political, religious and spiritual causes.
problems of spiritual disconnectedness. Young people will be reached through electronic
means; baby boomers will feel more comfortable worshiping in a building that resembles
their offices or the mall. The belief that technical means will solve the church's alienation
from society fails to realize that it risks turning its message into a commodity, further
alienating people by misunderstanding their true needs and questions. The technical
format reduces church growth, discipleship, theological education and missions to a
technical problem that has a technical solution. In this sense a technicized gospel is closer
to Bultmannianism than Evangelicals think because it does not reckon with the necessity
of divine intervention.
A Surreal Gospel
If the medium contextualizes whatever it communicats, the textual and literate
decontextualize any message. In other words, if a message is not commensurate with its
medium it will become distorted. Evangelicals argue for an indigenous approach to
evangelism using all forms of cultural expressions. However, the notion that any means
are acceptable appears too promiscuous. Ellul noted that because revelation took a
particular orientation or form, "it cannot be spread by just any method. There is a need to
discern and evaluate the means, even when the technological methods are legitimized in
advance."
technology merely continues the work of the printing press begun by Reformers.
Technology is neutral and therefore controlled by its ends. This represents a knee jerk
reaction to a sensitive question that Evangelicals have largely answered in advance in
attempts to justify their uncritical acceptance of technology. Unfortunately, it does not
offer a thoughtful approach. Nor does it address the fact that means do effect and
determine ends.
assent to information then TV and modern communications represent the best available
medium. Electronic mediums are highly effective in transmitting information. However,
those who believe that salvation requires simple assent to information and that only the
lack of means prevents the transmission of global evangelism represent a revival of the
ancient Gnostic heresy of belief in knowledge. Gnosticism found salvation in the
accumulation of data, as one Neo Gnostic commented, Gnosticism could be characterized