The Medium is the Message

"The medium is the message" was a famous statement made by Marshall McLuhan and I am reflecting on its veracity. Having been raised in the evangelical tradition, I have always been taught that the media we use to present the gospel does not have any significance -- the unchanging message is the only thing that matters. But does something about the message of the gospel become cheapened or compromised by plastering it on a billboard or summarizing it in a pamphlet or blaring it on the radio or broadcasting it on TV? Evangelicals have always been at the forefront of harnessing new technologies for the sake of "winning souls." Whether it was the dawn of the printed page or the radio or the TV or the internet or Facebook, evangelicals have had no hesitations about adopting such media for their cause.

But something within me fears that our uncritical inculcation of new forms of media has actually changed the message. Let's take Jesus for example. What were Christ's media? First, it was the spoken word and the telling of stories. Second, it was in eating; the bread and the wine communicated the gospel to people. Both of these methods are what I would call incarnational. They meet people where they are in the flesh. They are personal, intimate, and community-oriented. Contrast this with the new "Drive-thru churches" or "e-churches" popular in our day. Such media communicate that the gospel is essentially about information rather than relationship, about abstract propositions instead of community. The spoken word and food seem to be the preferred media of God because the form of media that we use is not morally neutral. Media itself communicates a message and can either strengthen that message or undermine it.

When I preach on Sunday before a small, intimate audience of hurting people who are haunted by fears and anxieties and I declare, "Take heart for God has overcome the world!" this is a very different experience than a televangelist impersonally pleading for money before a video camera and persuading his listeners with the words, "Take heart for God has overcome the world!"

I believe that it is no coincidence that teens and twenty-thirty somethings are flocking to churches which use liturgy, symbols, proclamation, and ancient forms of worship such as the Eastern Orthodox Church. In an age so saturated with multiple forms of media, young people hunger for intimacy, community, and incarnationality. Perhaps we would do well to return to the ancient practices of the church rather than trying to innovate by planting churches in hollowed out movie cinemas. Let's trust Christ's preferred media and assume that he knows what he's doing by offering us Word and Sacrament.

(Credit to Warren Cole Smith, author of A Lover's Quarrel with the Evangelical Church, for inspiring me to write this post).

Letter Concerning Evangelism

Recently on a Facebook thread I made the accusation that many evangelicals have an "ulterior motive" in many of their friendships. By relating to others simply for the reason of converting them, I believe we cheapen the gospel, salvation, and the mission of Christ. A good friend of mine has challenged me on this view recently and I would like to share an e-mail that I sent to him which attempts to explain more completely my position on evangelism. The conversation has become somewhat heated in the past, but I've tried to keep myself calm as I respond. Here is the letter:

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Thank you, {Friend}. Your letter helps clear up some things. I never mind being questioned and challenged pointedly. That is all part of being called to lead the church in pastoral ministry. I want to be perfectly clear:

1) I still believe in proclaiming the gospel with words and in trying to "convert" non-believers. I preach the gospel each week and make no apology for doing so. Just last weekend I spent my entire time with the Greenville FMY in Potosi, MO. You can ask Greg Groves if he thinks I have misrepresented the gospel after my four sermons to their group. I think I declared it loudly and clearly (an unapologetically).

2) I react negatively to Christians who seem incapable of loving people simply for the sake of loving them. Much of the evangelism I was brought up in reduced people to "projects." Salvation is diluted into a formula which says, at it's heart, "If you want to get your butt into heaven, then you need to pray this prayer" (aka "say the magic words"). My soteriology leads me to conclude that this is a far cry from the call to discipleship that Jesus gave.

3) I agree with St. Francis: "Preach the gospel at all times and, if necessary, use words." I think our post-Enlightenment, modernistic culture has overvalued propositional statements and the verbal communication of those statements almost to the point that "evangelism," when boiled down to its basic essence, is merely the insemination of knowledge. This is the ancient gnostic heresy. Instead, I believe the gospel is mysteriously communicated sometimes simply through a helping hand, a warm meal, or a smile. I am sick and tired of the church telling me to damage my relationships with other human beings by guiltily jamming doctrines down their throat when they are not yet ready for it.

4) Evangelism must always answer the question people are asking. If I were to simply tell my alcoholic friends that they must accept a list of orthodox doctrines, pray a prayer, etc., then I would not be answering the question that they are asking. They desire to know how to be free of their addiction and, according to Luke, a physical healing is also a spiritual one. It is the hyper-spiritualized gospel of modern evangelicalism which bifurcates the body from the soul -- a dichotomy that would have been foreign to the authors of the Bible.

5) I do not intend my comments to be mean-spirited, but to simply stir up a conversation about the following questions: "What is the gospel? What is salvation? Is it merely getting into heaven or does it involve individual/societal transformation in the here and now? And by what means do we spread this good news?" {Friend}, I have spent the last three years of my life trying to answer these questions. I have taken graduate courses in missiology and soteriology. I'm not making a flippant, thoughtless accusation. Instead I believe I should call the truth as I see it and I see many modern evangelistic methods as doing more harm than good.

6) I think the main question for you and I to answer is this: "What is salvation?" The answer to that question will largely determine our methods of spreading it.

7) I have never desired to be an apologist for the Democratic party and I would hate to think I could ever alienate someone from Christ because of my political views. I do, however, think that the gospel holds political implications just as John Wesley, B. T. Roberts, and many others from our tradition have maintained.

I could write so much more, but this will serve as a starter for this conversation. In short, I accuse some evangelicals of having an ulterior motive in relationship because that is what I once had in many of my relationships during high school. I think this resulted in damage to the cause of Christ. Do I want my friends to come to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior? Of course I do! But I do not think that is accomplished by reducing people into projects. Perhaps this clears some things up.

With Love and Respect,
Greg

Nothing to Do But Save... People

I once read a book by Robert Coleman, a former professor here at Asbury, entitled "Nothing to Do But Save Souls." This phrase comes directly from the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. Unfortunately, the church has forgotten about the Hebrew meaning of soul and instead replaced it with the Greek understanding of soul. For the Hebrew, a person does not have a soul; a person is a soul. There is no distinction between soul and body. The spiritual needs of Greg Coates are intimately related to the physical needs of Greg Coates -- a fact that modern science in confirming. Oftentimes the answer to spiritual depression is as "earthy" as exercise, good sleep, a nice meal, and some sunshine. Conversely, a sick soul can lead to physical sickness as well. Our bodies and souls are intimately connected and cannot be separated from one another.

This is the problem with much of 20th century evangelicalism. Somewhere along the line we became convinced that the church is called to heal sick souls... and nothing more. We ministered to an invisible, interior world of feelings, guilt, psychology, etc. My own Free Methodist Church even adopted as its slogan "One More Soul" to describe our mission and focus. But a gospel sent to minister to people's souls alone is a truncated and diluted gospel.

A close reading of the Bible will not allow us to fall into this dualistic thinking. We have more records of Jesus healing people from blindness, from demon-possession, and from sicknesses than we do of Jesus ministering to people's "souls" (in the Greek sense of the word).

This is why I found Viv Grigg's call for holistic ministry so refreshing. By refusing to divide body from soul, Grigg sums up the natural progression that takes place for a pastor who is concerned about the well-being of his people:

"1. Proclamation leads to disciplemaking.
2. Disciplemaking leads to pastoral issues.
3. Pastoral issues result in building a new social structure where economic needs can be discussed and enumerated.
4. A new social structure involves dealing with politicians and seeking changes in public policy or political personnel."

I once believed that the pastor of a congregation must be decidedly unpolitical. I can no longer affirm this now that I accept the fact that Christ ministers to the whole person. And in this I have once again become a good Methodist. John Wesley and B. T. Roberts were incredibly active on the political scene. I guess at least I'm in good company.