More Media Musings

Many years ago, back in the sixties, I think it was, John Lennon commented in an interview that he guessed the Beatles were probably more popular than Jesus at that time. What a firestorm of outraged protest that remark produced! Christian groups publicly burned Beatles records, Lennon was denounced as some kind of monster (well, he caught a lot of that in those days), etc., etc. True, coming out of his mouth, those words sounded like the most egotistical statement imaginable. But also true, Lennon was probably right. A lot of people (or even fictional characters) popularized in the mass media are so well known around the world that yes, in this secular age we live in, it's quite likely that they are better known than Jesus.

A quick history lesson. Back in the 1950s and 1960s in America, "the norm" ( if I dare say such a thing) was that people went to church on Sundays. Families got dressed up, they brought their children to Sunday School, they all went to worship. Stores were closed on Sundays. There were no kids' soccer games on Sunday (not that any kids in America were playing soccer back then.) In some communities, even the movie theaters were closed.

But then things started to change. I am not going to venture any chicken-or-egg theories here, but stores began to be open on Sundays, professional football began to dominate Sunday afternoons, people began to work all sorts of different schedules and sometimes had to work on Sundays (or Sunday was their only day off and they had to do errands), etc. And people began going to church less often. The children whose parents brought them to Sunday school in the 1950s and 1960s grew up and had children of their own, and they didn't bring them to Sunday school or church. And now those children are grown and have children of their own, and guess what? Some of them may not only have never gone to church, they may never have heard of Jesus.

But all of these children have grown up in front of the TV set, and they do know all the TV characters, really well. They may not know any church hymns, but they do know all the popular songs of their generation. Today's children may not know who John Lennon was, but they sure do know Britny Spears (and I don't even know if I spelled that right!). In today's world, there are probably a lot of people (and fictional characters) that are better known than Jesus.

In the November 16 issue of the magazine The Christian Century, Jason Byassee writes about "Pop Pulpits": the struggle of the preacher to present the message of Jesus Christ to a congregation accustomed to the pyrotechnics of mass media hype. He suggests, without coming out and saying these exact words, that maybe for kids today, Mickey Mouse is more real than Jesus. In reviewing a new book called "The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust," Byasee suggests there is sort of a "Disney gospel" to be found in the movies and TV shows produced by Disney: "a consistent set of moral and human values" that are presented with "scarcely a mention of God." Is it possible that an entire generation has grown up with its values learned at the feet of Mickey Mouse rather than Jesus?

This is a thought on which I have more to say than I have time to write at the moment. Stay tuned for further musings.