Chapter 3: Audio Autonomy

Could it be that well-meaning evangelical conservative preachers, authors, and their media ministries have contributed to today’s church-dating phenomenon without wanting to or even realizing it? In the last twenty years, the Christian world has been flooded with teaching and preaching recordings that have been distributed via the Internet, on DVDs and CDs, and in MP3 or other formats. We listen to them at home, in our cars on the way to work, or while we exercise.

If you’re like me, you have probably listened to countless sermons online. Before the Internet, I ordered cassette tapes from a mail-order sermon library in New Zealand and I’d listen to ‘epic’ sermons—at least, that was how I thought of them at the time. I had previously never heard preaching like it. It was how I learned much of my theology. Faithful preachers and Bible teachers actually opened their Bibles and asked me to do the same. It was wonderful. My spiritual growth was multiplied. Sadly, that had not been my early Christian experience as I listened to sermons in my local church. Unfortunately, more Christians know what I mean than we like to admit.

Since the creation of the Internet, sermon resources have been accumulating by the thousands and now there are many good websites to access for wonderful sermon-listening. Many preachers today will upload their sermons to their church websites. Those in solid Bible-teaching churches acknowledge that the impact of this has been positive. Spiritually thirsty saints have been given easy access to sermons and resources from the very best of today’s expositors and faithful Bible teachers. I still take advantage of these resources today.[1]

But is there more to it than that?  Has there been a downside?

Just as the printed Bible was a blessing to the church, but also made spiritual individuality more possible, so too have recorded sermons been a blessing but have also distanced the sermon-experience from corporate involvement. None of us would undo the introduction of the printed Bible to the world. Similarly, none wish that we had not had access to great sermons on cassettes, CDs, or in digital format. Yet, we should still recognize their negative contribution upon church life in general.

Writing about the great Welsh expositor Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who preached from 1927 till close to his death in 1981, Iain Murray says,

[Lloyd-Jones] was not enthusiastic about the circulation of his tape-recorded sermons. One reason was an apprehension over their possible misuse; for the human voice, delivering the message, is very secondary to the presence of Christ in a service of worship and no human means can reproduce that presence. Sermons should be heard in the context of worship, not listened to casually as one might to anything else.[2]

Lloyd-Jones foresaw the downside of listening to recorded sermons. Surely, the current state of the church would have shocked him even more than he could have anticipated. Body-life, worship, and sermon-listening are now separate events and Christians have the freedom to choose their favorites from each category.

Has our audio autonomy led to some unhealthy trends in church attendance?  Next week we’ll think further about the sad reality of church dating.

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[1] There are really good reasons to record sermons, such as leaving a legacy for future generations of Christians, saving special messages for reference material in a church library, or saving weekly messages for people who are sick or unable to attend.

[2] Iain H. Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2008), 19.

Chapter 2: Religious Television

Religious television has been around for many years and it is broadcast worldwide. While on a short-term missions trip to a Ugandan village in 2007, my mud-hut hosts were excited to share with me and Sereena their wonderful appreciation for an American tele-“evangelist” whom we watched for several minutes sell his wares to an unsuspecting audience. Sadly—or thankfully, or both—our hosts could not afford the “gospel” he offered. Neither could I.

“Religious broadcasting—like every other aspect of religious life—has evolved through the post-war period. Unquestionably Christian at the outset, it has come, sometimes reluctantly, to reflect a much greater religious diversity in which Christian views are seen as one alternative among many including the areligious and agnostic.”[1]

Today, religious broadcasting encompasses many forms of religious expression—from crusades, to mercy ministry, hymns of yesteryear, modern worship, evangelistic efforts, prayer, recorded church services, healing, teaching, and holiday specials. No matter your denomination or exposure to religion, there’s something for everyone. Christians need to exercise biblically-informed discernment in a most vigilant manner at all times. So much of what is called “Christian” on television simply isn’t.

No matter whether the content of religious programming is biblically sound or not, there has been an ancillary impact upon Christian life—that is, the separation of sermon-listening from the gathered Christian community. Talking about religious broadcasting in 1994, Grace Davie writes, “[It] is, in many respects, the extreme case of belief without belonging, for it seems to permit, encourage even, a rather self-indulgent form of armchair religiosity.”[2] That phrase, “belief without belonging,” represents the sad tale of evangelicalism over the past thirty years and the situation is growing worse. Individualism and autonomy drove the early demand for religious television and televised worship experiences. It makes perfect sense to stay at home where you can still get the benefit of ‘doing church’ but without all the irritations of people and problems. But is it beneficial in God’s eyes? Do we really benefit from churchless Christianity? The Bible answers, “No.”

Now, maybe you’re already convinced that the church cannot be replaced by televised religious programming, but there is another trend that may have affected you without your knowledge—it is a supplementing-trend rather than a replacing-trend. I call it “audio autonomy” and we’ll delve into that next week.

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[1] Grace Davie, Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1994), 112.

[2] Ibid., 113.

Chapter 1: Gutenberg’s Bible

This week, we start a journey through selected historical events that have moved Christians away from community and toward individuality. We start by looking at the invention of the printing press.

Before Johannes Gutenberg began printing Bibles in AD 1455, Christians were dependent upon the church to supply God’s Word to their ears. It’s the faithful preaching of key Protestant pastors and the growing availability of printed Bibles that are credited for the long-term success of the Reformation. For the first time, people had personal access to God’s written Word. They could see it with their own eyes at their own convenience. They could ask questions about it, study it, and find their own answers. Not everyone had a Bible at first, but as other printing presses came online and distribution increased, so did the ability for Christians to read it for themselves and make up their own minds about theological subjects, the Christian life, and the gospel.

In hindsight, this is exactly what was needed given the years of theological abuse conducted by the Roman Catholic Church, which had failed to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and had kept the people subjugated and ignorant. “The Roman Catholic Church would never recover the cultural dominance it had once enjoyed. Gutenberg, a faithful Catholic, never foresaw that his invention would cripple the church he loved.”[1] The printing press made it possible for individual Christians to hear a Word from God without the intrusion of an abusive church hierarchy. Of course, this was a magnificent and needed thing. It resulted in the wonderful Protestant Reformation without which many of us would still be far from the Lord.

For the first time, it was possible to be independent of the church if someone had reason to be, although that independence didn’t develop quickly. Even after printed Bibles were widely distributed among lay people, their agrarian lifestyle meant that farming communities still valued public meetings in schoolhouses and churches. Up until the nineteenth century, reading had still been a communal affair. Groups of people would gather to hear a reader publicly read a book, a letter, or a newspaper.[2] Agricultural villages settled by a network of dependent traders and generations of families who had never known anything but their land and their local people, looked to each other for knowledge and learning. Community consensus was vital. And a community based on interpersonal relationships prevented individualistic autonomy. Without relationships a person could literally die.

Since the societal connections and goods-trading practices of the local community spilled over into the life of the church, spiritual independence didn’t come about simply because of technological advancement. The printing press didn’t create selfish autonomy in the church. Rather, autonomy in the church was spurred on by the growing prideful autonomy of secular culture that influenced the church over the next five hundred years. Having said that, the printing press did make individual Bible-reading—and therefore a growing individualism—possible. A very good thing made a bad thing more feasible. The printing press made it possible for the autonomy ball to keep rolling.[3] Its momentum would not be seen in its totality until the twentieth century.

Next week, we’ll discuss the impact of religious television on the modern Christian.

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[1] Tim Challies, The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 2011), 43.

[2] Elizabeth Drescher, Tweet If You [Love] Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2011), 64.

[3] Marshall McLuhan traces the societal changes that took place as books were introduced to communities, providing text portability, personal individuality, and independence in The Gutenberg Galaxy; The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 206–22.

SECTION ONE: Sermon-Listening Trends

Change / n.

1.     A variation or alteration; a passing from one state or form to another; a change of habits or principles.

2.   A succession or substitution of one thing in the place of another.

3.   A passing from one phase to another.

—Webster’s Dictionary

Things change over time, sometimes without even being noticed. Eyesight is one of those things. I remember when my father had his eyes checked by an optician. Dad believed his eyesight was just fine. He really didn’t want to spend money on the checkup but was compelled by my mother who was frustrated that dad’s perception of reality had become quite different to hers. I think dad’s driving might have provided the context for her concern. So he got the tests done, received the bad news, ordered the glasses, and left the optician’s rooms trying to recover from the shock of it all—including the cost.

When he wore his new glasses for the first time, he couldn’t believe the difference. He was surprised to see birds sitting in distant trees and houses lining the neighborhood hilltops. He was amazed! He’d been missing out for so long and didn’t even know it. The change in his failing eyesight had been so gradual it had escaped his notice. And of course, my mother was fully satisfied with the result.

Similarly, a gradual and unnoticed change has taken place in the way Christians listen to sermons. Decades ago, listening to a sermon was a community affair. It used to be that fellowship and sermon-listening were inseparable. But today, that just isn’t the case. Listening to preaching and body-life have drifted apart—a drift that has taken place almost imperceptibly.

Maybe there’s always been a propensity for people to separate God’s Word from loving accountability. This accountability-avoidance problem has actually existed for centuries. The author of Hebrews addressed the issue when some refused to meet with other believers to encourage and stimulate them to a life of love and good deeds (Heb 10:24–25). But it seems that the pursuit of individualism and personal autonomy has skyrocketed in recent years. As a result, the desire to listen to a sermon alone and thereby avoid communal accountability has become more prevalent.

How did this happen? Like my father’s eyesight, a change has taken place without our knowledge. What’s been the catalyst for dividing two essential aspects of Christian experience? The gradual change is motivated by our sinful propensity for prideful independence, and it’s been powered by the advancements of travel and technology.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll think back over the last few years and track the change.

Introduction

There is no ‘I’ in ‘TEAM.’

—Author Unknown

There is no ‘I’ in ‘CHURCH.’

—Keith Drury

This blog is about congregational sermon-listening. It answers the question: How do ‘sermon-listening’ and ‘fellowship’ go together?

For many Christians, listening to sermons has become an individualistic exercise. Today’s Internet technology and ability to travel has made it very easy for us to select the very best of the rockstar-preachers rather than commit ourselves to the faithful pastor who preaches week-in and week-out in our own congregation. We choose for ourselves what and who we listen to. Our sermon-listening is a little more self-serving than it used to be. Some no longer see the local church as a necessary element in their spiritual growth because they can get their spiritual sustenance from outside the local church. Neither do they see the fellowship and accountability provided in the local church to be necessary in their spiritual progress. While easy Internet access to great sermons preached by great preachers has indeed been a blessing, there has also been a downside. It’s been detrimental to the life of the local church, and therefore detrimental to our own personal growth. Preaching, genuine fellowship, and local church accountability go hand-in-hand. If you see it—if I see it—and if we both commit to practice it—we all win.

Community-oriented listening to God’s Word is what we need.

In the past twenty years technological developments have changed the way we listen to sermons. The Internet, MP3s, MP4s, Facebook, SimChurch, Christian conferences, long haul domestic and international flight, blogs, chat rooms, television, fuel efficient cars, Twitter, the virtual church—technology has revamped the way Christians ‘do church.’ It started years ago with inventions such as the printing press, the Ford Model A motor car, and the cassette tape.

Technological advances are good. I’m connected. I have a smart phone. I like new gadgets. I have a blog. I convinced my wife that I needed the new iPad. Some of my sermons are available online. I download other preacher’s sermons and listen to them. I’m certainly not against using technology for the sake of the spread of the gospel. But here’s the thing—the impact of technology in the church needs to be evaluated every step of the way. If we’re not careful the very thing we believe is helping could also be having a negative effect on the church. For instance, is it helpful to attend an online church conducting your ‘Christian’ experience through the representative life of your own personal avatar? Maybe it comes as a shock, but that’s exactly how some people ‘do church.’

So with recent technological developments in mind, the first set of posts will describe recent sermon-listening trends. The second and third set of posts will establish helpful sermon-listening principles. The main body of blog posts will focus specifically on the corporate elements of sermon-listening. We need to find ways to experience church-wide impact from our pastor’s sermons. The next set of posts is for your pastor. It will encourage him to find ways to connect with the entire congregation making church-wide sermon-response a possibility. Finally, the last set of posts will provide pointers for church-goers who find themselves wanting for biblical sermons.

A subtle and devastating trend is emerging and it must be seen for what it is—the relegation of preaching in the local church to an optional extra. This blog solidly connects the preaching event to local church practice and necessary body-life dynamics. We need to recover congregational sermon-listening. Will you join me on this journey? We are on the same team. Let me show you why. Let me show you how.

Catch you again in a week . . .