Christ and the Media [Hardcover]

This is Malcolm Muggeridge's critique of The Media, with a special emphasis on television. His thesis is that 1) television is the greatest influence upon the modern word, and 2) televisions influence, on the whole, has been detrimental to civilization. (23)

His first lecture is a thought-experiment. He sees Christ rejecting an offer from Satan for prime-time TV appearance-what he called "the Fourth Temptation of Christ"- as the example for latter-day Christians (Lecture 1). By the very nature of televion, the Christian message would be distorted. Television is so controlled and stylized, it is essentially a "fantasy-machine" (62). He continually affirms that "the media is the world of shadows." (74)

His second thought-experiment is a bit more poignant. In the second lecture, entitled "The Dead Sea Videotapes," he imagines what future archaeologists would make of our world if they studied our television programs. His conclusion is that our civilization was a cult of progress, sexual consumption, and education. (53ff). Reality TV, anyone?

His last lecture is a boiler-plait discussion on television as epistemology. His specific target is the strictly homogenized, carefully edited product called "Newzak." After citing some startling incidents that evince that news is "not so much what has happened, as what can be seen [caught on tape] as happening, or what seems to have happened." (62) He closes his lecture and the conference by comparing TV with Plato's cave: if all we see are shadows on a wall, then for all intents and purposes, that is what is real.

Although the overall feel to the lectures is negative- Muggeridge confesses he threw out his TV years ago-his method is a remotive "Via Negativa": if media is so bad, then the only way to come to reality is by way of Christ. In fact, Christ and the Media are incompatible.

This book important, and has become even more so with the rise of the new Internet and independent media. Media has slowly become "infotainment," and our problem is being able to sort out the aesthetic aspect form the epistemology. Furthermore, Muggeridge was leery of the proto-political correctness "collective thought" that was apparent in the BBC:

"There is something, to me, very sinister about this emergence of a weird kind of conformity, or orthodoxy, particularly among the people who operate the media, so that you can tell in advance exactly what they will say and think about anything. It is true that so far they have not got an Inquisition to enforce their orthodoxy, but they do have ways of enforcing it which make the old thumbscrews and racks seem quite paltry." (91)

"Consensus-making and -promoting, I should say, is to be seen historically as an instinctive preparation for some sort of conformist-collectivist society which lies ahead whatever may happen, all that is in doubt being the precise ideology which will characterize it." (52)

This is significant because Orwell told him that 1984's Ministry of Truth was based on the BBC (105)

So this book is a call for the Christian to consider his part in watching the media and for the Christian directly involved wit the media. To both, MM warns: do not set your media heroes and yourself up as a false idol. The Second commandment (Thou shalt have no other gods before me) applied to the small screen as well as the field of Moloch, which can be the same thing. (94)

*

The only criticism I have is that the book has an awkward arraignment. It has Muggeridge's three lectures in one section, the Q and A in a second section, and the bracketing Chairmen's speeches in a third. I found myself hopping from section to section to get the flow and context of the discussion. I would have kept all their sections in order, to ease the flow of reading. This was done with Craig and Ludemann's debate on Christ's Resurrection and it perfected the intellectual experience.

Malcom Muggeridge is one of the funniest, most insightful and downright stubborn authors of the twentieth century. He was funny in Punch, the British humor magazine, he was funny on the BBC in "That Was the Week That Was," and even funny in a Monte Python meets real life sort of way when he got kicked off the BBC for alledgedly mocking the Queen. Of course it was all a misunderstanding, like the misunderstanding that got writer P.G.Wodehouse denounced as a traitor for making those wartime broadcasts from Germany. Malcom Muggeridge was the man who straightened that all out and got PGW repatriated, and later PG (Plum) Wodehouse was knighted as one of Britain's best. Surely there were no hard feelings toward Malcom as well.

Then Muggeridge did an interview with Mother Teresa for the BBC, and made a series of TV shows called A Third Testament about St. Augustine, Pascal, Tolstoy and other figures who had influenced him. At the same time that priests and bishops in England were leaving orders and losing faith, Muggeridge was somehow finding it. That would have been forgiveable, but he remained subversively funny. The essays collected in The Most of Malcom Muggeridge and Tread Softly For You Tread On My Jokes are side-splittingly funny and rank among the best of Punch's drollery. His two volume autobiography even has a funny title: The Chronicles of Wasted Time. Christ and the Media doesn't have a funny title (which may be why it originally went out of print so soon), but it contains a funny essay called "The Fourth Temptation." In a humorous role-reversal, journalist Muggeridge is also interviewed by the BBC. His roasts of the media in his many books are so funny that his opponents had no recourse but to put his books out of print. Thanks to Regent College, their little trick didn't work, and this subversive little volume is once again at large. Get it while you can and write your own review.

This book is probably one of Malcolm's most interesting works for a couple of reasons. First, he is at the top of his game in his use of English and reason. Second, because this is the most unmitigated and focused response to liberal media I have ever read. It was so direct and harsh that66 at times I found I wasn't sure I agreed with him. However, the more I mulled over the thoughts and worked through it, the more I realized I was in agreement with his premises. Excellent and thorough, though it will seem a bit short.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 10 reviews  4.8 out of 5 stars