| The media are a tricky area for the Church, and no wonder: even big companies struggle to keep up with their shifting trends, and the skills and costs involved have long since outgrown those of photocopying a parish newsletter. Yet it is not only confusion holding the Church back from using the media: much of the time, it is extreme diffidence.
I experience this every day as administrator for the Cambridgeshire Churches Media Trust, an organisation that has funded religious content on local radio for two decades, supported Christians who produce media, provided a web presence for the county’s church news and events, and run a film festival.
Sadly, the support these activities depend on is diminishing. When money is running short (and it usually is), churches see media as expendable. My diocese recently lost its much-loved monthly magazine, which had been a vital link with the wider community. While there has been talk about filling the gap with a website, so far there has been only talk — a lack of urgency that is not purely financial. I hear similar stories across the country, and a standard response is: “That sort of thing doesn’t really interest us.”
Ironically, people who claim to have no interest in “that sort of thing” are often the first to complain about the misrepresentation of Christianity on TV or radio programmes. They will roll their eyes over the negative language used about the Church in the press, even as they cut funding for press officers who could give an alternative perspective. They will complain that Christian values are insufficiently represented on television, as if the “God slot” were some kind of right.
The impotence of this response is self-evident. Mary Whitehouse spent decades issuing complaints on behalf of viewers and listeners, but the things that she campaigned against are plentifully represented now, from sex to violence to Doctor Who. (The producer of Doctor Who in the ’80s, John Nathan-Turner, admitted to praying that Mrs Whitehouse would find episodes unacceptable because it meant higher ratings.)
The BBC’s broadcast of Jerry Springer — the Opera in 2005 received more than 47,000 complaints, but the broadcast went ahead, and no doubt the controversy played a part in the healthy viewing figures it received.
Rather than assuming it is the world’s fault when Christians are badly represented in the media, we need to take responsibility ourselves. When businesses fail, the publicists are the last to be fired. We should take publicity just as seriously, because if we cannot speak the language of society, we struggle to communicate with it.
As the Revd Robert Ellis of the Churches’ Advertising Network says: “For the Church to ignore advertising is akin to St Paul ignoring the boat, or Caxton the printing press.”
Yet churches respond with scepticism when asked to help raise the profile of Christianity. I fear that Professor Jonathan Clark’s criticism of spending on communications (Comment, 18 April) represents a more broadly held view. Yet, even as he advocates diverting these resources to preserving the past, he realises that “film and television set the pace.”
While our history is important (and I would argue that media and history are by no means mutually exclusive), Professor Clark’s passion for ancient libraries is not shared by the general populace. If we want to interest people in any aspect of the Church — its history included — we need to understand our audience.
In this respect, many Anglicans could not be more out of touch. I have been trying to raise interest in an initiative to bring a weekly religious slot to commercial radio. Depressingly, I have seen roomfuls of Christians turn their noses up at the pilot because it was made for a demographic who want something a little more daring than Songs of Praise.
They recoiled when they heard what is needed in funding, which is a small amount by media standards. So the first opportunity in more than a decade to put Christianity regularly on to commercial radio is being passed over.
The effectiveness of the media as a tool for evangelism should not be questioned: television and radio ratings are measured in millions, and national tabloid newspapers are bought in similar quantities. On the internet, the number of hits that websites can receive in the space of hours has completely revolutionised the potential for advertising and communication.
Neither should there be any doubt about the potential interest in religious media. Richard Dawkins has proved that religion can sell: his understanding of presentation has given his illogical extremist ranting the centre stage in a world thirsty for spiritual knowledge. It is ground that needs to be won back.
The attitude of the Church towards Christian media organisations needs immediate revision: their work keeping religion in the public eye may be unappreciated, but will be missed if it stops.
Churches can also do much more to take advantage of the media. The all-important internet is reckoned to be the first port of call for about half of families looking for a church in a new area.
Thanks to email, it has never been easier to get out a press release. My church recently ran a film series without encountering any legal or technical barriers. People came into the church who would not otherwise have gone near it.
The media are an invaluable resource that the Church cannot afford to ignore: the front line of a mission field on our doorsteps. If the Church has lost its voice in the media, it means that the rest of the world has lost interest in the Church.
James Lark is an actor and musician, and the administrator for the Cambridgeshire Churches Media Trust. |
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