Appendix
3
Excerpts
from A. W. Tozer’s book:
THE
MENACE OF THE RELIGIOUS MOVIE
At the age of twenty
until his death forty-one years later, A. W. Tozer was a prolific writer
and faithful pastor of the Alliance Churches in Nuter Fort and
Morgantown, West Virginia; Toledo, Ohio: Indianapolis, Indiana: Chicago,
Illinois; and Toronto in Canada. His grasp of spiritual concepts has
been widely recognized by Christians in all walks of life. In Warren W.
Wiersbe’s introduction to his book, 52 Favorite Chapters The Best
of A. W. Tozer, he says,
What
is there about A. W. Tozer’s writings that gets hold of us and will
not let us go? Tozer did not enjoy the privilege of a university or
seminary training, or even a Bible School education for that matter; yet
he has left us a shelf of books that will be mined for their spiritual
wealth until the Lord returns.
For
one thing, A. W. Tozer wrote with conviction. He was not interested in
tickling the ears of shallow Athenian Christians who were looking for
some new thing. Tozer redug the old wells and called us back to the old
paths, and he passionately believed and practiced what he taught. He
once told a friend of mine, "I have preached myself off of every
Bible Conference platform in the country!" The popular crowds did
not rush to hear a man whose convictions made them uncomfortable. p.8.
Tozer’s description
of himself best describes his attitude toward spiritual matters. "I
guess my philosophy is this: Everything is wrong until God sets it
right." Ibid., p. 7
Excerpts
from A. W. Tozer’s book, THE MENACE OF THE RELIGIOUS MOVIE
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 shewed 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 builded after a pattern. Not the doctrines only, but the
methods are divinely given. The doctrines are expressly stated in so
many words. Some of the methods followed by the early New Testament
Church had been given by direct command; others were used by God’s
specific approval, having obviously been commanded the apostles by the
Spirit.
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 truck 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. [1-3]
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.
Deep spiritual
experiences come only from much study, earnest prayer and long
meditation. It is true that men by thinking cannot find God; it is also
true that men cannot know God very well without a lot of reverent
thinking. Religious movies, by appealing directly to the shallowest
stratum of our minds, cannot but create bad mental habits which unfit
the soul for the reception of genuine spiritual impressions. [10,11]
The religious movie
is a menace to true religion because it embodies acting, a violation of
sincerity.
Without doubt the most
precious thing any man possesses is his individuated being; that by
which he is himself and not someone else; that which cannot be finally
voided by the man himself nor shared with another. Each one of us,
however humble our place in the social scheme, is unique in creation.
Each is a new whole man possessing his own separate "I-ness"
which makes him forever something apart, an individual human being. It
is this quality of uniqueness which permits a man to enjoy every reward
of virtue and makes him responsible for every sin. It is his selfness,
which will persist forever, and which distinguishes him from every
creature which has been or ever will be created.
Because man is such a
being as this all moral teachers, and especially Christ and His
apostles, make sincerity to be basic in the good life. The word,
as the New Testament uses it, refers to the practice of holding fine
pottery up to the sun to test it for purity. In the white light of the
sun all foreign substances were instantly exposed. So the test of
sincerity is basic in human character. The sincere man is one in whom is
found nothing foreign; he is all of one piece; he has preserved his
individuality unviolated.
Sincerity for each man
means staying in character with himself. Christ’s controversy
with the Pharisees centered around their incurable habit of moral play
acting. The Pharisee constantly pretended to be what he was not. He
attempted to vacate his own "I-ness" and appear in that of
another and better man. He assumed a false character and played it for
effect. Christ said he was a hypocrite.
It is more than an
etymological accident that the word "hypocrite" comes from the
stage. It means actor. With that instinct for fitness which
usually marks word origins, it has been used to signify one who has
violated his sincerity and is playing a false part. An actor is one who
assumes a character other than his own and plays it for effect. The more
fully he can become possessed by another personality the better he is as
an actor.
Bacon has said
something to the effect that there are some professions of such nature
that the more skillfully a man can work at them the worse man he is.
That perfectly describes the profession of acting. Stepping out of our
own character for any reason is always dangerous, and may be fatal to
the soul. However innocent his intentions, a man who assumes a false
character has betrayed his own soul and has deeply injured something
sacred within him.
No one who has been in
the presence of the Most Holy One, who has felt how high is the solemn
privilege of bearing His image, will ever again consent to play a part
or to trifle with that most sacred thing, his own deep sincere heart. He
will thereafter be constrained to be no one but himself, to preserve
reverently the sincerity of his own soul.
In order to produce a
religious movie someone must, for the time, disguise his individuality
and simulate that of another. His actions must be judged fraudulent, and
those who watch them with approval share in the fraud. To pretend
to pray, to simulate godly sorrow, to play at worship
before the camera for effect — how utterly shocking to the reverent
heart! How can Christians who approve this gross pretense ever
understand the value of sincerity as taught by our Lord? What will be
the end of a generation of Christians fed on such a diet of deception
disguised as the faith of our fathers?
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 that the end is everything, and sanctifies the means,
however evil, if only the end by commendable. The wise student of
history will recognize this immoral doctrine. The Spirit-led Church will
have no part of it. [12-15]
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? Let the
movie advocates quote just one verse, from any book of the Bible,
in any translation, to justify its use. This they cannot do. The best
they can do is to appeal to the world’s psychology or repeat brightly
that "modern times call for modern methods." But the
Scriptures — quote from them one verse to authorize movie acting as an
instrument of the Holy Ghost. This they cannot do.
Every sincere
Christian must find scriptural authority for the religious movie or
reject it, and every producer of such movies, if he would square himself
before the faces of honest and reverent men, must either show scriptural
credentials or go out of business.
But, says someone,
there is nothing unscriptural about the religious movie; it is merely a
new medium for the utterance of the old message, as printing is a newer
and better method of writing and the radio an amplification of familiar
human speech.
To this I reply: The
movie is not the modernization or improvement of any scriptural method;
rather it is a medium in itself wholly foreign to the Bible and
altogether unauthorized therein. It is play acting — just that, and
nothing more. It is the introduction into the work of God of that which
is not neutral, but entirely bad. The printing press is neutral; so is
the radio; so is the camera. They may be used for good or bad purposes
at the will of the user. But play acting is bad in its essence in that
it involves the simulation of emotions not actually felt. It embodies a
gross moral contradiction in that it calls a lie to the service of
truth. [18,19]
God has ordained
four methods only by which Truth shall prevail — and the religious
movie is not one of them.
Without attempting to
arrange these methods in order of importance, they are (1) prayer, (2)
song, (3) proclamation of the message by means of words, and (4) good
works. These are the four main methods which God has blessed. All other
biblical methods are sub-divisions of these and stay within their
framework. [20]
The religious movie
is out of harmony with the whole spirit of the Scriptures and contrary
to the mood of true Godliness.
To harmonize the
spirit of the religious movie with the spirit of the Sacred Scriptures
is impossible. Any comparison is grotesque and, if it were not so
serious, would be downright funny. Try to imagine Elijah appearing
before Ahab with a roll of film! Imagine Peter standing up at Pentecost
and saying, "Let’s have the lights out, please." When
Jeremiah hesitated to prophesy, on the plea that he was not a fluent
speaker, God touched his mouth and said, "I have put my words in
thy mouth." Perhaps Jeremiah could have gotten on well enough
without the divine touch if he had a good 16mm. projector and a reel of
home-talent film.
Let a man dare to
compare his religious movie show with the spirit of the Book of Acts.
Let him try to find a place for it in the twelfth chapter of First
Corinthians. Let him set it beside Savonarola’s passionate preaching,
or Luther’s thundering, or Wesley’s heavenly sermons, or Edward’s
awful appeals. If he cannot see the difference in kind, then he
is too blind to be trusted with leadership in the Church of the Living
God. The only thing that he can do appropriate to the circumstances is
to drop to his knees and cry with poor Bartimæus, "Lord, that I
might receive my sight."
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? [24-26]
I am against the
religious movie because of the harmful effect upon everyone associated
with it.
First, the evil effect
upon the "actors" who play the part of the various characters
in the show; this is not the less because it is unsuspected. Who can,
while in a state of fellowship with God, dare to play at being a
prophet? Who has the gall to pretend to be an apostle, even in a
show? Where is his reverence? Where is his fear? Where is his humility?
Any one who can bring himself to act a part for any purpose, must
first have grieved the Spirit and silenced His voice within the heart.
Then the whole business will appear good to him. "He feedeth on
ashes; a deceived heart has turned him aside." But he cannot escape
the secret working of the ancient laws of the soul. Something high and
fine and grand will die within him; and worst of all he will never
suspect it. That is the curse that follows self-injury always. The
Pharisees were examples of this. They were walking dead men, and they
never dreamed how dead they were.
Secondly, it
identifies religion with the theatrical world. I have seen recently in a
Fundamental magazine an advertisement of a religious film which would be
altogether at home on the theatrical page of any city newspaper.
Illustrated with the usual sex-bait picture of a young man and young
woman in a 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.
Thirdly, 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?
Fourthly, 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 extend 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.
Fifthly, the religious
movie is the lazy preacher’s friend. If the present vogue continues to
spread it will not be long before any man with enough ability to make an
audible prayer, and mentality enough to focus a projector, will be able
to pass for a prophet of the Most High God. The man of God can play
around all week long and come up to Sunday without a care. Everything
has been done for him at the studio. He has only to set up the screen
and lower the lights, and the rest follows painlessly.
Wherever the movie is
used the prophet is displaced by the projector. The least such displaced
prophets can do is to admit that they are technicians and not preachers.
Let them admit that they are not sent-men, ordained of God for a sacred
work. Let them refuse ordination and put away their pretense.
Allowing that there
may be some who have been truly called and gifted of God, but who have
allowed themselves to be taken in by this new plaything, the danger to
such is still great. As long as they can fall back upon the movie, the pressure
that makes preachers will be wanting. The habit and rhythm
which belong to great preaching will be missing from their ministry.
However great their natural gifts, however real their inducement of
power, still they will never rise. They cannot while this broken reed
lies close at hand to aid them in the crisis. The movie will doom them
to be ordinary. [26-29]
In conclusion:
One thing may bother
some earnest souls: why so many good people approve the religious movie.
The list of those who are enthusiastic about it includes many who cannot
be written off as border-line Christians. 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 of 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 up
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, but I suppose it is better than
nothing, 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. I heard the president of a
Christian college say some time ago that the Church is suffering from an
"epidemic of amateurism." That remark is sadly true, and 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 for one 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. But let us take heart: there are
still many thousands of Christian people who grieve to see the world
take over. If we draw the line and call attention to it we may be
surprised how many people will come over on our side and help us to
drive from the Church this latest invader, the Spirit of Hollywood.
[29,30]
