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Discussion Forum : General Topics : "The Menace of the Religious Movie" by A.W.Tozer

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crossreach
Member



Joined: 2007/7/29
Posts: 19
Ireland

 Re: "The Menace of the Religious Movie" by A.W.Tozer

Should have been copied and pasted to the forum rather than linked. The site linked has disappeared and a great text is gone from the internet, until some other holy soul puts aside some time to bring it back.


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Dave Kinsella

 2014/9/15 15:30Profile
Jeremy221
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Joined: 2009/11/7
Posts: 1532


 Re: MP3 Reading of "The Menace of the Religious Movie" by A. W. Tozer

It's available on archive.org as a scanned document. There is also a link to a reading in mp3 and the text here on SI.

Text of "The Menace of the Religious Movie" by A. W. Tozer
https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=314

MP3 Reading of "The Menace of the Religious Movie" by A. W. Tozer

https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=13545&commentView=itemComments

 2014/9/15 20:30Profile
savannah
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Joined: 2008/10/30
Posts: 2265


 Re: "The Menace of the Religious Movie" by A.W.Tozer


Were man happy, his joy would increase in proportion as his amusement lessened, as is the case with the saints, and with God. Pascal.

----------------------------------------------------------

2 Tim. 3:4.

"LOVERS OF PLEASURE MORE THAN LOVERS OF GOD."

THE Theater is an institution whose character may fairly be judged from its history. This history stretches over a period of about 2500 years, during which time its excellencies and defects, its capacities for good or evil, have had ample opportunity to be developed and observed. The friends of the Theater have always represented that it could be made a powerful ally of true education, of morality and religion; a place where the young would have the taste refined, and would see the beauty of virtue and the hideousness of vice,—these possibilities I intend to examine, but it is not a Theater which might or ought to be, that you will attend, if you patronize the institution; and the main practical topic to which I shall ask attention is the Theater as it now is, and the character that it has made for itself, through these ages of its history.

The primary characteristic of the institution is best set forth in a motto, which may be read across the curtain of a New York Theater; "WE STUDY TO PLEASE." It is preeminently the place where men go simply to be pleased—the House of Pleasure. As an institution it is sustained, not to educate, to draw out the powers of body or mind; not to train the muscles like the gymnasium, or the mental faculties like the school, or the moral faculties like the church; not to blend instruction and refinement with pleasure, like the lyceum and exhibitions of the fine arts; its sole object, its simple aim is to please, to amuse. It is not intended to educate any faculties of the soul, to make them healthier and stronger for the real duties of life, and so to add something to the permanent stock of human happiness; it professes no such design; Theater-goers would ridicule the very suggestion, but it is to set all these faculties, for a few hours, in a state of pleasurable excitement.

The Theater is a house of pleasure, or amusement, and not of recreation. The distinction is a vital one. Recreation, as the word imports, re-creates, renews the man, while amusement (amuser) simply kills his time. Recreation restores the wasted energies by some innocent pleasure, or change of employment; relieves the taxed powers, and allows them time to regain their wonted spring and vigor. Athletic games are thus a recreation for the body, poetry and music for the mind. Some of the hardest workers that the world has seen have depended on music for pleasurable rest and renewal. Frederic the Great played the flute half an hour every day, Luther played the flute and guitar, and Milton a great variety of musical instruments. A recreation may be abused so as to become a mere amusement, but this is no abuse of the Theater; it is its use, its primary and special design. This is what the public demand of it, and when it fails to amuse, it declines and falls. When the lyceum ceases to instruct and refine, as well as please, when it becomes a place of mere amusement, we say that it has degenerated. It may still be patronized as largely as when it was true to its claims and profession, but it is by a different class of the community. When the church ceases to be a place of religious culture, and becomes a place of amusement, we feel that it ceases to be a church. Throngs may crowd thither, but it is not the church-going and church-loving public. It is an abuse to make the lyceum or the church a place of amusement, but it is no abuse of the Theater. Let the Theater cease to make pleasure its sole aim, and endeavor to refine and instruct, and we all know that the class of the community on which it depends for patronage would forsake it. Pleasure is all its capital. We see this in the character of its patrons, of the plays, the actors, scenery, music, decorations, and in fact in all the machinery and appurtenances of the institution. All converge to this one point; that play is best as a play, which pleases the most, the actor is most popular, and fills out most truly the ideal of an actor, who pleases most completely his audience.

I have been somewhat diffuse in unfolding this, the central idea of the Theater, that it may be clearly seen that this discourse is not directed against any abuse of the institution, but against the institution itself, when it most completely carries out the plans of its founders, and the expectations of its patrons. Against this, its central idea, we protest in the name of all that is good and true. A man or an institution may lawfully aim to please, but if this be the sole aim, if every thing else be bent to this, that man becomes a very contemptible specimen of human nature, and that institution tramples on the dearest interests of human life. Aiming to give pleasure, at the hazard of every thing else, taste, truth, virtue, religion; this, the central idea of the Theater, is destructive to man, and dishonoring to God; it curses all who touch it, proprietors, patrons and actors.

The Theater is no place for the invigoration and renewal of the mind, but for exhaustion. It is not designed to restore wasted powers, but to excite, to stimulate, to arouse the passions and stir the blood; and, if it does not do this, it fails to fulfil expectation. Successful plays and players stir their audiences into tumults of riotous passion, and are applauded in proportion as they produce this effect. True, a man may become as excited at a political or religious meeting, as at the Theater, but at such a place the pleasure of the excitement is not the object of the meeting; there is some practical end in view, for which the excitement is a means, and that political or religious meeting is a success in proportion as it achieves this end. But in the Theater, the excitement itself is the sole end; it is stimulus for the sake of stimulus, a mental intoxication. And, like strong drink, Theater-going operates on the most delicate machinery of human nature, and sets it in a whirl of activity; it exhausts and enervates the most precious faculties of our nature. The play-goer, like the inebriate, craves excitement; life is tame without them. Play-going is preeminently dissipation; instead of renewing and refreshing, it dissipates, scatters the energies of the man.

I. As the inevitable result of this, its fundamental idea, the Theater, notwithstanding all the hopes and dreams of its friends, never can become a reformatory institution. Men go there, not to have their tastes reformed, but gratified; and this the play-writer and play-actor ever keep in view. The grand question with manager, writer and actor is, "What will please?" These men do not present themselves before the public as reformers of taste or morals, but as speculators, who agree to furnish a given amount of pleasure for a given pecuniary consideration.

1. The very constitution of the Theater precludes the possibility of its ever becoming an institution of moral reform. Men never would go to the House of Pleasure to hear their faults and crimes rebuked and reproved. Are the twinges of a guilty conscience pleasing? But no man can ever be reformed of any sin, till his conscience is made to feel moral delinquency; and the stage can never be allowed to trouble the conscience. The play-going public would desert it at the moment it assumed this character. Men may theorize about making the Stage display the beauty of virtue, and the hideousness of vice, for public reform, but it is a mere chimera; in the nature of things it is utterly impossible. Plays would cease to be acted the moment that they began to touch the conscience, that is, the moment that they began to do any good.

Excerpted from THE THEATER; A DISCOURSE PREACHED AT THE
BROMFIELD STREET M.E. CHURCH, March 15, 1863.

BY REV. F.H. NEWHALL, Pastor.

A closing thought from the above discourse:

"Be not deceived; if you are lost, the sin which shall ruin you is not one that looks hateful and loathsome, but alluring and enchanting. Satan’s snare for you is baited with a pleasure that has a charm for you. The way to ruin is not strewn with hideous sights, and echoing with jarring discords—there is no temptation in such a path. Men dance to hell over gardens of flowers, they march thither to delicious music. Oh, love not pleasure more than God. And if, in spite of every warning, you are ensnared at last, do not reproach me that I have failed to do my duty."

 2014/9/16 0:01Profile
Heydave
Member



Joined: 2008/4/12
Posts: 1306
Hampshire, UK

 Re:

Savannah,

Thank you for posting this. We would do well to learn from this today and where it say 'theatre' we could insert 'movies and most TV shows'.

I thought that this was an interesting statement:
"When the church ceases to be a place of religious culture, and becomes a place of amusement, we feel that it ceases to be a church."
Sadly this is the position of a great many churches today.

As an aside it was interesting to read back on the posts from around 10 years ago here. Most of those brothers no longer contribute, but what I noticed was the grace displayed towards one another in the discussion. I for one was somewhat convicted that the forum today is much more confrontational and I realised I had tended to become this way in many of my post. May we all (including me) learn from this and become much more gracious in our postings here.


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Dave

 2014/9/16 6:19Profile





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