Word of God over Media

Thoughts from Bro. Sams:

Charles Colson wrote in A Dangerous Grace the following thoughts about No Graven Images.

“Neil Postman’s devastating critique of television Amusing Ourselves to Death, was welcomed by critics, reviewed in all the right magazines - but not once did we learn where Postman got his ideas. It turns out, he got them from the Bible.

Postman’s thesis is that different types of media encourage different ways of thinking. The printed word requires sustained attention, logical analysis, and an active imagination. But television, with its fast-moving images, encourages a short attentions span, disjointed thinking, and purely emotional responses.

Postman says he first discovered this connection in the Bible. As a young man, he read the Ten Commandments and was struck by the words: “‘You shall not make for yourself a graven image.”’ Postman says he realized that the idea of a universal deity cannot be expressed in images but only in words. As he writes, “‘The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word, an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking.”’

This is the God Christians worship today - a God known principally through His Word. Many religions have a scripture, of course. Yet most teach that the way to contact the divine is through mystical visions, emotional experiences, or Eastern-style meditation. Judaic Christianity alone insists on the primacy of language.

Gene Edward Veith, in Reading Between the Lines, explains why” The heart of our religion is a relationship with God - and relationships thrive on communication. We cannot know people intimately by merely being in their presence. Veith says. It takes conversation to share thoughts and personalities. Christians are meant to have an ongoing conversation with God. We address Him in the language of prayer, and He addresses us in the language of Scripture.

Historically, this emphasis on the Word has had a deep impact on Western culture. In earlier societies, reading was confined to an elite. It was the Reformation that first aimed at universal literacy, so that the Bible could be put into the hands of every believer.

Today, missionaries are still doing the same thing. Yet we are in danger of coming full circle. The visual media created by modern science may ultimately undermine literacy, turning us back into an image-based culture. In the Old Testament, God’s people were tempted by graven images.

Today the images are graven by electronics on cathode-ray tubes. Christians need to learn when to flip the switch - to remain true to our historical reputation as the “‘people of the Book.”’