The ability to communicate — readily, at great distances, in robes of light — is so crucial and coveted that in the Bible it is embodied only in angels. When anyone can transmit any amount of information … at any time, instantaneously … the resulting transformation becomes a transfiguration.– George Gilder
On Feb. 16, 1524, the young Gerald Roussel wrote enthusiastically about his first experience of church innovation in Strasbourg. "They sing a psalm of David or some prayer taken from the New Testament. This is sung by everyone, men and women together in fine harmony, a wonderful thing to see. You must understand that everyone has a music book in his hand. That is how they can keep together. I never imagined that it could be as pleasant and delightful as it is." He reminds me of the enthusiasm of my 12-year-old son after attending his first multi-media church service! Hymnbooks were a dramatic new technological innovation back then. Technology was changing and people, their expectations and even their way of living and perceiving changed. People started to analyze, create indexes, make printed arguments, measure things and create new machines.
Today this seems natural to us, but back then it was controversial. Almost everything we understand as traditional Presbyterian worship has been shaped by a world of print and industrial technology. In 1802, when the Industrial Revolution had taken hold with large cotton mills exploiting child labour, William Blake despaired about the "dark satanic mills" he encountered. In the midst of this it is encouraging to note that it was Christians who advocated for change and the humane treatment of workers and the abolishment of slavery.
The church is being reformatted again. Evangelists started using television in the '60s and '70s. Today some churches in Toronto don't have preaching ministers present but relay messages through a screen. Then, of course, there is the praise band with sophisticated electronic musical instruments or pre-recorded music videos making its way into our worship through high-powered sound and projection systems. One observer put it this way, "You see people streaming in to these converted movie houses, looking like last night's refugees, a coffee in one hand, a crisp Bible in the other! What does that mean?" Meanwhile it is fair to say that our average Presbyterian congregation in Canada still does things very much the way they were done in the early 20th century with a bit of Strasbourg, 1524, thrown in for good measure.
Many of us feel dazed and confused due to reams of information streaming at us. Others find it stimulating, new and exciting to be transfigured by the new reality. The same event in worship may touch one of us and leave another cold. No wonder we run into conflicts when our most intimate experiences of worship touch on such dramatically differing forms of consciousness.
Often we debate the pros and cons of the old traditions, but seldom do we look at ourselves and how we have been changed by technology in our world. What are our dark satanic mills? What are our blind spots? How do we use new technologies, and how do they change and even use and reshape us? There seems to be a great inevitability about it all. One elder argued the other day that she hates going to church in a multi-media environment, yet as a Christian she feels that if this is what it takes to help the church survive and share the Gospel it has to be done…
Is this what it takes? What is it exactly that it takes to be a faithful Christian today? Certainly the virtues of faith, hope and love have not changed. Neither have the fruits of the Spirit so beautifully explored in the New Testament. Yet new challenges are presented to our faith, to our ability to love and maintain relationships, to community, to our communication, to our very sense of who we are, what time is, what authority is, what right and wrong are, who God is. These are the challenges we need to explore next month.
