ARE RELIGIOUS BROADCASTS EFFECTIVE?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 171, 2 October 1942, Page 4

ARE RELIGIOUS BROADCASTS EFFECTIVE?

"It is evident enough that neither public nor preachers feel that the technique of using radio in the service of religion has been mastered. while both feel that it is about time it was...

Says

"MACUMAZAHN"

in this article for "The Listener’, which

discusses the question

HE Campaign for Christian Order is making full use of radio, — Monday evening talks, Sunday evening "Brains Trust" Quiz, and later a series of dramatised "mosaics" of Christian history. Quite apart from these temporary innovations, the Ckurches of course already have large radio facilities. Have they too many? Are they using them as they should? The New Zealand Church Radio Advisory Committee, a permanent and practically all-comprehensive co-ordinating official body like that which is running the present Campaign, is at present considering these questions. The consumer (it is my opinion), long since has. How much time should be given to religious broadcasts may be decided by two different standards-the standard of what the public needs, or the standard of what the public wants. In all government controlled radio systems the former is naturally the standard predominantly employed. In Germany, Russia, and Japan there are long talks explaining the "ideology" of the present order, and superbly-staged festivals and demonstrations that correspond to cathedral services or revivalist meetings. The BBC governors similarly give time to the discussion of what the Christian gospel is and implies, as well as broadcasts of Christian festivals and sermons; and do it, in the main, becaise they share the current British conviction that Christianity, in both its intellectual and practical aspects, is true and important. In a purely commercial system such as the American, on the other hand, public demand is everything. A few stations are operated by religi-.. groups, and a few such groups "buy time" on established stations. But on the whole, religious programmes go across either-in a minority of cases-as "sponsored" events (Dr. "Bill" Stidger, Theology, Professor at Boston, has been "plugging" Fleischmann’s Yeast five days a week for many years now), or, in the great majority of cases, as part of the "sustaining programme" by which each station builds up "goodwill" by supplying services which it imagines the public

appreciates but which no advertiser has paid for. Working on its "uplift" basis, the BBC has been devoting between four and five per cent of its time to "Reli-

gion"-say five hours weekly. Working on their basis of giving the public what it wants, the United States stations give six hours weekly. Our New Zealand National system gives (I should judge), about the BBC proportion. Our Commercial system, on the other hand, contains only two hours per week. No Pleasing Everybody It is, therefore; hard to contend, by any standard, that New Zealanders are getting too much "Religion" on the air. On the other hand, many would hold that (in common with Britain), we get too little variety of approach. Minority groups should have discussion facilities beyond their numerical rating. For their function in a democracy is precisely that of keeping the big and sleepy majority parties from becoming intolerant of opposition and unaware of the movement of events. Others argtie that New Zealand radio religion is pretty poorwhether judged *by artistic or by "entertainment," or by spiritual standards. Last week I heard a Presbyterian minister denouncing "the State-subsidised wishywashy secularised religion of the ZB’s" as "the greatest menace to real Christianity in New Zealand." And I have often seen Presbyterian ministers (and others), switched off as "too high-brow and irrelevant to real life." "Thin gruel," says the one of the ZB session, "with altogether too much sugar." "Stiff cold porridge" complains the other of the YA broadcasts, "with hardly a dash of the milk of human interest." There is no pleasing everybody, of course. But it is evident enough that neither publi nor preachers feel that the technique of using radio in the service of religion has been mastered, while both feel that it is about time it was. Official Criticism The beginnings of real assault on the problem are not confined to New Zealand. Official denominational papers are chary of criticising anybody who wears the right badge. But recently, the United States Baptist denounced, as "childlike and becoming a sort of laughing matter,’ "the average Protestant broadcast"; and expressed "surprise that radio stations continue to accept most

of the programmes offered -even for pay." The Chicago Theological Semin‘ary Register documented similar allegations with a factual survey of "Religion on the local stations," and decided that it was "overloaded with talk — 70 of Chicago’s 77 religious programmes per week are either wholly or largely devoted to a sermon"; that "not a single radio programme is devoted to great church music-though the world’s greatest composers have devoted their talents to writing religious music"; that a lot of sentimental tosh went over; and that, in general, "the churches have not studied how to create types of programmes that fit the peculiar facilities of radio." Fortunately, no official mouthpiece has yet spoken so harshly of New Zealand religious programmes. Or is it fortunately? Why There is Stalemate There are several reasons for this delay in attempting to make the radio "religion" hour or quarter-hour artistically and spiritually effective. First of all, city ministers of religion are-con-trary to widespread ideas — extremely busy people. Indeed, many of the weaknesses of current Christianity can be traced to the fact that persons in a constant flurry of organising and sermonising cannot supply the leadership they are set aside to perform. And, short of a forty-hour day, or-similar miracle-an internal church revival that will make the organisational wheels turn themselves, this position seems likely to continue. Secondly, every Christian church is (precisely to the extent that it is a Christian church) a Fifth Column in what the Bible calls "this present world," i.e., society. And therefore the use of communal facilities by minority bodies who claim they have an allegiance higher than that they owe to the State which owns those faciliiies, raises a "hedgehog" of tricky issues through which sensitive "Citizens of Two (Interpenetrating) Worlds" will make their way so gingerly that, indeed, they may not advance at all. And thirdly, Christian bodies have hitherto been (though they no longer are) so unorganised among themselves that all the most sympathetic radio head could do was to maintain an exact, but O-so-dull, balance between conflicting claims to time on the air. The Main Reason But the main reason for stalemate over years has undoubtedly lain in the conflicting natures of common worship and of radio listening. Men go to church

(those who do) in order to express a gratitude for life (and all it means), in order to realise (and yet to be rid of the stifling weight of) their ingrained limitations and imperfections, and in order to be made more aware of (and more responsive to) the claims of the Universal Purpose-and of the man next door. But. nobody listens to the radio for. these reasons. And most people normally only half listen, or quarter listen, to it anyhow: Therefore the natural and obvious endeavour to make religious broadcasts an extension, by ear, of some mutually visible body of worshippers has failed, is failing, and always must fail. The "Fireside Chat" No, not quite always. Important religious celebrations that have been specially arranged so that they will "go over" will go over. But for all that the "fireside chat" is undoubtedly the normal radio technique. For radio listening is an individual business. Even when a number of folk are listening together in the same room it is seldom that they do so as a body. See how easily their separate attentions are diverted. See how little they join in the singing. See how shamefaced they look, like a crowd of eavesdroppers, during a prayer or some emotionally tense moment. But when you have one man in his home,, listening to another man brought right into that same room by the ether waves and the speaker’s imaginative interest in his potential listeners, there is a living relationship. Yet how fragile a one. Let the speaker once move far outside the circle of his hearer’s everyday language and everyday interests and he has become just a mechanical voice again. Let him slip into one high faluting phrase, one hortatory tone of voice, one technical theological expression, one academic interest, and there is only one man in that room, a man reading, or tidying up, or with a blank mind. Another Problem The moral is obvious. The present New Zealand system of parsons taking their turn in far-spaced rotation needs to be changed for one of a few frequent personalities who can, over a period, build up a personal contact with each listener separately. But here comes a difficulty; the radio priests and parsons who, disembodied, have the qualities that can reach the average man where he is, are often made by those same (Continued on next page)

RELIGIOUS BROADCASTS (Continued from previous page) ~ qualities and interests into social radicals, persons suspect as ecclesiastically "unsafe" and theologically "unsound." (Think over the small list of effective "radio preachers" to see how true this is.) Therefore, it would seem, one of the things needed to make religion on the air effective is a great access of courage and imagination in constituted authority. Then what about the form of religious broadcasts-other, that is, than relays of special celebrations and events carefully edited to be effective over the air? Obviously the "continuity" form is the natural radio one; i.e., selected music bound by linking "script" into expressing one simple emotion or idea. One of the best known voices heard over the National stations has, I am told, been given permission by the Religious Advisory Board to experiment in this way, using English poetry as well as Biblical "script." I hope I am not the only dissatisfied worshipper eager to know what the result will be.