Challenges in Video Preaching

Engaging in the digital world may sometimes not be perceived as an opportunity but only as a challenge for the Church. That might lead to total avoidance or to an excessively critical posture. These are some challenges that may arise connected to the use of the virtual environment are Digital Wellbeing and the use of Artificial intelligence.

I think that, on the one hand, we shouldn’t ignore the challenges of the digital world, especially mobile technology. On the other hand, what needs to be underlined is the reality of digital technologies in daily life, the way they have changed our life and the way it becomes almost impossible to avoid them. Maryanne Wolf, brain researcher specialist, as concerned as she is with the brain and its abilities facing a digital era, is very clear in stating:

I have little doubt that the next generation will go beyond us in ways we cannot imagine at this moment. As Alec Ross, the author of The Industries of the Future, wrote, 65 percent of the jobs our present preschoolers will hold in the future haven’t even been invented yet. Their lives will be extended much beyond ours. They may well think very different thoughts. They will need the most sophisticated armamentarium of abilities that humans have ever acquired to date: vastly elaborated deep-reading processes that are shared with and expanded through coding, designing, and programming skills, all of which will be transformed by a future that none of us—from Stewart Brand, Sundar Pichai, Susan Wojcicki, Juan Enriquez, and Steve Gullans to Craig Venter and Jeff Bezos—can now predict.[1]

The digital world and mobile technology are not shrinking but will continue to expand in ways we can hardly figure out by now.

Here a broader look into the social history of the media and their assimilation is helpful. Burke and Briggs for example, offer an extensive overview of technologies from Gutenberg to the digital era. Their rise, the controversies, the research and the final acceptance and assimilation by society.^[2] However, the Church and the digital world do not need to be antagonistic. Neither should be inferred that the Church would be condoning a problematic or even destructive digital culture and behavior by engaging in it. The fact mostly every technology suffered similar criticism before being accepted and adopted by the Church indicates that engagement and discernment could two sides of the same screen as we touch the topic from a Christian perspective.

On the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), there are many concerns about recent developments in the area in the 2020’s. Drawing on Wolf’s comments about the digital world, we can say that AI is here to stay. We have been using it for quite a while now, like when we grab pictures for a Power Point presentation, use emojis, do online banking or shop online. Another example of daily life includes self-service. For example, in Canada some people are against the AI technology of self-check outs because they close job posts, but many do use self-gas-pumps and self-banking, among other self-services. It would be contradictory to be against technology while making profitable use of it at the same time. The way ahead is not dismissal, but discernment.

 In this context, the opportunity should not be missed. People are immersed in the digital world whether we deem it to be in a proper or not so proper manner. To make use of technology then is to engage in digital education and literacy and foster conversation, perhaps even helping with the difficult issues. Does it come with challenges and risks? It certainly does. However, the Church is used to challenge and risk, as she dealt with it through the ages. The Ecumenical Councils and their times; Reformation challenges; The development of the Enlightenment, and the rise of the Historical Critical Method illustrate it well. And the same holds true for our age. As Bernard Bull puts it, his readers “should realize the fact that one cannot choose the age in which to live, but one can decide how to respond to that age”.^[3]  Our approach as Lutherans to these and other challenging topics will be similar as we do with every new resource. We use the tension between content and forms to craft ways of serving the Content of the Gospel to a world in need of Hope. We can respond to our age by making faithful use of content and form in rites/ceremonies/resources working together to share Christ in the World.

Video preaching is risky. As forms matter, they are not necessary to the true unity of the Church. Being creative and investing in a variety of ways means taking on risks and embracing tension. But it is worth taking. While established traditions and forms of expression have been recognized as valuable to the Church, none of them are part of the essence of the Church, rather, an outgrowth of it. For video preaching this adventure is even richer due to the challenge of communicating with a wide and 'invisible' audience. Traditional Lutheran homiletics has a vast production and, as Schmitt points out, it is a tapestry where, probably, no one has the whole piece, but everyone can contribute as a part. Video preaching, however, is still a piece in the making, a field that can be widely explored and to which this essay sought to make a small contribution. Utilizing the fundamentals of Lutheran homiletics gives solid basis for the task of the video preacher. AC VII gives the security and certainty of the existing possibilities and alternatives so that the Word and Sacraments, the essence of the Church, reach people in the forms and rites that best suit the context in which it is inserted.

Form and content then work together to share the Gospel of Hope in our secular age whenever and wherever a screen is at hand.

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[1] Wolf, Maryanne. “Reader, Come Home; the Reading Brain in a Digital World.” First Harper paperbacks edition. New York: Harper, 2019, p.169

[2] BRIGGS, Asa; BURKE, Peter. A social history of media: from Gutenberg to the Internet. Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Zahar Ed., 2006. 2nd ed., p.19 Briggs and Burke notice that the idea of the social spectacle – public rituals, for example – can be traced back to as far back as, at least, the 17th century. “The word “spectacle”, commonly used in the 17th century, was resurrected in the 20th century”. Video preaching, despite its distinctive characteristics, does not seem to be a pioneer in its appeal to emotion and its tendency towards massification. The assertion that “the spectacle has become the world”, derived from The Society of the Spectacle (1967), must be contrasted with the comment of Richard Adler, American television writer: “The small screen seriously limits the effectiveness of the spectacle”. Another point highlighted by Burke and Briggs is the fact that most of the criticisms leveled at television in the 1960s and 1970s are outdated. However, "some seem curiously persistent." Television continues to be criticized for being an agency of reduction and trivialization of issues and news, as well as a negative force, distorting content, and facts. However, McLuhan, in the 1980s, was already much less cited than 20 years earlier. The debates went further, especially addressing the role of the family. Many said that children needed protection from television, but there was little consensus on how to do this. It appears, therefore, that, having received fierce criticism, especially between the 1960s and 1980s, television has also been seen, more recently, with less prejudice and from positive angles, as an example, its use as a vehicle of information and information.

^[3] Bull, Bernard Dean, “Digitized: Spiritual Implications of Technology”, Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House. 2018.