Abstract
Media scholars have long understood that the development of movable type enabled the Protestant Reformation, but broader historical scholarship on the role of media in the two millennia of Christianity has been episodic at best. That is, until now. With From Jesus to the Internet, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University Communication Professor Peter Horsfield explains how media have facilitated transformations in Christianity, from the oral ministry of Jesus and his disciples to the social media use of today’s churches. Horsfield’s compelling and nuanced scholarship of integration traces the evolution of Christianity from an oral Jewish movement in the 1st century through epochs dominated by written, printed, electronic, and now digital media to become the world’s largest religious faith with 2.2 billion followers. But adjusting to centuries of economic, legal, political, and media conditions changed Christianity’s character. “While what presents itself as Christianity is a remarkably robust, adaptable, and energetic phenomenon, capable of significant good but also immense evil,” Horsfield observes, “it has very little connection with the character, self-understanding, and mission of the Jewish Galilean man called Jesus.”
Neither Jesus nor his disciples left written records of their ministries, so most of what we know about Jesus comes from the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, all of which were written at least 40 years after the Romans crucified Jesus. Following the work of New Testament scholars John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, Horsfield describes Jesus as lower class and illiterate, a charismatic Jewish preacher who associated with social outcasts and told stories and parables that challenged the well to do with messages of a righteous God who cared about justice for everyone. Parables and sayings of Jesus were circulated orally and ultimately recorded, but the Gospels appeared well after Paul claimed apostolic authority through visions of Christ and wrote letters that promoted a Hellenized Christianity which were copied and circulated among congregations. Indeed, the Gospels adapted Paul’s perspective in framing the ministry of Jesus in terms of the Lord Jesus Christ, a Hellenistic title conceived to appeal to privileged citizens of the Roman Empire.
Writing changed everything. Church leadership required literacy, turning what began as an inclusive movement among the underprivileged into an institution of hierarchy. The canon of authorized scriptures favored male leadership. The increasing use of Latin in the West solidified political and social power among a small educated elite, who protected their position and wealth through systems of secrecy, intimidation, and violence. By the Inquisition, says Horsfield, Western Christianity had become “an imperial religious dictatorship, working with political coalitions to maintain the dominance of its male oligarchy through the fearful suppression and torture of its citizens and the murder of its opponents.”
The Holy Roman Empire ended with the printing press, which favored vernacular messages to the Latin of religious leaders and debates in the marketplace to decisions from the church. The proliferation of diverse perspectives and increased literacy promoted by the expanse of printed material led Christianity to splinter into denominations defined by confessions that codified doctrine, liturgy, ethics, and social practices. During this time, Enlightenment values of tolerance and objective information also contributed to the rise of secularization, which offered hope for escape from religiously motivated violence.
Whereas the culture of print spurred globally oriented Protestants to evangelize by publishing in vernacular languages—the complete Bible has been published in 531 languages, according to the Wycliffe Global Alliance—the spread of mass electronic media in the last century has encouraged a different mind-set: the desire to broadcast messages that attract large mass audiences. Horsfield says that this desire led to the meteoric rise of global Pentecostalism, a populist movement that emphasizes experience and the flow of materialism, promising health and wealth to those who put Christian belief into practice.
Today’s Prosperity Christianity is nothing like the ministry of Jesus among the Jewish underclass in Palestine. According to Horsfield, It is as if Jesus was the subject of a corporate takeover, where the new company retained his name and reputation but the values and aspirations of what he started were replaced by a totally different corporate ethos and agenda that have nothing identifiable to do with him.
Of course, following Horsfield’s logic, it could be no other way. Faithfulness and waywardness in an oral era will necessarily differ from faithfulness and waywardness in eras dominated by print or, now, by digital media. But if we do not and cannot practice the religion of a bygone era, we can learn from the ways that the various streams of Christianity adapted to socially mediated communication in the past. For this task, From Jesus to the Internet is essential reading.