Malcolm Boyd said something already back in 1957 (completely unaware of the even more massive changes that were coming), “We cannot disengage ourselves, as Christians, from the mass media themselves or from the problems with which they challenge us. This is true for two main reasons. First, our missionary imperative commands us to preach the Gospel to all men. How can we, in the face of our Lord’s will, refuse to use such potentially vital methods as mass media in reaching out with God’s Word to desperately isolated men and women? Secondly, it is increasingly becoming obvious that we are being evangelized by our secular technical society far more than we are in the process of evangelizing it for Jesus Christ. The Church’s manifest task is to evangelize this society and age and condition.”
Boyd was an Episcopalian priest and a counter culture hero. He was also a homosexual who might have been surprised to see how the “mass media” has sought to proselytize for homosexual “rights” while denigrating evangelizing for Jesus Christ. Another example of the problems by which we are challenged is the proclamation of a truncated Gospel and use of frail human beings to use it to advance their ends, rather than the Kingdom of God and of His Christ.
Lutherans believe that the Holy Spirit calls, gathers enlightens and sanctifies. That is his task. Our is to witness in word and deed.
