Using AV to tell God’s Story – Part 2

Presented at the

National Conference: God’s Story, Our Story

Organised by GoTell (www.gotell.org) & Impact at NSK, Bangalore

Oct 31 – Nov 2, 2009

Author: Ashley Chris Vinil J P

Was mankind using audio-visual to tell stories?

“The world is made of stories, not atoms (M. Rukseyer)”

Travel with me on a journey as we uncover the way mankind had tried to tell stories audio-visually.

After God created Adam and Eve, they began to see and hear the audio-visual world around them. I am sure, they must have shared the many discoveries, they made in the Garden of Eden. This was the beginning of storytelling (Don’t we do that, even today? – share all the incidents that happened to us, to others – maybe, add a few exciting or emotional tit-bits – but end up telling a story – not one, but many)

Now, after the fall and departure from Eden, (around 4000BC) ¹ mankind began to share the stories of Eden and the fall, around fires and their children and grand-children listened spell-bound. And God had also given them great talents.

²⁰ Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. ²¹ His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. ²² Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of ^[g]bronze and iron. (Gen 4: 20 – 22)

With these amazing talents and the creativity that God had endowed on them, they began to carve the stories in the walls of their residences – caves (We call them today as interior decoration or home décor – place important photos, paintings, flowers etc to add the unique touch to our home)

As civilization grew and prospered, the concept of adding on to the original stories became rampant and each group of people, now grown distinct by their learnt behaviors, customs and physical separation – started developing and sharing their own concepts of creation. A concept that faintly resembled the real one on one hand, but on the other depended solely on the creativity of mankind. For in their quest, to create a superior being, they used nature, animals and humans and made them into gods. So man did use his creativity greatly! (That is how the many mythologies were created in each religion and society)

We see, the great Egyptian civilization (Around 3000 BC) drawing murals on their great constructions – telling stories of their gods and kings. So did the other civilizations spread across the earth! This continued for ages and still does. Around 500 BC, the Greeks presented to the world their mastery of the art of public-speaking. Soon these learned men, who knew the art of storytelling with persuasion, became the real audio-visual communicators. They were the visual (their facial expressions, gestures and body movements) and the audio (words, tone, pitch, throw).

Now, we come to the grandest event in history – the time of Jesus Christ – a time when audio-visual storytelling, was used effectively by the master himself. With the apostles and early church lovingly sharing this story of Christ, Christianity grew. Soon the strongholds of the Christian faith began to tell God’s story – through stained glass paintings (around 950 AD), paintings (1000 AD), and bar charts (1350 AD). Soon, the church dominated the use of audio-visual techniques. This took a grand leap with the Guttenberg printing press (around 1439). This put the church in complete control of both the elite and the poor. The story of Christ now bloomed in every hand – as Bibles and books reached every corner. This became the accepted medium of the church – the written word.

But God was still speaking to people and mankind began to invent amazing objects which continued to enhance audio-visual communication. But some of the discoveries which moved the world ex: the magic lantern (1798), Comics (1845) were scorned by the church and even persecuted at times. But the world continued to invent, and many of the inventions were by professing Christians. Soon the camera, view master, slide projector, telephone, radio, TV, TV camera stormed the scene. From 1875 on, inventions began to spill-out at a rapid rate. And then in 1981 came the PC, followed by the Mac in 1984, which revolutionized how we worked. Even as the church was grasping to come to terms with all these inventions (having started to at least embrace the radio), the World Wide Web was born in 1993. This changed how one communicated. From ‘one-one’, the world had moved aggressively to ‘one-many’, but suddenly it found an unknown concept: ‘many-many’. With www came a whole new way of information, conversation and connection! Instant Interactivity became the new norm and to add to the confusion, Gen Y (born between 1975 and 1994) came into being (that includes me!)

While every corporate and media house hurried and re-shaped itself to cater to this new generation, the church chose to look back into the tools of old. And slowly every new occurrence happening in the outside world began to be scorned by the church. Rather than accept its helplessness and need for change, the church chose to criticize and condemn the new ways of audio-visual communication. The result: media became the new religion of choice. Except for a few, the overall church began to forget the audio-visual way of communication. Today even as the Gen Z (born after 1994) is embracing the audio-visual culture of the time (termed ‘digital’), the big question we need to ask ourselves:

What are we doing about it?