EXCERPTS FROM "THE MENACE OF THE RELIGIOUS MOVIE"
By A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
http://www.biblebb.com/files/tozermovie.htm
When God gave to Moses the blueprint of the Tabernacle He was careful to include every detail; then, lest Moses should get the notion that he could improve on the original plan, God warned him solemnly, "And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shown thee in the mount." God, not Moses, was the architect. To decide the plan was the prerogative of the Deity. No one dare alter it so much as a hairbreadth.
The New Testament Church also is built after a pattern. Not the doctrines only but the methods are divinely given. ...
FROM GOD'S REVEALED PLAN WE DEPART AT OUR PERIL. EVERY DEPARTURE HAS TWO CONSEQUENCES, THE IMMEDIATE AND THE REMOTE. The immediate touches the individual and those close to him; the remote extends into the future to unknown times, and may expand so far as to influence for evil the whole Church of God on earth.
The temptation to introduce "new" things into the work of God has always been too strong for some people to resist. THE CHURCH HAS SUFFERED UNTOLD INJURY AT THE HANDS OF WELL INTENTIONED BUT MISGUIDED PERSONS WHO HAVE FELT THAT THEY KNOW MORE ABOUT RUNNING GOD'S WORK THAN CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES DID. A solid train of box cars would not suffice to haul away the religious rubbish which has been brought into the service of the Church with the hope of improving on the original pattern. These things have been, one and all, positive hindrances to the progress of the Truth, and have so altered the divinely-planned structure that the apostles, were they to return to earth today, would scarcely recognize the misshapen thing which has resulted.
Our Lord while on earth cleansed the Temple, and PERIODIC CLEANSINGS HAVE BEEN NECESSARY IN THE CHURCH OF GOD THROUGHOUT THE CENTURIES. Every generation is sure to have its ambitious amateur to come up with some shiny gadget which he proceeds to urge upon the priests before the altar. That the Scriptures do not justify its existence does not seem to bother him at all. It is brought in anyway and presented in the very name of Orthodoxy. Soon it is identified in the minds of the Christian public with all that is good and holy. Then, of course, to attack the gadget is to attack the Truth itself. This is an old familiar technique so often and so long practiced by the devotees of error that I marvel how the children of God can be taken in by it. ...
Surely it requires no genius to see that the Bible rules out pictures and dramatics as media for bringing faith and life to the human soul. ...
The plain fact is that no vital spiritual truth can be expressed by a picture. Actually all any picture can do is to recall to mind some truth already learned through the familiar medium of the spoken or written word. Religious instruction and words are bound together by a living cord and cannot be separated without fatal loss. The Spirit Himself, teaching soundlessly within the heart, makes use of ideas previously received into the mind by means of words.
If I am reminded that modern religious movies are "sound" pictures, making use of the human voice to augment the dramatic action, the answer is easy. Just as far as the movie depends upon spoken words it makes pictures unnecessary; the picture is the very thing that differentiates between the movie and the sermon. The movie addresses its message primarily to the eye, and the ear only incidentally. Were the message addressed to the ear as in the Scriptures, the picture would have no meaning and could be omitted without loss to the intended effect. Words can say all that God intends them to say, and this they can do without the aid of pictures. ...
"The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach." Here, and not somewhere else, is the New Testament pattern, and no human being, and no angel from heaven has any right to alter that pattern. ...
THE RELIGIOUS MOVIE EMBODIES THE MISCHIEVOUS NOTION THAT RELIGION IS, OR CAN BE MADE, A FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT. This notion has come upon us lately like a tidal wave and is either openly taught or tacitly assumed by increasing numbers of people. Since it is inextricably bound up with the subject under discussion I had better say more about it.
The idea that religion should be entertaining has made some radical changes in the evangelical picture within this generation. It has given us not only the "gospel" movie but a new type of religious journalism as well. It has created a new kind of magazine for church people, which can be read from cover to cover without effort, without thought---and without profit. It has also brought a veritable flood of religious fiction with plastic heroines and bloodless heroes like no one who has ever lived upon this well known terrestrial ball.
That religion and amusement are forever opposed to each other by their very essential natures is apparently not known to this new school of religious entertainers. ...
I believe that most responsible religious teachers will agree that any effort to teach spiritual truth through entertainment is at best futile and at worst positively injurious to the soul. But entertainment pays off, and THE ECONOMIC CONSIDERATION IS ALWAYS A POWERFUL ONE IN DECIDING WHAT SHALL AND WHAT SHALL NOT BE OFFERED TO THE PUBLIC--EVEN IN THE CHURCHES. ...
Religious movies are mistakenly thought by some people to be blessed of the Lord because many come away from them with moist eyes. If this is a proof of God's blessing, then we might as well go the whole way and assert that every show that brings tears is of God. Men and women who are dedicated to sin and appointed to death may nevertheless weep in sympathy for the painted actors and be not one bit the better for it. The emotions have had a beautiful time, but the will is left untouched. THE RELIGIOUS MOVIE IS SURE TO DRAW TOGETHER A GOODLY NUMBER OF PERSONS WHO CANNOT DISTINGUISH THE TWINGES OF VICARIOUS SYMPATHY FROM THE TRUE OPERATIONS OF THE HOLY GHOST. ...
The plea that all this must be good because it is done for the glory of God is a gossamer-thin bit of rationalizing which should not fool anyone above the mental age of six. Such an argument parallels the evil rule of expediency which holds the end is everything, and sanctifies the means, however evil, if only the end be commendable. The wise student of history will recognize this immoral doctrine. The Spirit-led Church will have no part of it.
It is not uncommon to find around the theater human flotsam and jetsam washed up by the years, men and women who have played false parts so long that the power to be sincere has forever gone from them. They are doomed to everlasting duplicity. Every act of their lives is faked, every smile is false, every tone of their voice artificial. The curse does not come causeless. It is not by chance that the actor's profession has been notoriously dissolute. HOLLYWOOD AND BROADWAY ARE TWO SOURCES OF CORRUPTION WHICH MAY YET TURN AMERICA INTO A SODOM AND LAY HER GLORY IN THE DUST.
The profession of acting did not originate with the Hebrews. It is not a part of the divine pattern. The Bible mentions it, but never approves it. Drama, as it has come down to us, had its rise in Greece. It was originally a part of the worship of the god Dionysus and was carried on with drunken revelry. ...
Now, for the religious movie where is the authority? For such a serious departure from the ancient pattern, where is the authority? For introducing into the Church the pagan art of acting, where is the authority? ...
Arguments for the religious movie are sometimes clever and always shallow, but there is never any real attempt to cite scriptural authority. ...
But some say, "We do not propose to displace the regular method of preaching the gospel. We only want to supplement it." To this I answer: If the movie is needed to supplement anointed preaching it can only be because God's appointed method is inadequate and the movie can do something which God's appointed method cannot do. What is that thing? We freely grant that the movie can produce effects which preaching cannot produce (and which it should never try to produce), but dare we strive for such effects in the light of God's revealed will and in the face of the judgment and a long eternity?"
I am against the religious movie because of the harmful effect upon everyone associated with it. ...
It identifies religion with the theatrical world. I have seen recently in a Fundamentalist magazine an advertisement of a religious film which would be altogether at home on the theatrical page on any city newspaper. Illustrated with the usual sex-bate picture of a young man and young woman in tender embrace, and spangled with such words as "feature-length, drama, pathos, romance," it reeked of Hollywood and the cheap movie house. BY SUCH BUSINESS WE ARE SELLING OUT OUR CHRISTIAN SEPARATION, AND NOTHING BUT GRIEF CAN COME OF IT LATE OR SOON.
THE TASTE FOR DRAMA WHICH THESE PICTURES DEVELOP IN THE MINDS OF THE YOUNG WILL NOT LONG REMAIN SATISFIED WITH THE INFERIOR STUFF THE RELIGIOUS MOVIE CAN OFFER. OUR YOUNG PEOPLE WILL DEMAND THE REAL THING; AND WHAT CAN WE REPLY WHEN THEY ASK WHY THEY SHOULD NOT PATRONIZE THE REGULAR MOVIE HOUSE?
The rising generation will naturally come to look upon religion as another, and inferior, form of amusement. In fact, the present generation has done this to an alarming extent already, and the gospel movie feeds the notion by fusing religion and fun in the name of orthodoxy. IT TAKES NO GREAT INSIGHT TO SEE THAT THE RELIGIOUS MOVIE MUST BECOME INCREASINGLY MORE THRILLING AS THE TASTES OF THE SPECTATORS BECOME MORE AND MORE STIMULATED. ...
In conclusion
One thing may bother some earnest souls: why so many good people approve the religious movie. If it is an evil, why have not these denounced it?
The answer is, lack of spiritual discernment. Many who are turning to the movie are the same who have, by direct teaching or by neglect, discredited the work of the Holy Spirit. They have apologized for the Spirit and so hedged Him in by their unbelief that it has amounted to an out-and-out repudiation. Now we are paying the price for our folly. The light has gone out and good men are forced to stumble around in the darkness of the human intellect.
The religious movie is at present undergoing a period of gestation and seems about to swarm over the churches like a cloud of locusts out of the earth. The figure is accurate; they are coming from below, not from above. The whole modern psychology has been prepared for this invasion of insects. THE FUNDAMENTALISTS HAVE BECOME WEARY OF MANNA AND ARE LONGING FOR RED FLESH. WHAT THEY ARE GETTING IS A SORRY SUBSTITUTE FOR THE LUSTY AND UNINHIBITED PLEASURES OF THE WORLD, AND IT SAVES FACE BY PRETENDING TO BE SPIRITUAL.
Let us not for the sake of peace keep still while men without spiritual insight dictate the diet upon which God's children shall feed. The religious movie represents amateurism gone wild. UNITY AMONG PROFESSING CHRISTIANS IS TO BE DESIRED, BUT NOT AT THE EXPENSE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. IT IS GOOD TO GO WITH THE FLOCK, BUT I REFUSE MUTELY TO FOLLOW A MISLED FLOCK OVER A PRECIPICE.
If God has given wisdom to see the error of religious shows we owe it to the Church to oppose them openly. WE DARE NOT TAKE REFUGE IN "GUILTY SILENCE." ERROR IS NOT SILENT; IT IS HIGHLY VOCAL AND AMAZINGLY AGGRESSIVE. WE DARE NOT BE LESS SO.
The previous excepts are from "The Menace of the Religious Movie" by A.W. Tozer (1897-1963). For the complete article see
http://www.biblebb.com/files/tozermovie.htm
