I heard a revealing statement recently while visiting a home-bound Roman Catholic woman. She was upset that she couldn’t make it to Mass. Not to worry, she added warmly, “I’ll watch a Mass on television.” That got me to thinking. Of course, this woman had no choice. She was too ill to get to church. But the thousands in TV “churches” who do not have the same excuse, What are they thinking? What do they expect to get out of watching a Mass or a worship service on TV?
This woman’s view of the Mass is nothing new, of course. During the Middle Ages, the “worshippers” would mill around in the back of the cathedral striking business deals and catching up on the latest gossip. Then, a bell would ring from the altar. Everyone would stop and look, standing on tiptoe and pressing forward. The host was being elevated held up before the congregation by the presiding priest. The people believed that they could receive grace by just viewing the consecrated bread. In fact, that was about all they were allowed to do. It was one of the main achievements of the Reformers to include the congregation in the celebration of the communion.
So, there’s nothing new about TV Masses. The TV Mass is just a high-tech resurgence of the worst of medieval spirituality. Television raises questions, however, that would challenge even the most ingenious scholastic. Medieval theologians seriously debated whether or not a mouse eating a piece of consecrated bread received the body of Christ. Modern scholastics will be faced with equally taxing questions. Can grace be communicated by satellite? Can a Mass be taped, or does it have to be live? What about Cable? VCRs? Does replaying of taped Mass have any effect on the grace communicated?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not taking potshots at the Roman Catholic Church. After all, they’re relative newcomers to the TV world. Protestants (can we really divide Western Christianity into Catholic and Protestant?) have grasped the telecommunications opportunity with gusto, long before the Catholic church showed a glimmer of interest. But, then, Protestants invented the “drive-in” Church. (I’ve always wondered if the deacons (-esses) wear roller skates as they distribute the elements.) Before that, Protestants invented the camp meeting and a host of other grotesque distortions of Christian worship. One pastor told me that he had heard a TV evangelist tell his audience to go to the fridge, get some bread and grape juice, and join the – what should I call it? – the studio congregation in a celebration of communion!
There’s a serious point here. Really, there is, I’m not just venting my spleen…
The crucial question: What is TV evangelism all about anyway? I write this with a straight face. What is the point of TV ministries? The Bakkers hinted at their answer on Nightline. They told Ted Koppel that they had been offered a guest spot on The Late Show. That’s the show Joan Rivers left. It is without doubt one of the most distasteful and anti-Christian shows on television. And the Bakkers were seriously thinking about taking the offer! A TV station in Tennessee was thinking about picking up the old Jim and Tammy show! And Jim and Tammy talk incessantly about returning to their ministry at PTL (or whatever it’s called). Clearly, for the Bakkers, their TV “ministry” is just a form of entertainment. They’re just another celebrity couple, like the ones who are featured in People and National Enquirer. (Maybe Jim and Tammy have been featured too; I haven’t been grocery shopping lately.)
So, what’s all this mean? Does it mean we abandon the mass media? Turn it over to the devil? Of course not, in His providence, the Lord has given us valuable tools for reaching vast numbers of people with the gospel. And we should use these tools.
What it does mean is that there are inherent limitations to what we can do through the mass media (or the ‘Mass’ media for that matter). We shouldn’t use our tools uncritically. The medium of television, for all its power of persuasion, simply cannot take the place of the church as the agency of Christian dominion. After all, it’s primarily a medium of entertainment. Of passivity. More than that, there is an inescapable and irreducible personal dimension to the Christian life that is lacking in television “churches.” It centers in the personal fellowship with the other members of Christ’s body, fellowship around His Table.
I know, I know. I sound like a reactionary traditionalist – I know. I should come into the twentieth century. The century of the sleek, high-tech Church. Perhaps there is some nostalgia lurking behind my reaction to the Bakkers. But let’s not be deceived. A Christian civilization is not built by dramatic media splashes, as important as they can be in the short run. A Christian civilization is built by faithful men and women who week-by-week reconsecrate themselves to the Lord in Word and Sacrament, and who day-by-day seek to obey the Lord and take dominion in their particular callings. Some sincere and faithful men and women have been and will be called to work in mass media. For that we should praise God, but let’s not expect too much of them.
Published with written permission from Dr. Peter Leithart. Edited and Updated from The Geneva Review, September 1987.
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