Really, I should have just gone with McLuhan and Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and been done with it, don’t you think?
Oh no – instead I have to reach back to an almost 60-year old out-of-print novel and just go on and on and on about it, right?
Eh, well. I think it turned out all right, it got folks thinking and talking, and I’m glad 
about that. I’ll be even more glad if it gets people to read The Hack and maybe even inspire someone to bring it back into print.
I’ve been sitting here all week, thinking and stewing about what else to say about all of that. I have a lot, but I’m having a devil of a time organizing my thoughts. I spent much of today reading Douthat’s Bad Religion, thinking it might help. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t.)
But jump back up to that first paragraph. That’s really all I was trying to say, wasn’t it? The medium is the message and it’s worth asking if medium and message are actually serving the Gospel.
Anyway, I’m going to toss up a few more posts about this over the next few days. I really don’t have a choice. It has to get out of my brain so I can think about other things. As a way of framing, I invite you to first head over and read today’s (Sunday’s) Mass readings. I’ll wait.
You may think it odd and perhaps even annoying, the way I’m always framing my thoughts in relation to hints and nudges from the liturgical days and seasons. Well, there’s a reason for that: I believe the stuff. I believe that the Spirit works through the Church to guide me, even in dumb things like blog posts – and that what I encounter in that gift is more trustworthy than what I randomly pick out myself. We do not know how to pray as we ought Paul says – but the Spirit guides us. And the way the Spirit guides us is through the Stuff of the Church.
So, those readings:
The reasonings of mortals are unsure and our intentions unstable; for a perishable body presses down the soul, and this tent of clay weighs down the teeming mind. It is hard enough for us to work out what is on earth, laborious to know what lies within our reach; who, then, can discover what is in the heavens?
However, I did not want to do anything without your consent; it would have been forcing your act of kindness, which should be spontaneous. I know you have been deprived of Onesimus for a time, but it was only so that you could have him back for ever, not as a slave any more, but something much better than a slave, a dear brother; especially dear to me, but how much more to you, as a blood-brother as well as a brother in the Lord.
Great crowds accompanied Jesus on his way and he turned and spoke to them. ‘If any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple. Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
Huh.
The intention of my essay was to explore how the medium in which we share faith can work to shape that faith.
What seems to me has happened. In the world. In a nutshell:
(Note: I’d trace the origins of all of this back much further than Douthat does – of course much of it is old heresies and strains popping up, as they do, but more specifically, we had have to head back to Nominalism, then the Reformation and Enlightenment and global awareness and mobility and phenomenology and existentialism..well, never mind)
- A general sense of objective, transcendent reality beyond the vaguest “something out there” has collapsed. No more.
- Religious authority – both teaching and governing – no longer has authority
- Truth is – and here’s where that Moral Therapeutic Deism comes in – about emotion and experience.
So what does that leave us, if we’re talking about communicating spiritual matters?
It leaves us exchanging experiences and judging them according to their impact on us within whatever our chosen framework of values happens to be. That’s it.
And doing so – here’s where the medium comes in – in a consumer-oriented culture via mass media and – this is what McLuhan and others of his era did not and could not have anticipated – mass media that is within the power of every individual to create and produce.
What is evangelization in this landscape, then? Mostly Personalities generating and marketing content centered on personal experiences.
Further, the degree to which these preachers, teachers and influencers hold authority is dependent on market success, which in turn is dependent on how they reflect the popular and privileged values of the market to which they are appealing.
This is not a new problem. Evangelicals, in particular, have been hashing over the issue for years – perhaps even since the era of Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson. It’s 
particularly acute and apt for evangelicalism because while authority is centered on Scripture, without liturgy, the power and particular authority of that proclamation in a given moment can be deeply dependent on the “power” “gifts” or simply general impact of the proclaimer.
Neither is the particular issue – personality-centered communication tempting us to privilege the messenger over the message – that particular to religion. The line between being impacted by a preacher, teacher or leader’s unique skills and making an idol of that person – or that communicator or leader cannily exploiting that gift for ill – is a well-worn one. The phrases “feet of clay” and “fallen idol” weren’t fabricated yesterday. Miss Jean Brodie, you’re wanted in the faculty lounge, right?
But mass media, and 21st century instant, user-generated mass media takes that temptation – on both sides – to another level.
And there you have this perfect storm and what I’m coming to think of as a reverse form of Donatism. In an era in which a sense of objective, transcendent reality is lost and seen as no longer within our grasp, experience and personality is all we have left, and is easier than ever to distribute on a mass level, which then, since that content is centered on the person making it and in the center of it – just reinforces the notion that what matters is not objective truth about The Real, but, yes -experience and personality.
Donatism, strictly understood, was a heresy that taught that sacraments offered by sinful ministers weren’t valid. My modern-day reverse Donatism suggests that the message is only authoritative if the messenger is credible – according to the values of the current moment, that is.
This isn’t just about the big picture. Consider your local parish. Well, perhaps not your local parish, but a local Catholic church. The example is undoubtedly transferable to other denominations, but this is what I know, so we’ll go with it.
You may not do or think this, but perhaps you are aware of those who do: judging that a Mass was a valuable spiritual experience based, not on the content of the prayers or the central action – but on the personality of the celebrant.
That priest didn’t smile at all during Mass, did he? Wasn’t very meaningful. Didn’t get anything out of it.
So what I was inviting was a critical look at this landscape. And guess what? It’s okay to be critical. Test everything. Someone said that once. Anyone with half a teaspoon of historical awareness can tell you that the expression and shape of religious faith reflects the culture in which it exists – we can see it in Catholic spiritual practices that grow in times of persecution, or in monarchical, hierarchical societies or in non-Western cultures – everywhere.
In 19th century America, popular Christian writings and practices from all denominations reflected various anxieties and concerns, from “true womanhood” in the mid-century to “muscular Christianity” later on (which gave rise, for example, to the YMCA). Norman Vincent Peale’ Power of Positive Thinking could only have been written when it was – that post-World War II period of American prosperity, hope and progress. And so on.
It’s no different today. We live in particular, peculiar times. We do our best, but there’s no reason to assume that just because something’s got a Christian or Catholic label slapped on it – no matter what the source – that it absolutely coheres to the actual core of the faith – as best as we mortals with our unstable intentions can figure.
So be aware. Be aware of it as a communicator, as a consumer and listener. Be aware of the landscape in which you’re doing your work and seeking. Be aware of the temptations, the risks, the ways in which your proclamation might be subtly shaped by your own desires, needs (including material) and the demands of the current moment – Bert Flax believed that he had to write in a certain way or else he’d lose his income and no one would listen – he’s doing so much good.
Is it all, ultimately, pointing to Christ? Is it revealing or hiding, avoiding or obfuscating the Gospel? Am I helping or hurting? Am I centering or distracting? Is it, bottom line – healthy?
Test everything.
Test it all against this – every word:
Anyone who does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
…this is the Christ we proclaim, this is the wisdom in which we thoroughly train everyone and instruct everyone, to make them all perfect in Christ. It is for this I struggle wearily on, helped only by his power driving me irresistibly.
Charlotte was Both 