Flipping through channels the other day I came across a worship service, produced by a local Christian church. It left much to be desired. Washed out colors, long camera shots from boring angles, ancient graphics.It bothered me. My initial thought was: here is another church taking the most powerful message on earth and subjecting it to mediocrity, at best.
However, my reaction made me question my assumptions about aesthetics and where I stand on the ever-present debate of form vs. function. And this, especially in the context of current cultural forces.
I once debated a program manager of a religious television network along these lines. He insisted on playing old material that matched the description of the above worship service. His perspective was that the content itself was too good to shelve. I argued that poor production value compromised the effectiveness of the network as it attempted to compete in the present television milieu.
Of course, that was based on my assumption that competition was his main goal (or even one of his goals), as is mostly the case with traditional television outlets. Which makes for an interesting set of questions.
What do religious organizations hope to achieve by having a presence on television? Is the goal to maximize audience size or to simply fulfill a (co)mission of presenting a message?
In theological terms, which ranks above the other, form or function? And is that even a fair question or one that could be easily answered?
What assumptions are we making when it comes to television? Is television itself an aesthetically oriented medium or simply a broadly applied vehicle of communication?
And are certain aesthetic approaches more effective at creating and communicating messages over one medium vs. another (a derivative of Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” argument).
Further, what role do aesthetics play in the expression and presentation of religious messages? Historically, communities of faith have, for the most part, embraced artistic expression. Arguably, prior to the Renaissance, the Christian church at-large dominated the (western) world of art and relied heavily on creative forms of presentation.
By contrast, a significant portion of today’s Church seems to have streamlined its commitment to the arts, and to aesthetic value in general.
One wonders if this shift from form to function was influenced by larger cultural dynamics such as the Modernism movement in western architecture. Catalyzed by the likes of Adolf Loos, who claimed that “ornament is criminal” and Louis Sullivan who coined the phrase “form (ever) follows function”.
The connection is rather loose. However, I can’t help but wonder whether there’s been a cultural trickle down effect leading to the function-oriented view adopted by some churches.
In the end, a counter movement is also evident as more and more newly started local churches are integrating artistic value into both facility design and ministry. The trend has led to conferences such as C3 (Creative Churches Conference) hosted by the Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX.
At the same time, flipping through local channels on any given Sunday morning makes the case that the above questions still linger in our society. I’ll be considering perspectives and implications to these questions in upcoming entries.
(Image courtesy of autowhich)
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My view is that of Sullivan. Form must always follow function. A well presented message of no content is just pretty. That is not to say that form is insignificant. High quality content with poor presentation dilutes the content. Form without function is simply a facade. Function without form is likely boring and forgettable, but still has substance. Both are necessary for good execution.
I've noticed a similar kind of example when walking through the UNT campus to get to class. About once every month, there is this "Christian" speaker who likes to perch himself in a heavily traveled area. He begins to start yelling and babbling different things out from the Bible in the most disturbing way. You can hear the anger and frustration in his loud voice and he yells at the college students, telling them that they will burn in hell if they don't change. Students who stop to argue with him usually end up walking away laughing because the speaker starts to personally attack them.
I haven't stayed long enough to listen, but most of the things he is saying can probably be found in the Bible. He's just presenting it with 100% function and -100% form. Random thoughts come through my mind when I pass this speaker. What can he possibly hope to achieve with such a hostile presentation? What are his motives? Is he in this to convert people to God or to just hate the non-Christians? I mean to be honest, if Satan was in the area, I don't think he would have done much to stop this man. Instead he probably would have sat on the side, stroking his beard, with a sly smile on his face. The speaker was achieving one thing and that was giving people a sour and bitter taste in their mouths about Christianity.
It kind of reminded me of your blog, about how those pre-historic looking Christian television broadcasts put that same taste in your mouth. I think the motive behind the broadcasts or of the speaker need to be questioned. What are they hoping to achieve? What are their goals? If they are doing everything for the right reasons, then they just need to get with the times, add form, and become more effective.
Crazy as it seems now, the Renaissance was a Christian-led period of creativity of expression and a way to present Christ. One of my biggest issues with traditional church is the lack of creativity -- a stifled environment of the same rituals week after week. I greatly appreciate when careful thought and planning has gone into a service to captivate the congregation.
I see media in a similar light. This is yet a newer form of expression to share God's message. If the rest of us in this world are viewing creative production ideas in the TV world around us, we'll likely judge a basic presentation as something that had very little thought and overall worth.
I'll agree that the message is always more important, but the package can be a beautiful way to enhance the message. I'm think looking up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling proves it.
Interesting thoughts . . . nothing bugs me more than poorly presented media in any channel, which we see a lot of in our own denomination.
On the flip side, I think of publications our church puts out, and often we're reading in rather old English. While it seems that paraphrasing the original text into something more modern would make it more readable, I'm not nearly as drawn to the paraphrases.
They're somehow an accommodation to today's culture that seems to dilute the uniqueness of the message.
A friend encouraged me to watch a dvd presentation that was of the worst production quality I'd seen in recent memory. I forced myself to work through the first several minutes, and ignore the 1980's plain red backdrop. Then I began to notice the content, which was excellent. Soon, the annoyance with the quality faded, and I was somehow drawn in.
I wonder if sometimes God uses the mediocre as a way of engaging us because it's not what we're used to being saturated with on a daily basis from modern culture.
To the OP ... most people flipping through the channels would keep going. I only watched that kind of stuff if the content was truly BAD and I could make fun of it ...
The appropriate question is not about whether form should follow or form versus function; marrying form and function is the only way to create genuinely memorable communication.
Don't quibble about outdated communication; it might have been a beautiful marriage of form and function in its day. And don't quibble about current messages that seem stilted or slighted. Instead, create memorable communication by bringing form and function together to share the good news of God's love.
Wow, is that pastoral!
Unfortunately the answer to this question is "it depends...". If your content/form are the only images of a plane ditching in the Hudson River or an alien ship landing, it does not matter how poorly composed the image is. It's compelling and EVERYONE is going to view it.
Spiritual content is on the other side of the spectrum. The world is full of it and many people are over-full of it. Therefore form becomes much more important than the substance of the message. This is difficult to take for those of us who have spent our lives trying to get the substance just right.
In the television business you can make pigs fly and rocks sing. If a ministry wants its message heard, they must embrace the very best in production value, or go out and get some video of alien ships landing.
Interesting thoughts, Costin!
I don't know if I would derive what is happening with mainstream church media from Modernism. Nor do I find it relevant to compare form and function on theological terms, as these are universal elements.
I think what many churches do in telecasting their services accomplishes little more than your local library broadcasting their author's readings on public access, except with one major distinction: the county has few misgivings that they will radically change the eternal destiny of an individual's life by the viewing of their lecture.
As an audio-visual medium, television in itself is only as effective as the content creators who utilize its 2D space to craft a design, and that presentation requires an inseparable marriage of form and function.
The aesthetic is always important (again, I see it as an inseparable part of the whole); in television it happens to primarily be the images, but even something like attending a sermon in person has an "aesthetic", and many people would agree that an incredibly well-written sermon would easily fall flat with horrible delivery, i.e.--without the aesthetics of a great oral presentation.
Of course, what you and I both respond so negatively to is the fact that there is very little (if any) consideration to how it might be used more effectively. Nor is there any thought as to how such poor production might even communicate things they aren't intending to present--we could point out many qualities that would hurt the church's image.
But overall the main problem is that the media is not created with the preconditioned needs of their broadcast audience in mind. That takes a lot of planning and effort as you know well, and most churches aren't willing to go that route.
In other words, the media they create is always a secondary tangent that's little more than an improper recycling. The result: a bad translation to a very different medium.
Let me give one example: film adaptations from books. Most people lament two things--that the film was not as thorough as the book, and that it was also very different. Once you study both mediums you realize those are naive notions, because they're extremely different.
Just my two cents.
I don't think the good Lord gave us brains just to fill the void in our heads with an organ. He added "substance" to the organ to make it one of the most intriguing, compelling, and mysterious biological wonders in the realm of science and medicine.
If we took the same approach to what we create there would be no argument between form and function.
This debate can be traced back to the 16th Century when the great composer Palestrina has to debate the Concil of Trent that a draconian ban on polyphonic treatment of text in sacred music was unnecessary.
These debates usually become important when the mission of the entity discussing form vs. function is undefined. THE DISCUSSION OF FORM VS FUNCTION ENDS AT THE AUDIENCE. What matters is THE AUDIENCE.
Going back to Christ, he chose carefully the setting of His message in another words, he chose carefully his form to energize the function. His words "The Kingdom of Heaven is like..." were the marriage of form and function. There was no debate, there was only a perfectly delivered package, one message with memory triggers to remind His audience of the Kingdom of Heaven. It was true 21st Century animated billboard advertising.
Now, what do I learn from Christ methodology? I need to choose the best vehicle for my message. Is it the "Blair Witch Project" production format or a Swordfish like production? It has to do with who your audience is, what your message is, what is your content design.
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