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Robert Wurtz II

ccchhhrrriiisss said:

Sister Katy-did...

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Christopher

A W Tozer (April 21, 1897 - May 12, 1963)

What Religious Movies do you suppose AW Tozer would have been referring to during his lifetime?

The Robe
The 10 Commandments
Sampson & Delilah

All big Hollywood Productions.

He was 2 years older then my Grandfather.

Chris, when I first replied to this thread that Ginnyrose posted, it was keeping in mind the Religious Movies that AW Tozer must have been referring to.....during his lifetime...The Robe, Sampson and Delilah etc, etc, etc, and I completely agree with what he was saying.

So, what **Religious Movies** do you suppose he was talking about??

Bringing things up to today's Religious Movies, would be The Passion of the Christ, another BIG Hollywood film.

Thank you PaulWest,

Chris, I apologize for that comment, and would like to say I wasn't trying to be mean here.

AW Tozer said in the beginning of his article that film itself, is not evil. Used in schools to study science, etc he has no problem with. That was what I was referring to and should have clarified.

Again, I apologize.

Chris, go back and re-read the article again from beginning to end, in teh order of which AW Tozer wrote his thoughts based on the beginning paragraphs. ALL his points are referring to his original beginning paragraphs.

I also re-read the article, and it is deeply spiritual.

You know many people believe that adding to or taking away only belongs to Revelation, however I believe it belongs to ALL of scripture, as ALL Scripture is God breathed.

Jesus Christ is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow. We think Jesus has to keep up with our modern ways and times.

The two witnesses in Revelation won't be showing a Religious Movie to win the crowds will they?

Paul said, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. He didn't take the lazy way out as A. W. Tozer said.

You do know many many Churches were using the Passion as an Evangelistic TOOL as well....also showing in Churches, and continue year after year to show again at Easter. That was my reasons for bringing up this movie.

If A.W. Tozer were alive today, that Movie would certainly be in his article, along with the Prodigal Son Movie.

Did you read the link I left about the Jesus Film Project? It's also rooted in Catholicism.

Considering today and our state of Apostasy, all going home to Rome in one fashion or another, what really is behind the motives of the Jesus Film Project?

God Bless Chris! :-)
Katy

Chris, you have the target in mind with the root. And if anyone recognizes Tozers efforts across his ministry that aspect is almost always what he is after. I share that completely, it is always to somehow get past the surface level or the effects and out-workings and try and grapple with just what it is 'back of them' to use his own phrase.

For some reason I keep shelving the same reply, adjusting it, attempting to make better sense of it ... express the shared dangers of my own experience and present them for consideration, not 'doctrine' as the leap it is we often might make of them. I fear the same is possible even with Tozer's concerns, to couch things in the terms of 'all' may be overshooting and becomes the focus of our attention rather than the root of concern that brings out the effects, efforts, etc.

Why is he so concerned over this matter?

[i]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.[/i]

May be one key here; [i]the simulation of emotions not actually felt[/i].

Sincerity is another, reality even more so, but to go on a bit more first;

[i]Religious movies are mistakenly thought by some people to be blessed of the Lord because many come away from them with moist eyes. If this is a proof of God's blessing, then we might as well go the whole way and assert that every show that brings tears is of God. Those who attend the theater know how often the audiences are moved to tears by the joys and sorrows of the highly paid entertainers who kiss and emote and murder and die for the purpose of exciting the spectators to a high pitch of emotional excitement. Men and women who are dedicated to sin and appointed to death may nevertheless weep in sympathy for the painted actors and be not one bit the better for it.[/i]

And [i]be not one bit better for it[/i]. "Emotional excitement".

[i]The emotions have had a beautiful time, but the will is left untouched. The religious movie is sure to draw together a goodly number of persons who cannot distinguish the twinges of vicarious sympathy from the true operations of the Holy Ghost.[/i]

"The will is left untouched". Am still drawing just some aspects.

[i]The religious movie is a menace to true religion because it embodies acting, a violation of [u]sincerity[/u].[/i]

This is where the concerns really begin to get at the roots.

[i]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.[/i]

This is important to what follows;

[i]Because man is such a being as this all moral teachers, and especially Christ and His apostles, [u]make sincerity[/u] 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.[/i]

"In character with himself". "Moral play acting".
"appear in that of another and better man. He assumed a false character and played it for effect."

What I gathered from these things is the primary issue. They are internal things first before they become outward expression and effects. Still, it is only the shell;

[i]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.[/i]

" ... one who has violated his sincerity and is playing a false part." [i]"Stepping out of our own character for any reason is always dangerous, and may be fatal to the soul.[/i] The soul. This is the seat and the matter that has my concerns stressed. " ... [i]a man who assumes a false character has betrayed his own soul and has deeply injured something sacred within him[/i]". Apologize if this is a rather annoying way of going about things, dicing it all up and adding or excerpting ... [i]"has betrayed his own soul.[/i]". By assuming a false character, [i]deeply injured something sacred within him.[/i]

Just to chew on these words, think them through. The internal life of a Christian. Authenticity. Character. Integrity. Truth. The Spirit of Truth. The disillusionment of things false, compromised, half truths, partial truths, things embellished to stretch the truth, pragmatism ...

[i]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. [b]He will thereafter be constrained to be no one but himself, to preserve reverently the sincerity of his own soul.[/b][/i]

Good, bad, indifferent. Honest. Sincere. Faults, difficulties ... 'warts and all'. It's the absence of [i]pretense[/i]. The distaste for it, the conviction [i]of[/i] it when it is recognized. This is the realm of matters that to my ... preference of opinion is what made Art Katz so great a studier of men hearts in light of scripture. It drew me in to similar observations and concerns even as I began to come out of so much ... [i]pretense[/i] that is of a make up in WOF constructs and their like, not to mention just the overall modernization effects of a commercial, polished Christendom to use the derogatory term. "Cheap." "Plastic". Were words he would use often. Things that are false or flippant, irreverent and irrelevant. "Unnecessary" is not a stretch to apply to both men, it is something Tozer is stressing but I do not truly believe to the point of extremes, or exclusivity ...

[i]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?[/i]

Forget the avenue of approach for a minute, a movie or a play just to hear those words;

[b]To pretend to pray, to simulate godly sorrow, to play at worship before the camera for effect---how utterly shocking to the reverent heart![/b]

At the dinner table, saying 'grace', however one does it. I am often convicted of it being something almost trite, "going through the motions". Did I [i]mean[/i] it, [i]sincerely[/i]? It's not to be absurdly didactic, generally am most thankful, even in the repetition of the same words, I do indeed mean it. But the other times ... An example also is in recalling mens bible study. Going around the room to pray. The felt impulse to have to say something, regardless if I had any true expression to bring forth. All of a sudden there is a ... pretense and whatever is said is exactly that. It's not from the heart and the gut but giving over to a sort of subtle intimidation, unspoken yet .. it is still of this same substance' "Play acting". I'm digging here.

[i]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 the end is everything, and sanctifies the means, however evil, if only the end be commendable. The wise student of history will recognize this immoral doctrine. The Spirit-led Church will have no part of it.[/i]

Taking this in sequence and am drawing off the interior aspects even beyond or maybe even before those ties to the issue(s) at hand, entertainment, movies, etc.

"Expediency". One of the most startling and even more so now in the quiet overlooking of it is the message that was sent in the very first days of establishment of the church;

[i]But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?[/i] Act 5:3

The severity! In essence, God killed them both on the spot. For what? Pretense. For lying. For hypocrisy and duplicity. For holding back? No, they were free to do so as they pleased, even Peter addressed that much. But for sham and false appearance, for not being truthful first inwardly, for not being authentic and having integrity and all the other reasons and I take this to mean ultimately that the church was to be established on that basis. It caused a great fear that this was to be no trifling matter and yet look at the church now. To draw attention to it is enough to bring the charge of legalism or the excuse of expediency, of pragmatism, the very things that got Tozer into so much hot water with even just this article. The tendency is to hear that cry of "Well, you know ... times have changed. Let's not be so ... " What? Demanding? Fundamentalist? Orthodox? Apostolic?

Can we see that aspect is largely lost within the confines of present day Christianity? That there is a smoothing over of things and a ready acceptance that is so embedded that to even look at it is to .. overshoot it? To latch on to the externals without looking at the internals of what it all might mean? It is where looking at this from the perspective of 'reaching' those with their own methods or preference's as was mentioned here maybe not such a good idea after all? Trust I can allow that agreement amongst everyone who has greatly contributed to this, that I still find much to consider, that this is all not just so simple as I might make it sound.

Sometimes I wonder if it is not helpful to try and imagine ourselves distanced somewhat from what we might know of this life. It's a difficult thing to do and I am not talking about going back to experimentation of the old ways that we have now forsaken. The mindset of the unsaved. Of course it would vary like the clouds, but I am thinking back to my own supposed constructs of what a Christian was as I was brought out of the darkness into ever increasing light. What I supposed and what I found where almost completely different, so different that it still causes me to often shake my head at it in wonder. Subtly or expressively, the notion somehow was latched on to that a 'show' had to be put on. Not that I [i]was[/i] a new creature but that I had to live [i]as if[/i] I was. It was a forward looking pretense, something that I would have to do and eventually the rest of me would catch up. Quit this, quit doing that, quit swearing, ... look the part, [i]play[/i] the part. I had this tremendous fear that I was going to have to become 'weird', it is the essence of what Tozer stated earlier;

"[i]He assumed a false character and played it for effect.[/i]"

Now there is a whole course of difficulties with this, because there was still the elements of sins that I did not want to give up, the matter of pride, the matter of pleasing men rather than God, so it was mixed. Yet along came the teachings that threw me even into more of a tail spin and often went along the lines of; "Christianity is not a list of "Do's and Dont's". And I thought, are you kidding? Sure reads that way to me, the sermon on the mount seemed to be stating quite otherwise. What I began to recognize far much later on was that for the truth of a statement like that to be effectual was to hone in more at the core of matters and usually the explanation left it hanging in suspension, unfinished. It never got down into the core of sincerity and truth, into the heart, into the soul, the spirit, the 'thoughts and intents of the heart' ... was it the dulling of the blade, perhaps and surely not intentionally.

"Be not conformed to this world."

What does this almost always conjure up, quickly to the mind? Entertainment certainly would be a fast avenue to latch on to. The overt things, the easy things, no longer hanging out in bars and going to parties, the whole long laundry list of things that we wouldn't be caught dead in for the most part. But isn't that just it, that we gravitate to to the external aspects even if we might know better, that this means something altogether other and different at it's core?

Keep losing my train of thought with this as it seems other considerations keep wanting to make inroads. What is the trouble with this 'world' after all? Is it not ultimately that it is based on false premises and false promises? That it cannot deliver because it is incapable of doing so. The 'spirit' of this present 'world', the ruler of this 'world' .. I am want to say that it is a internal matter, a spiritual matter but that it reveals itself in practical ways. It still causes all the disruptions that we have even here in this forum, not getting our [i]facts[/i] straight, a pragmatic approach that will allow stretching the truth for the expediency of a greater one. That makes it 'alright'. Close enough. Maybe what it really boils down to is this repulsion of things that are false.

Embellishment. It is something I launched off on earlier and never posted after all. It's a word to consider but will move on;

[i]It is not uncommon to find around the theater human flotsam and jetsam washed up by the years, men and women who have played false parts so long that the power to be sincere has forever gone from them. They are doomed to everlasting duplicity. Every act of their lives is faked, every smile is false, every tone of their voice artificial. The curse does not come causeless. It is not by chance that the actor's profession has been notoriously dissolute. Hollywood and Broadway are two sources of corruption which may yet turn America into a Sodom and lay her glory in the dust.[/i]

"Doomed to everlasting duplicity." The "power to be sincere." Maybe the question to all this is, can we by using those means that are already so entrenched and we seemed forced to accept (here meaning the movie or play, what have you) break up this monotony. Will it work? [i]Does it[/i] work? This seems to be the difficulty I am having with it.

In fact I have so much more to say that it feels like it is only being touched on. I pray this much makes the sense I would have it to make. But there is a whole lot more to this matter of the soul, "soulishness' as some have put it, that has to do with the emotions, the tweaking of them, the manipulation of them, the danger in it all. Music another, television, advertising, commercials. Core things. Root matters.

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Mike Balog

Mike...

Very good points. Like I said in regard to Tozer's seven points in the article, the seventh and final point is the most thought provoking. This gives me something to "chew on" and "digest" for the day. Thanks!

:-)

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Christopher

[b]Too Often Strangers[/b]

To come to our devotions straight from carnal or worldly interests is to make it impossible to relish the deep, sweet thoughts found in the great books we are discussing here. We must know their heart-language, must vibrate in harmony with them, must share their inward experiences or they will mean nothing to us. Because we are too often strangers to their spiritual mood, we are unable to profit by them and are forced to turn to one or another form of religious entertainment to make our Christianity palatable enough to endure. [i](The Size of the Soul, p. 49)[/i]

[b]The Scramble for Popularity[/b]

Christianity’s scramble for popularity today is an unconscious acknowledgment of spiritual decline. Her eager fawning at the feet of the world’s great is a grief to the Holy Spirit and an embarrassment to the sons of God. The lick-spittle attitude of popular Christian leaders toward the world’s celebrities would make such men as Elijah or George Fox sick to the stomach. [i](The Next Chapter after the Last, p. 21)[/i]

The secular press, which of course is always quick to sense trends and give the public what it wants, has found that religion is news. A sufficiently large number of those who buy newspapers and magazines are interested enough in religion to make it profitable to print increasingly generous amounts of religious copy. Religious books are among the best sellers. Prominent people are telling the world what they believe. Religion is woven into sports, politics, the theater. It is frequently a part of nightclub chatter, and the radio and TV comedian has learned that a serious word about prayer and churchgoing at the end of his routine will please most of his listeners. [i](The Price of Neglect, p. 82)[/i]

Christians have fallen into the habit of accepting the noisiest and most notorious among them as the best and the greatest. They too have learned to equate popularity with excellence, and in open defiance of the Sermon on the Mount they have given their approval not to the meek but to the self-assertive; not to the mourner but to the self-assured; not to the pure in heart who see God but to the publicity hunter who seeks headlines. [i](Man: The Dwelling Place of God, p. 96)[/i]

[b]Inner Loneliness[/b]

Where God is not known in the inner shrine, the individual must try to compensate for his sense of aloneness in whatever way he can. Most persons rush away to the world to find companionship and surround themselves with every kind of diversionary activity. All devices for killing time, every shallow scheme for entertainment, are born out of this inner loneliness. It is a significant and revealing fact that such things have in these last days grown into billion dollar enterprises! So much will men pay to forget that they are a temple without a God, a garden where no voice is heard in the cool of the day. [i](The Next Chapter after the Last, p. 104)[/i]

[b]The World’s Methods or God’s?[/b]

Many evangelical leaders lack historic perspective and thus do not know how the Holy Spirit has worked and how He works. We lack the knowledge of God’s ways and so we substitute our own. There are three methods that are being introduced in our time which are contrary to and diametrically opposed to the methods of the New Testament. One, the methods of big business. The second the method of show business. And the third, the method of the Madison Avenue advertiser. And Bible methods are supplemented and the Holy Spirit is grieved and withdraws Himself; and we, because we are young and have a lot of animal spirits, we make up by sheer enthusiasm what we lack in the power of the Spirit, and because we lack historic perspective and spiritual discernment we don’t know one for the other. Bible methods are supplanted. You can be sure of this — that to attempt to carry on a sacred, holy work, such as the work of the Church of Christ and of evangelism and of missionary activities around the world after the methods of big business and show business and the Madison Avenue advertiser is to grieve the Holy Ghost and remain in Babylonian captivity. [i](Sermon to Youth for Christ, National Convention of YFC, Chicago)[/i]

The Church has sprung a leak and the world is leaking into the Church. [i](Sermon to Youth for Christ, National Convention of YFC, Chicago)[/i]

[b]Called to Separation[/b]

We believe that we are called to separation. We are called to separate from the world’s follies and the world’s pleasures and the world’s ways and the world’s values and the world’s ambitions and the world’s greed and the world’s vices and the world’s habits. There is a sharp moral antithesis which exists between the Church and the world and this can never be reconciled. It effects every Christian so that the Christian sins when he fraternizes with the world. He grieves the Holy Spirit by worldly living and stunts his spiritual growth by imitating the world. [i](Sermon, “Christian Manifesto,” Toronto, 1960)[/i]

We are against the unhappy and unholy importation into Christian circles and worship at any cost. We’re against the strange fires which are being offered on the altars of the Lord. We are against the strange sacrifices which they are offering. We are against the strange gods in our sanctuaries and we’re especially against the baptized foolery and sanctified frivolity that is taking over fundamentalism. [i](Sermon, “Christian Manifesto,” Toronto, 1960)[/i]

As soon as you try to turn the flock everybody says you’re against everything. Of course, I’m against the devil, I’m against sin, I’m against worldliness, I’m against the flesh and I’m against Christianity that pretends to be Christianity and isn’t. I’m against spiritual ignorance that tries to harmonize Christianity with the world. It’s absolutely futile to try to do it.

There was a day when our religious leaders were made fun of and laughed at and opposed, even put in jail and driven out of town, but nowadays they are riding on the shoulders of the mobs and the multitudes because they are trying to make Christianity as much like the world as possible in order to win the world. That’s the philosophy of the present hour — trying to make Christianity like the world. Show them it’s like them only it’s a little higher, and pretty soon you’ll win them. Don’t we know that Christianity demands the impossible and secures it? Don’t we know that Christianity cuts straight across the instincts of man? Don’t we know that the message of Jesus Christ runs contrary to man and not in favor of man? [i](Sermon, “Contradictions,” Chicago)[/i]

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Mike Balog