Christ and the Media

I recently finshed a book called "Christ and the Media", which is a series of 3 lectures given by Malcom Muggeridge. Muggeridge was a brilliant journalist and TV personality in England and for the BBC in the 20th century. The lectures were over the role that TV specifically plays in the shaping of culture and society, and of our values. The lectures were given in 1976, but like most timely words, they still stand true in our time today. I wondered what Muggeridge would say could he see our society now, and the effect that media and the internet play in our daily lives.

I put together a few quotes to share.

"News was endlessly analyzed, synthesized, liqudised, to form a single soothing brew- Newsak"

"More books published, plays produced, buildings erected in a matter of decades than heretofore in the whole recorded matter of time; the scene set for the greatest cultural explosion of history, a Venice or Florence on a continental scale. And the result? Instead of sages, philosopher-kings and saints, pop stars, psychiatrists and gurus. Looking for a Leonardi Da Vinci or a Shakespeare, the archeologists find only a Rolling Stone."

(This is from a lecture called the Dead Sea Videotapes where he imagines archeologists unearthing some video from our civilization in a few thousand years from now, and how they would analyze that)

"What passes for history is merely the propganda of the victor transcribed by different hands and described from different angles."

"Your principal maladies are pride, which cuts you off from God, and sensuality, which binds you to the earth, and have done nothing but foster at least one of these maladies" (this is actually Muggeridge quoting Pascal, but I thought it was worth repeating.

"Seek endlessly for God and for his hand in all creation, in the tiniest atom or electron as in the wide expanse of the universe, in our own innermost-being as in all fellow creatures. So looking we find him, finding him, we love him, and realise that in every great word ever spoken or written we hear his voice, as in every mean or sordid word we lose it, shutting ourselves off from the glory of his utterance."

"It is a fallacy of our time that we can usefully participate in whatever exists"

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh, not celluoid." Or pixels, as he might say today.

All in all a great book, and worth the read. Very thought provoking, and I encourage you to read it if you are able.