Amateur Movie Makers (Dec 1926-Dec 1927)

A recent report in The Ministers' Monthly states that, "Over four thousand churches in the United States are now using motion pictures." There is food for thought in that statement. The cinematograph has become an educational force in the church of this country which has to be reckoned with. In Sunday schools and Bible classes one can hardly conceive of a better method of inculcating precious truths. There is a formative power in the cinema which neither the living voice nor the printed book or paper possesses. One of the first churchmen to foresee the growing acceptance of the camera was Rev. Johnston Myers, for 27 years pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church, Chicago, and for 10 years a user of motion pictures in that church. He writes, "There are two methods of reaching the mind with truth: through the eye and through the ear. The church has confined itself almost wholly to the ear. With the coming of the motion picture the discovery was made that people could be taught the most important lessons through the eye. I have seen pictures bring greater spiritual blessing than the sermon. I do not see how any active church can do without them." True, the pulpit has always approached church use of machinery with caution and armed with traditional conservatism. Since the time of the first printing press, there have been two diametrically opposed schools of religious thought on the subject of the machine, one believing that the use of contemporary mechanical improvements in the church was permissible and laudable, the other believing them a manifestation of irreligion. I have worked with both groups for a long time, and I am convinced that in a very few years the use of motion pictures within the church will be calmly accepted by all. For, like all other machines, the motion picture will become indispensable and a part of our daily routine. As the Reverend Arthur M. S. Stook of Waverly, Iowa, said recently, "Three hundred years ago the Church faced the introduction of the machine-made Bible and was almost disrupted by the innovation. Now the machine-made Bible has proven its utility and has been accepted universally. One hundred years later the Church faced another innovation in the form of machine-made music. Today only a very few churches have resisted this aid to worship. Motion pictures are the new challenge. We are told that eighty percent of the American public reads no books after leaving school, and that this same eighty percent goes to the movies every week. The conclusion seems to be that the present generation is learning from the screen rather than from books. Is there any reason, then, why we should not equip ourselves with this mighty educational medium for our own purposes?" Which touches on the crux of the matter, the installation of apparatus in churches. All religious persons are agreed that machinery need not THE COUNTRY, AS WELL AS THE CITY CHURCH HAS ADOPTED THE FILMS be used for unworthy purposes, but many clerics are hesitant about the delicacy of employing what may be improperly used by others for their own irreproachable purposes. Not that these same ministers, priests and rabbis are unwilling to install automatic oil burners, electric organs and even radio micrometers at their very altars. The motion picture question is always put to me specifically with a calm disregard of its relation technically to electric lights and pipe organs. "Is it morally right," they ask, "to install motion picture machines in a building consecrated to religious worship and divine exercise?" They might just as well ask, "Is it irreligious to use an electric flash-light in the church vestry?" But if the question of installation of equipment is ceded as merely a formal one, as is rapidly becoming the case, there then comes the problem of securing suitable film for release before a religious body. I have already suggested the possibilities of the amateur film. Also sufficient recognition has been given to the educational possibilities in motion pictures during the last ten years to create a steadily growing group of pictures entirely free from any objectionable element and perfectly motivated morally. Letters from clergymen throughout the country are filled with praise for the type of films of which "Rebecca of Sunny-Brook Farm," "The Gentleman From Indiana," "Old Lady 21," and "Seventeen" are representative. Once the projection machine is secured no pressure is exerted to influence the exhibitor in the rental of film. He has merely to go to the exchanges he desires to deal with, view several of the reels submitted to him and choose. Or he may follow some reviewing advice, such as is given in the Educational Screen Magazine of Chicago. It is not hard to see how, in a very short time, a growing demand for religious and educational pictures will create growing religious and educational film libraries in commercial exchanges, and how, with the churches asking for a specialized type of production, there may even rise whole studios and acting companies for the production of religious pictures. The tremendous welcome recently accorded "The King of Kings" by both public and clergy, and its acclaim as a reverent and artistic achievement, are definite proof that films for the church are here to stay, and to grow immeasurably in importance. Nineteen UM