of the day; they listen to the instruction of the Spirit, entering into the treasures of creation, understanding creatures, naming them. But in that same Garden we see also the first influential persuasive communication coming from Satan, the deceiver from the beginning. The minute Eve looked away from God toward Satan – stopped the communication with God and entered into communication with Satan – the lust of the flesh, the delight of the eyes, and pride took hold of her and she was lost. From now on man is in the power of Satan and communicates with him. But thanks to God, He – the Giver of all good – put enmity between Satan and man and between their seeds, and the great struggle between good and evil started. From then on there were seen two ways of communication, there were heard two kinds of songs. One communication of boastful pride, “I will make myself like the Most High”; the other, of obedience and humility, as a lover of God and neighbor.

Listen how God Himself has revealed these two ways in His Word. In Lamech: “I have slain a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.” In Enoch: “He walked with God.” He has also revealed examples of both ways in mass communication. The Rabshakeh called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah – he spoke the language of the people to make sure that everyone could understand him – saying: “Do not let Hezekiah make you to rely on the Lord” (2 Kings 18:28). The words of the prophets pleading with the people to return to the Lord and the urgent appeal in the New Testament, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”: two kinds of persuasive language, one coming from Satan, the other coming from the Lord; the great struggle for power over people, over minds.

From Heralds to Television←⤒🔗

Let us now briefly focus our attention on the development of the mass media. One of the oldest form is the herald, who after his cry: “Hear ye, hear ye,” read the information from the ruler to the people gathered in a certain place. In order to reach more people and to preserve information for later communication, the Egyptians made use of durable paper and ink, later of parchment (made from animal skin). Think about the Dead Sea Scrolls, preserved by God in order to be studied in our time.

A next step toward mass communication was the wooden handpress and the movable printing press, generally attributed to Gutenburg in the fifteenth century, although the Koreans and Chinese used it centuries earlier already. Even though Luther used this invention for the distribution of his pamphlets, the masses were not reached, and we cannot at this time call it a medium proper. Printing was too costly for the common man. Illiteracy was prevalent among the masses who, moreover, had no time for reading, being caught up in the struggle for survival.

With the printing press in existence, what about the newspaper. This mass medium was known already before Christ. The Romans had newssheets, called acta diurna, which carried daily happenings and were posted in public places. The Venetian government issued small newssheets, which could be bought for a small coin, the gazeta (a word found back in our “Gazette”). England had its first newspaper in the first half of the seventeenth century, which was not published very regularly and carried mainly foreign intelligence. The modern newspaper started in America. Benjamin Day of the American Sun started a penny paper which was sold in single copies for a penny by newsboys in the street. It worked tremendously; its circulation rose to 2000 in two months, 5000 in four months, 8000 in six months.

Magnetism known since ancient times was utilized in message-sending devices, the telegraph and the telephone, inventions which paved the way for radio and television. The latter was developed with the help of the movable image, found already in the writings of Leonardo Da Vinci, to which were added further knowledge of physics and the pressure of need.

Even book printing saw some remodelling in the meantime. More leisure time required the publication of inexpensive books. Pocketbooks, New American Library, Penguins, Dell Books, and Bantam Books offered cheap reprints of the classics; they even tried to print God's Word “cheap” in the form of Good News for Modern Man, although this seems to be more a paraphrase than an authorized version. Earlier, books were only at the disposal of the middle class and the well-to-do, but now they are available to all. Our age is the age of the mass media explosion. The whole population, from high to low, from rich to poor, is within its reach. Illiteracy is almost non-existent. Those who cannot or do not want to read are reached by radio and television. Cost is no longer an obstacle.

Tools to be Used←⤒🔗

All inventions, including the tools of communication, were laid down in creation from the beginning. They were hidden, and man had received the command to “till the garden,” to find them in God's time. Man also received the command to use creation, to use the inventions of the mass media, to His honor. Nothing happens in a vacuum; everything has a purpose. However, if the purpose is no longer seen, the tool becomes an end in itself. Prof. Schilder writes in Christ and Culture,

Every builder will become bankrupt as soon as his employees fall in love with their tools, refine and 'culture' them for their own sake but in the meantime show no love for the activity of building… The cultivation of a cultural instrument in itself and for its own sake is nothing but idolatry.p. 60

Many fell into this trap. In the nineteenth century French artist Theophile Gautier introduced “l'art pour l'art.” There was no communication in this, but only egoistic artistry. Willem Kloos, the Dutch poet, wrote: “Ik ben een god in 't diepst van mijn gedachten.” – a god am I in my inmost thought – All talents, knowledge, and inventions are given to help man to perform his task better – the task of tilling the garden and keeping it – so that he can know his Maker more and more, heartily love Him more, and love his neighbor as himself. As a vacuum cleaner works better than a dustpan and a car provides faster transportation than a bike, so mass media are more effective than individual communication.

There is also the other attitude, that of the Puritans in the seventeenth century, who do not regard these inventions as tools received from the Lord, but as temptations from the devil. This is ignoring God's gifts. The fact that people curse does not give us the right to consider the gift of language as a temptation from the devil. “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be so” (James 3:10). It is because of man's willful disobedience that cursing comes from his mouth. It is because of this same willful disobedience that the mass media are used as tools for Satan, but this ought not to be so.

… in a Transcendental Way←⤒🔗

There is one unified purpose, one track of development, namely, upward to completion, to God, the ultimate complete end. This beautiful unity is not visible to man any longer; man can only see a dichotomy, but the purpose is still there. Man can see glimmerings, however, e.g. in the preservability of parchment used for manuscripts, in the distribution of Luther's cries for reform by means of the movable printing press, in the printing of many Bibles, in the first message by electromagnet telegraph from Washington to Baltimore which was: “What has God wrought!” It seems, however, that in the development of the mass media of the last century even these glimmerings are fading; man serves himself more than God.

In order to retain readers, Benjamin Day (Pennypaper) hired a fellow printer to attend court trials: the first crime exposure feature in American journalism. Of course reaction to this arose. Horace Greely wrote in The Tribune (1841): “The guilt of murder may not stain their hands but the fouler and more damning of making murder.” (Do we see here a similarity to the outrage against violence on T.V.?) The newspaper started out with the purpose to inform (newssheets), but it resulted in business, a selling item. Seventy-five to eighty percent of the revenue is earned from advertisements. The more readers, the more the advertizer is charged to deliver those readers into his clutches. The advertising man has the universal reputation of having the most influence on human behavior. Leading newspapers, broadcasting and telecasting companies have enormous power especially in a democratic society in which the government depends on public opinion. The greater the extent to which a form of government is actually dependent on favorable, but independent public opinion, the more likely it is to support the free press.

Modern media reach a greater audience than ever before. There is development in the output but also in the intake. In the audio-visual media more senses are used. Moreover, because of the rapid succession of sight and sound, time to ponder about the contents is limited. And so the modern culture enters our minds via the media. This culture is based on modern philosophy, thought out and originated in the study. Satan will also use the modern media – books, magazines, radio, television – to promote anti-godly philosophies. It proclaims freedom for man, unlimited freedom in every field, no laws: man is free from duties to his marriage partner, free from duties toward children, free from labor, free to love, free to do what he wants and to get what he wants, because man is in love with himself. Greed is propagated in the so-called games which encourage covetousness. Material wellbeing is not a privilege but a human right. There is no satisfaction in labor, no sweet rest after labor but a trying to get away from “in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” Man makes greater demands for higher wages and less work, to which he thinks he has a “right.” In advertisements a love of pleasure is propagated as never before. Use is also made of burlesque creatures and silly animals to portray degenerate man; these are definitely opposed to fables which contain a moral. All this we allow to enter our minds, especially by means of T.V., since this medium fosters passivity of man which is in direct opposition to the cultural mandate which indicates active involvement. From advertisements to national sports to movies, the man from 2 Timothy 3 stares us in the face: “lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, ungrateful, disobedient…, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” In fact, the freedom proclaimed from the housetops is a would-be freedom. In reality it is a slavery to sin, to Satan. Because an ungrateful and undeserved rest is sought on earth, the eternal rest will not be there.

Books, magazines, radio, and television all are gifts of God to be used to His honor. If feasible, if financially responsible, we use them all. As far as the receiving end is concerned, if we are among the masses who read and listen and watch, let us be selective and warn each other. Satan is making use of them to a great extent.