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Audio recordings: he who has an ear, let him hear--but how much?
by Justin D. Long
| Languages with Christian broadcasting | 3,500 |
| Languages without broadcasting | 11,500 |
| Peoples with no own-language broadcasts | 7,313 |
| Population without own-language broadcasts | 709 million |
| Languages/dialects with Gospel recordings | 4,600 |
| Languages/dialects with "Jesus" film | 510 |
| Deaf, hearing-impaired, partially | 320 million |
| Deaf, severely | 130 million |
| Deaf, totally | 20 million |
We received numerous responses from last week's Reality-Check on illiteracy. One of the easy answers that many people pointed out, of course, is audio and video recordings. As we've noted before (3/4/96), the "JESUS" Film is one of the few examples of a truly successful global plan. Gospel recordings, with over 4,600 languages covered by at least a portion of Scripture on audio, is another.
Another outlet for audio recordings is radio broadcasting. The effects of this are enormous, particularly in restricted-access nations. In 1990, there were over 3 million new converts per year in 200 countries as a result of radio and television broadcasts. Isolated radio converts were estimated at 400,000 p.a., with 10,000 new isolated house churches springing up every year.
Unfortunately, there is a downside, which one writer touched on when jotting us a note. He suggested that there was a need to "promote effective discipleship and church-planting strategies for non-readers won to Christ through non-literate media." That's an expensive proposition.
Obviously, the Gospel CAN be communicated through Gospel recordings, the JESUS film, and television and radio broadcasts (and with raging success). But the Gospel itself is a relatively short message. A Christian can sit down and explain the whole thing in about an hour or so.
What happens then? Providing the whole Bible or a discipleship course on video or tape would be expensive, and it would be difficult to use. If you were doing a study on the fifteenth chapter of I Samuel, it'd be an interesting exercise finding the requisite chapter on audio tape--provided you had electricity, of course--and you wouldn't have access to any concordances, cross-references, or study notes. It wouldn't be a very viable solution for lay Christians. How much can you remember of a discipleship course, and how long?
If you can't read, you can't easily access discipleship materials or a Bible. Misinterpretation and heresy are common problems where Scriptures are not available, as any ministry in China can tell you from experience. If Christians are illiterate, they cannot read the Scriptures for themselves--and many Christians can tell you from history books their opinion of not personally studying the Bible.
And, another comment notes that there are other "intangible" issues which dramatically affect audio and video recordings: the dialect of the recording, the belief on the part of some that written revelation is superior--and of course, the need for personal relationships. In his opionion, flesh-and-blood missionaries, audio translations, and written copies should always be used hand-in-hand.
In short, Gospel recordings are a tremendously successful way of evangelizing and seeing converts. For the long term questions of discipleship, training, and mobilization to the mission field, the printed page is still the most economical way of transmitting information--and illiteracy will still need to be dealt with, particularly when training Third World pastors.