“Because its purpose is entertainment, and because people are more easily amused by the comical and ridiculous than by the noble and edifying, sensate art readily resorts to comedy, farce, satire and ridicule. In order to avoid boring the viewer or hearer, it constantly changes, always looking for something new and exciting. As Sorokin says, ‘Since it does not symbolize any supersensory value, it stands and falls by its external appearance . . . [making] lavish use of pomp and circumstance, colossality, stunning techniques and other means of external adornment.’ Nowhere is this more evident than in the colossal motion pictures of our day or in the neopagan spectacles such as the half-time show that accompanies the Super Bowl football game.”
Harold O. J. Brown, The Sensate Culture (Dallas, 1996), page 39.
In our day of exhausting hype, a church with modest resources has all the potential for breakthrough power that the church of Acts 2 experienced – the felt presence of the risen Christ, according to the gospel. Simplicity and honesty are advantages.
This post was originally published on The Gospel Coalition