Just who am I talking to?
I had ask myself that question recently . . . not only about the readers of this blog . . . but concerning a book I'm working on.
I've been writing here about the Business of Religion. My assumption has been most who stop here are just as saturated and fed up with “Christian-eze” that sucks the life out of so many people who have been around religious folks too much.
Trouble is, I'm REALLY good at it! I can pop in-an-out of it like my African missionary uncle did switching between Swahili and English during a conversation. And he was irritating at times.
That's part of the problem being a recovering God-junkie. That insatiable thirst for learning all things I could ABOUT God sucks you into a Religion Culture with it's own language and lingo. Try going cold turkey on Religion and find relationship with Jesus and his precious Spirit, you are marked a pariah, an odd ball, often an outcast. You don't want to follow the yardstick of performance they say is a must for God's smile.
I'm also a struggling survivor in this media rich culture, trying to stay relevant. As a communicator, I can just lay back in my religious language boat and float along, pounding out Christian-eze phrases at an ever-shrinking group of readers. Or, I can suck in my artistic ego and work harder at communicating to younger, media bombarded audience.
I come from a generation who, as a survey In 1950 found, 75% of American children could recite the Ten Commandments and had a familiarity of the Bible.
Scarcely fifty years later – in 2000 – a similar survey found basic
familiarity of Bible had decreased over 94% to scarcely 4% of the population.
This generation has sadly been labeled the first biblically illiterate generation in the history of the United
States. Yet the "Christian TV" efforts still tries to toss Bible terms out like candy at a parade and expect their absentee audiences to accept them as truth simply because they say so. I did survive the public school system, but it was prior to the overhaul of American education. Too many people want to blame the late atheist Madalyn Murry O'Hair for the God-removal in our culture. However, it was atheist and educational reformer John Dewey who swore he would, “rid God from his place in the American educational system.”
Poet and activist Allen Ginsburg paraphrased the philosopher John Locke when he said, "He who controls the media, the images, controls the culture." Between 1933 and 1966, every movie script shot by the major Hollywood studios was voluntarily submitted to the Protestant Film Board for a read-through before production. The studios were facing bankruptcy in the 1930 because families had stopped going to moves because of the violence, profanity, and nudity on the screen.
But the Golden Age of Movies and Television came to an end when, in 1966 the Catholics, then the Baptists, took their salt and light influence and walked away from Hollywood. Into that moral vacuum stepped a host of ungodly, degrading, and violent influences which worship entertainment only as their religion and money as their daily bread.
Perhaps J. M. Barrie, the British playwright who penned Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, could be referring to this generation when he said “one’s religion is whatever he is most interested in.”
I could waste time “cursing the darkness,” by decrying the e-e-e-evilness of the media and movies. Organized religion has not always had a good reputation for recognizing the difference between talent and tools verses the motives and uses for those Heaven-sent opportunities.
I remember reading about the American inventor Thomas Edison wanting to give the rights to motion picture technology to his Christian denomination; he was turned down with a lack of interest.
Instead, this technology has brought us to the common experience upon which we stand. The movies we've watched; the Internet sites available at the tap of a few key stokes; the online entertainment that beckons us in our down time; all these voices have spoken with a religious-like impact which often confuses, but seldom calms. They create a hunger for affirmation which a credit card and social media doesn’t satisfy.
If you've reached and survived the ripe old age of seventeen, one study in 2003 by the Movieguide says you were most likely been influenced by over 63,000 hours of media. Now this compares to the paltry 11,000 hours you endured in school. Remember all that homework, don’t you?
Now, I don’t know if your parents were “cool” or you thought they were “creatures from the Black Lagoon.” They only had 4,000 hours to speak into your life.
When it came to formal religion, if you were a “regular church goer,” there was 800 hours or less than 1% of God-influence.
So, I will assume we have mutual experiences to draw upon in this media-rich culture my generation birthed and passed on. I won’t assume I understand it at all nor presume you understand the language nuance of things about God and faith I speak of.
Perhaps we'll find some common ground to stand on. I'll listen. Perhaps our two generations with be able to communicate.
No comments:
Post a Comment