Bill Muehlenberg, Culture Watch, Apr. 2024
The iron grip of endless entertainment impacts everything, even the churches:
As we all should know by now, the best way a tyrant can keep the masses in control and prevent them from challenging their overlords is to keep them distracted – usually with endless, brainless entertainment. It is the old ‘bread and circuses’ routine to keep people enslaved without them really even knowing it.
Such is the all-powerful impact of entertainment that most Western churches have also fell under its spell. So many seem to think the only way to compete with the world is to become just like the world. Just consider the recent “strip show-like” entertainment offered at a men’s conference and all the bruhaha which followed from that with Mark Driscoll and John Lindell.
Thankfully some Christian leaders have been calling out this obsession with entertainment. One voice in the wilderness in this regard was A. W. Tozer. He often spoke out against this. For example, he said that the church
appears to have decided that if she cannot conquer the great god Entertainment she may as well join forces with him and make what use she can of his powers. So today we have the astonishing spectacle of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so-called sons of heaven. Religious entertainment is in many places rapidly crowding out the serious things of God. Many churches these days have become little more than poor theatres where fifth-rate “producers” peddle their shoddy wares with the full approval of evangelical leaders who can even quote a holy text in defense of their delinquency. And hardly a man dares raise his voice against it.
And again:
It is now common practice in most evangelical churches to offer the people, especially the young people, a maximum of entertainment and a minimum of serious instruction. It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God. One can only conclude that God’s professed children are bored with Him, for they must be wooed to attend a meeting with a stick of striped candy in the form of religious movies, games and refreshments.
One last remark by Tozer: “Jesus Christ never offered amusement or entertainment for His disciples, but in our day we have to offer both if we are going to get the people – because they are common Christians.”
But here I want to present one important secular voice who speaks to these matters. I refer to Neil Postman (1931-2003) and his very important 1985 volume, Amusing Ourselves to Death. I have quoted from this book often, but it pays to share even more of it here. By offering some choice quotes I might convince some of you to go out and get a copy and read it for yourself.
Click on Link Below to Continue Reading
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/04/25/entertainment-and-the-death-of-a-culture
Back in 1985 it may have seemed that entertainment would doom the secular culture but that’s not the case today because entertainment is no longer entertaining or amusing. Even comedians today complain that they can’t do comedy anymore, likely because of the DEI requirements they face. Disney doesn’t entertain anymore either, like many other productions don’t. They’ve all become “social justice” enterprises, not entertainment.
If culture is doomed, it’s from those other “social justice” forces at work.
As for churches, no, the Gospel cannot be taught in an amusing context when it’s a matter of salvation – eternal Life or death. Souls are at stake.
The children should learn now and play later, like in school.