Proclaiming the Gospel in the Age of Show Business

Over thirty years ago, educator Neil Postman warned of the detrimental effects of television on society in his insightful book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.^[1]Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (Viking Penguin, 1985). Postman convincingly argued that the medium of television inherently militates against rational argument, thus degrading public discourse. He perceived that this has had far-reaching negative consequences in many areas of American society, including the realms of the news, politics, and religion. 

Today, Postman’s warning about the problematic effects of the medium of television in society is more relevant than ever. The development of the technologies of the internet and the smartphone since Postman’s time have essentially put televisions in everyone’s pockets that can be accessed at any time and place. There is constant access to the passive, often mindless entertainment of television around the clock. As a result, attention spans decrease, any attempt to hold people’s attention must compete with always-accessible television entertainment, and people’s brains are literally rewired by these new technologies in a way that militates against rational discourse.

Decades ago, Postman had already warned how the “age of show business” had a detrimental effect on American religion, and his warning is even more relevant today. As the Church attempts to proclaim the gospel and to teach doctrinal truth, it must constantly compete for people’s attention with the channels of mindless entertainment that constantly surround them. This leads the Church itself to adopt the techniques of entertainment in order to attract people’s attention, often in problematic ways. 

In contemporary American churches, almost every sermon has to begin with some joke or amusing anecdote in order to get people’s attention, and churches even do sermon series on the “spiritual lessons” of popular movies in order to attract people. Contrast this with the sermons of the great eighteenth century evangelist and revivalist John Wesley, one of the most popular and successful preachers in Church history. None of his sermons use jokes to get people’s attention, and his sermons are consistently serious and theologically dense. There is nothing wrong per se with using humor and pop culture references to get people’s attention, but at what point does this dilute and cheapen the serious theological message the Church is supposed to be preaching?

A church I used to attend would every year organize big festivals for Halloween and other holidays and invite the surrounding neighborhood. This was supposed to be a form of evangelistic outreach that would attract people to the church. At some point the church leadership looked into the actual effects of this, though, and found that, although these festivals were “successful” in terms of the number of people who came to them, all this effort had not actually brought any new, permanent members into the church. They were ways for the congregation to feel that they were doing something to reach unchurched people, but in terms of actual evangelistic outreach, they were completely ineffective. 

The problem with these sorts of attempts to attract people to church through entertainment is that what is being used to attract them has no organic connection with the gospel of Jesus Christ. If people come only because they are interested in being entertained, then they will stay only as long as they are entertained. The only way that people are going to actually become part of the community of Jesus’s disciples is if they are attracted to the beauty, truth, and goodness of the gospel story to such an extent that they are willing to deny themselves in order to become participants in that story. Deep biblical and theological teaching, not entertainment, is the only way to attract people in this way.

A similar problem plagues the postmodern church’s attempts to raise young Christians in the faith. In order to attract young people to Christian youth groups, churches must make youth group meetings more and more focused on games and entertainment at the expense of focusing on theological teaching. This format allows time only for simple spiritual lessons, rather than intensive catechesis. As a result, the vast majority of young Christians in America have only a shallow, superficial understanding of Christianity.^[2]This was clearly demonstrated by the findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion, described in Christian Smith and Melina Lundquist Denton’s book Soul Searching: The Religious and … Continue reading Since understanding how to live as a faithful disciple of Jesus requires a robust understanding of Christian doctrine, this is a major crisis for the American church. Unfortunately, the same shallow, superficial understanding of Christainity exists among many adult Christians as well.

If the American church is going to be truly faithful, it needs to develop radically countercultural communities that can resist the malign influence of the culture of entertainment. It needs to develop disciplined communities in which the serious study of biblical and theological truth is taken seriously and prioritized. At the same time, though, in order to evangelize, the church needs to reach people where they are at. Realistically, how can we do that without to some extent using the techniques of our culture of entertainment? 

There is often a fine line between presenting the gospel message in a winsome manner that will reach people where they are at and falsifying the gospel message. Even well-intentioned disciples of Jesus can become guilty of crossing this line. And it is clear that many American evangelical churches do frequently cross that line.

The problem is, as I mentioned earlier in this post, that the new media of television and the internet literally rewire people’s brains in a way that makes people resistant to prolonged rational discourse and intensive biblical and theological study. There are no easy answers for how the church can go about firmly resisting these sorts of cultural forces. But it is clear that, in order to be faithful, the church must resist diluting and cheapening the serious theological message of the gospel in an attempt to attract greater numbers of people. The quality/genuineness of Christian conversions is more important than the quantity. 

The church must devote itself anew to deep theological catechesis of its converts and youth in a way that resists the shallow and superficial culture of entertainment. This will require a time-intensive process of shaping church member’s characters and mental habits so that they can become agents of such resistance. This will be a very difficult, arduous, and uncomfortable task. Whether the American church is up for such a task is uncertain. But I pray that it can be.