The Gladiator

The Gladiator

The Emperor Commodus has proclaimed 180 uninterrupted days of games for the Roman people. For the entertainment of the masses, gladiators will fight, bleed, and die, all in living color right before Roman eyes hungry for violence. Attend the games and along with the swords and sandals, free bread. "Panes and Circes," "bread and circuses," and the Romans loved it.

Two senators discuss the situation. The Roman sanitation system spreads filth, disease and death. But the games are what's important. As one senator says to another about the Emperor and his games, "He gives them death, and they love him for it." At the Coliseum the Roman audience experiences death without dying and violence without pain, as they thrill to the emotional roller coaster, all the while giving "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" as their will-of-the-wisp whim of the moment seals the fate of the human beings forced to fight for their entertainment.

The educated had looked at the games and concluded long before that such toughened the Romans, made them battle ready for war. Evil has always had its reasons, a sanctifying verse for every vice.

It was all Roman fun in the Italian sun; effortless, sensational, and mindless. It was at the same time fun and distraction, captivation without comprehension. Once inside the cozy confines of the Coliseum, there were no demands, just watch, just enjoy. Sit passively and watch death's scythe harvest its 180-day crop.

Entertainment is "the triumph of sensation over reason," writes Neal Gabler in "Life: The Movie," as he concludes that America is the Entertainment Republic. The Roman gladiators fight only in our movies now. The swords and sandals are props for today's entertainment hungry masses. Entertainment, not encroaching, but entrenched, rules. Almost without exception, whatever we do, wherever we go, we demand entertainment. Television sets entertain us while we wait in line at banks, while we wait in airports, and while we eat in restaurants. The sets may be muted, but they are there, always there with non-stop 24-hour, living color, 500 channel, entertainment in the Entertainment Republic. Sensation trumps reason every time.

The Entertainment Republic enters church. Our inalienable right to be entertained has brought its fun to church. Those who were once worshippers are now changed from congregations to audiences who applaud their way through everything in the "service" turned "program." You need a bulletin to keep track of the parade of entertainers. A pastor in Waco, Texas, boasted that his church had the "best rock music in town." (Knowing Waco, this may not be saying very much.)

It is before the maw of this voracious audience that the new gladiators of the clergy burn out trying to top last week's performances. Pastors flee their churches as the demand that the program be better than last week's eventually gets them a "thumbs down" as their ratings invariably go south.

It may be time to think through where all this could be headed. Malcolm Muggeridge once wrote that if Jesus had come the first time today, He would never have gone on TV with His message because the message of the gospel isn't entertainment. (Muggeridge may have been on to something here as surveys indicate that of all the ways of reaching people with the gospel, television ranks dead last in the number of conversions department.)

In the day when gladiatorial swords and sandals did hold the Empire enthralled, there were a select group of men who were not so quietly turning the world upside down. They did it by "discoursing," "reasoning," "declaring," "heralding," and "dialoguing" in synagogues, on riverbanks, in chariots, to groups, to individuals, and to families.

When Paul went all over the place, did he entertain? No. Was he interesting? You bet. And there is a difference. The Christian message engages the whole man-intellect, emotion, and volition. The message never manipulates the sensation to overcome the mind of man. The ancient evangelists presented a reasoned discourse as they dialogued with the unbeliever. Philip asks an African, "Do you understand what you're reading?" Jesus explains the Old Testament to Dumb and Dumber on their way to dinner reservations in Emmaus. Paul tells Timothy to teach the Word.

How did they do it? After Jesus' ascension, it was one man with one Bible reasoning with people. You just can't beat one man, one pastor, one evangelist, and one missionary with the Bible.

Our churches should be interesting because grace is inherently fascinating. Yet a Sunday school class is not a place to come to be entertained, to be overwhelmed as sensation beats up a reasoned presentation of the message. Grace is inherently fascinating; it needs to be turned loose.

"He gives them death and they love him for it," the senator said. Shouldn't we consider whether or not we're doing just that today, giving people a bread and circus diet of death at church instead of the hearty meat of the gospel message?

We love to be entertained, but in a church where the fanfare of entertainment makes mincemeat of the real message, are we giving them death? All the while, they will love us for it.

Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor

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