New layout

Yes I changed my layout.  I hope you like it!  I don't know the story behind the picture but I cracked up when I first found it.  I added some umlauts to my name because it's always bugged me that they weren't there.  If you're wondering how to pronounce my blog name it's:

"oober maid chen"  You need to say it with a nice thick German accent.  And perhaps don a pair of lederhosen and maybe eat a sausage afterwards.  Just a suggestion.  Everyone loves a stereotype! It means Super Girl, by the way.  My German teacher nicknamed me with that when I was 14 and it kinda stuck.

Anyways, it's been a while since I've written a substantial post so I thought I'd take a crack at that.

There's a contest going around in the blogosphere about the use of mass media and the Christian response.  Considering this is my thesis in a nutshell, I figured it would be pretty fun to think about this answer.  I don't care too much about the prize but the question they pose is interesting on its own merit.  Essentially, it asks, "If the medium affects the message, how will the Christian message be affected by the new media?"

First off, lets gets some definitions clear.  "medium affects the message" is a play off of Marshall McLuhan, a famous media theorist's quote "the medium is the message".  It means that the message you receive by television, for example, is very different from the message you may receive through a book.  Why is this you ask?  First off, think about the amount of effort you put into understanding the televised message compared with the effort in reading the same message.  There is far more of a personal effort in the latter as you are interpreting the words at your own pace and creating your own connections and images to associate with the words.

The Christian message I assume is the Gospel.  New media would be the internet, perhaps websites, youtube, and even blogs.

Ok, now we need to think about how has the Gospel adapted to new forms of media.  Let's compare television to the internet.  With television, we saw the advent of the televangelist.  This has a negative connotation nowadays considering the fact that televangelism became associated not so much with content of the message but how it was presented.  The Good News became the Entertaining News.  As I've discussed previously, how something is presented becomes very much a message in itself.  So, what the evangelist wore, the gestures and facial expressions he made, the music that played during the service, all have a heightened importance because a larger audience can now see and hear this message.  Furthermore, because it is on television, the televangelist is no longer competing with the church down the road but rather, he is competing with the show on the next channel.  They must be more entertaining, more dramatic, and more polished if they are to gain more ears and, of course, more dollars.

The "Christian message" over the internet must appeal to these concerns tenfold as it is competing with literally billions of other websites.  They need flashier graphics, imagery in the choice of words, relevancy with today's culture and needs, and concise points.  These all appeal to the surfer who at any moment of disinterest may click away.

But with all this glitter and lace is the message still Christian?  My answer would be yes.  That is, as long as the meat of the message, the Gospel in its full form, is still present.  This is the heart of the matter. The second question of whether the tools we use to communicate are at odds with the Gospel, is a bit more complicated.  Whenever we rely more on the medium, in the sense that we have done everything in which to appeal to the internet surfer as a means to secure his eyes and soul, we have attempted to remove the Holy Spirit from our efforts.  This undoubtedly changes the message as we make it more friendly for a mass audience.  The Gospel does not need the glitter to pierce the heart of men; its truth, un-neutered by fluffy language can do that just fine.  

As I've shown, the temptation to appeal to possibly hostile audiences by softening the message of the Gospel can occur through any medium.  I do not believe the problem is with the medium but with man himself.

If you got that, then you pretty much got my thesis!