September 27, 2016 Show with Greg Reynolds and Bill Shishko on “Media Wars: A Battle for the Heart & Mind”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 27th day of September 2016.

I'm delighted to have two former guests back on the program today.

One I haven't interviewed in six years, the last time he was on the program was back in 2010 and that was on the old

Iron Sharpens Iron program broadcasting out of WNYG radio on Long Island, New York and this is his first interview on the all -new

Iron Sharpens Iron and that is Dr. Greg Reynolds, pastor of Amoskig Presbyterian Church in Manchester, New Hampshire and perhaps he can correct me if I've mispronounced that name and the second hour we have a very dear longtime friend of mine who has been on the program a number of occasions, in fact he was on not that long ago, perhaps five to six months ago

I believe and that's Pastor Bill Shishko, a mutual friend of Pastor Greg Reynolds and mine.

Pastor Bill Shishko is pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York and that is also, just as Dr.

Greg Reynolds' church is, that is also in the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.

Greg Reynolds. Yes, thank you Chris, it's really great to be here again, you got me to go over and look back at my book which

I've been expanding on since I published it back in 2001 and I really appreciate the ministry that you're doing to not only edify the brethren but also for those who are listening and don't know the

Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that he might use your broadcast to draw them to himself.

And let me also let our listeners know that we are going to be speaking on an overall topic, a broader topic of media wars, a battle for the mind and heart which is also the theme of the 21st

Annual Full Bible Conference at West Sable Reform Bible Church on Long Island, that's a conference that Pastor Bill Shishko, our second guest, will be speaking at.

But the first hour, more specifically, we are going to be addressing Dr. Reynolds' book which is related to that overall theme and Dr.

Reynolds' book is The Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures, Preaching in the Electronic Age.

But before we even go into any of that, Dr. Reynolds, since it's been six years since you've been on the program, it would be probably wise to have our listeners hear more about Amiskig Presbyterian Church and if you could correct me if I've mispronounced that.

Yeah, you came as close as anyone ever has without hearing it first, it's Amiskig, it's an

Indian name and it comes, the local Indians there in that part of New England, there were 13, 14 tribes in all of New England when the first European settlers came and these local

Algonquins, they had a very small tribe of the Amiskig Algonquins that were there meeting at the

Granite Falls on the Merrimack River there in Manchester, there's probably not even a mile from where our church building is.

Amiskig in our area is very user -friendly, I mean it's used for lots of businesses and that sort of thing, but very few advertise the fact that it means he who catches little fishes.

And so we thought, wow, that's a wonderful evangelist theme because that's what we planted the church for, is to catch fish in the

Lord's net and gather them into the kingdom. We started with about a dozen people back in 1996 meeting, having

Bible studies every other week, and then we are just about to celebrate our 20th public worship service and the odd thing, an amazing thing, is that it was in the building, the same building that we started renting for this first service, is the building that we've now owned since 1998, and so the

Lord has blessed us in immeasurable ways in that location. So we've grown, we've been able to plant a church out in Dover, and the

Lord has just brought lots of wonderful people in, and we have been thrilled to be here in the area that we were actually raised in as children and teenagers.

So we always dreamed and prayed once we became Christians in the early 70s that the

Lord would plant Reformed Bible -centered, Christ -centered, God -centered churches in our area.

Well, you made me feel very old because, believe it or not, Dr. Reynolds, although I interviewed you six years ago, the last time

I saw you face -to -face, if I'm not mistaken, was when you hosted a conference featuring the late

Dr. John Gerstner at the Westchester Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Oh, I had forgotten that,

Chris. That's a wonderful memory, and we had quite a stellar range of speakers over the years, and Dr.

Gerstner was certainly one of the best, talking about Jonathan Edwards.

Yes, I remember that very well, and he was always one of my favorite speakers at the

Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology as well, and there's one thing that you could certainly say about Dr.

Gerstner is that he never pulled punches or tried to placate to the whims and tastes of his audience.

He just preached from his heart what he believed, and he let the chips fall where they may.

That's right, yes. He was a very powerful and very straightforward preacher, as you say, and really stuck to the message of God's Word.

And I know that at one point when I was introducing you, if Pastor Bill Shishko was listening, he no doubt flinched in his chair because as soon as it came out of my mouth,

I knew that if Bill were sitting next to me, he'd reprimand me because I think I referred to the

Amiskig Presbyterian Church as your church. And Bill, as long as I've known him, would be quick to say, it's not your church, it's the church of the

Lord Jesus Christ. That's right, it's the church that I am temporarily privileged to be the pastor of, and as I grow older now,

I'm 67, I'm reminded of the rapidity with which life passes, and the importance of having people committed to the church, to the

Lord, to His Word, to the sacraments of the Lord's Supper and Baptism, and to prayer, because those are things that will endure until the

Lord comes again. Well, we'll have Pastor Bill talk a little bit more about the denomination of the

OPC when he's on the program the next hour, but this book that you wrote back in 2001, it was published.

The word is worth a thousand pictures. Now, well, first of all, let our listeners know what compelled you to write that, and also give us an update 15 years later on how things have changed since then in relation to the media wars.

Yes. Back in, so I was ordained in 1980. I was actually in New Rochelle from June of 1979 after seminary, and ordained in 1980, and by 1990, having preached for 10 years,

I felt that I really needed some renewal, and I happened at the time to be on a committee that was exploring some changes in our denominational magazine with Jay Adams.

He had started a program out in Westminster, Escondido, which was brand new as of 1980, so it was a fairly new institution.

They had a doctorate ministry program in preaching, which Dr. Adams had built, and so, or designed, and so he talked me into it, and I'm forever happy, and praise the

Lord for the fact that I did matriculate in 1990, spent a month out there, and encountered

Dr. Joel Niederhood, who gave a class that really changed my whole view of preaching and it didn't change my view of preaching so much as the need to encourage men who were being inundated with electronic media to, that God's calling on them as preachers of the

Word was one that doesn't change no matter how the media environment changes, but because of the media environment,

I think that, I believe that, as Niederhood said, that environment challenges us to think about not only the environment itself, but how we can be better preachers in encountering that environment and recognizing some of the dangers that are going to be there in our hearers.

And so, after that, I went back to New Rochelle, where I was pastor at the time, and I began to work on the project, and that's how

I came to look at the whole matter of media ecology, which is a discipline that Marshall McLuhan and later on Neil Postman and many others,

Jacques Ellul would be one of the mentors in this movement, they had begun many years ago, mid -20th century, and they explored the nature of media in terms of the way that it influences culture as a total environment.

Yeah, I remember Neil Postman, who was Jewish, wrote Amusing Ourselves to Death, correct?

Yes, yes, and that was, it's interesting, I thought of this in terms of the presidential debate last night, how much the television has changed the whole nature of public debate and public discourse, as Postman referred to it, and that book was, also really was a very important book in my early thinking.

I actually read that while I was out there taking Dr. Niederhood's class, in fact it was one of the required, it was required reading, and as soon as I got back to New York, I was able to interview him at NYU, which was an enormous privilege, and I realized what a tremendous contribution this was, because he was pointing to the differences that electronic media, even before the internet and mobile and social media, he was pointing to the difference that the television environment as an environment makes in public discourse, and of course he went on to apply that to many other areas of life, including the development of children.

Yeah, I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Niederhood as well on the old

Iron Sharpens Iron program, and enjoyed doing so immensely, and he wrote a very wonderful commendation for the program, actually that was way back in 2008.

He, I interviewed him on challenging thoughtful Roman Catholics to examine their faith, that was the theme of our discussion, and he was one of the conservatives that still hung in there with the

Christian Reformed Church, is he still in the denomination of the CRC? As far as I know,

I'm sure he's retired by now, he was the preaching pastor in a church there in Grand Rapids, the last

I knew. And before, did I mistakenly say that I interviewed

Niederhood, because of course I took his class, but I meant to say that I interviewed Postman when

I got there. Oh, okay, I think you did say Niederhood, but... No, that's a mistake, so it was Neil Postman that I got to interview back in New York, and it was fascinating, he was a liberal

Jew, and was fascinated by the fact that Christians seem to be so taken with his book and interested in it, and of course because we take public communication so seriously, which was really the topic of his book, that's of course why his perceptions have been so valuable to Bible -believing evangelical

Christians. But yes, Niederhood took a brave stand, because while he was doing the

Baptist -God Hour, of course for years, I think something like four decades or more, but they asked him to do a television program, and so that's when he started reading people like McLuhan and Postman, and started thinking about what the nature of television and how different a medium it is from the radio, which of course is all about voice, and how the visual really changes things.

And the last time I talked to him, several years ago, he was really unhappy about the way that that radio program has gone, because it has really veered from some of his warnings.

One of his warnings was, you can't do worship on television, it's just not possible because of the nature of the medium.

And so he recommended doing stories, telling stories, because as Postman points out, television does drama very, very well.

In other words, that's something that it is really designed for as a medium, whereas it does not do worship at all well, because it actually makes, as Postman said,

God is played second fiddle in that environment, as the preacher becomes the focus, because of the visual nature of the medium.

Yeah, and in fact, I can remember Dr. James Montgomery Boyce, who is now with the

Lord for eternity, but I remember he resisted all efforts by others to have a televised worship service.

I didn't realize that, but that certainly is a wise thing, and in fact, I can remember in a church when my wife and I were first married, before I went off to seminary, the pastor had a television show in the morning, and it was very evident to us, and this was long before I did any real serious reflection on media, it was obvious to us that he was paying complete attention to the television audience that he couldn't see, and not those of us who were there as live worshipers in that context, so it was dismaying, it was very unsettling to us, and we didn't stay at that church very long.

Yeah, I couldn't help but think, I have never been a part, a regular member of a congregation that had televised services,

I may have been in the audience at some point when a church was having their services televised, but I wasn't a member of a church like that, but I cannot help but think that while you are worshiping

God in song and prayer and so on, I can't help but think that that gnawing knowledge in the back of your head that you are perhaps on camera and that everything that you're saying and singing is going out to a televised viewing audience,

I can't help but think that that would be a distraction from truly focusing on worshiping

God and not trying to entertain people watching TV.

Yeah, oh exactly. Now we've even encountered some media ecology questions with regard to audio recording of sermons, which an awful lot of churches have done that for years as well, and he was on sermon audio long before I got on, but we'd always done the recording at least locally so that we could give a

CD, or of course cassettes back in the old days, or a CD in the less old days, because we don't do that anymore either.

We do MP3 on our website, but it was basically for the people who were missed a sermon, they'd been away on vacation or whatever, we didn't have a larger audience in view.

Now of course on sermon audio you do get a larger audience, but we determined that we would never tailor the preaching for anything but the local congregation, because that is what

God called me and us to minister to. And so when we briefly had a radio program for about, well it was about two years

I guess, in Derry, New Hampshire, WDER, a very good radio station, but we would,

I would just preach to the congregation and then we would have an editor go through and edit it down to 26 minutes so it would fit their program format, but we never,

I never cut the sermons or in any way tailored them for the radio audience, and so that was,

I thought it was a decision that we made that was media ecology at its best, because we used the medium, but we didn't let it dominate or dictate to us.

Now how do you in your day -to -day life and whenever you gather to worship, how do you try to make sure that you are separating in your mind and in the practical outcome of your decisions in regard to worship and so on, separating things that you are clinging to which are really purely out of sentimentalism, and things that you are clinging onto and resisting change because you think it will actually alter the gospel message or do some kind of harm to the proclamation of God's Word and the communication of it?

It is one of the things I have to say that I've been criticized for being too critical of electronic media, and I like to remind people that anyone who is a critic in the true sense of the word of anything has to have a deep appreciation for the thing that they're being critical of, and so literary criticism, we know that you couldn't be a literary critic unless you loved literature, and the same is true for me with media.

You know, I have a smartphone, I have an iPad, I have my MacBook Pro computer, and I use my computer continually for different aspects of ministry.

So being a media critic does not mean you don't like media, and so it's funny,

I have to constantly... I recently have written another book that's not yet published that I got the criticism from reviewers that it was too critical of electronic media, and I think

I have to probably go back and clarify some things, but the idea of being a critic is to see the benefits and liabilities of something, and I think that we're big on seeing the benefits as Americans, and we're weak on seeing the liabilities, so that every new thing is something that we immediately grasp.

I've always been amazed at how the latest rendition of the iPhone has people waiting for several days at the store, pitching tents or whatever they've got to do.

That iPhone, the minute it comes out, it's like, wow, you couldn't wait until at least the next day to go and get it or order it and have it delivered to your house.

So we love the new, and we don't like anyone criticizing what we think is the best thing since sliced bread, and so what...

But I have to be careful because I do have, you know, I love history, I love the Puritans, and I love old things.

We live in an antique house, and I like old ways. I like some of the old manners that I think our culture has jettisoned, much to its hurt.

At the same time, one of the reasons I went and decided not to do something in doctoral studies in church history is because I felt like I needed to really get back in touch with what was going on in the culture, and my earlier training in apologetics,

I thought I needed to get back to that so that I wouldn't get hung up on things, like you said, that might be enjoyed for sentimental reasons.

Now, one example of that which I've wrestled with is, I've had people recently ask me, do you think it's good or bad to have, to use for ministers when they're preaching, to use an electronic device?

Usually it's some kind of like an iPad that they would use in their preaching to look at their sermon manuscript and then the scriptures.

It's hard to do both on one device, and my response is,

I wouldn't say that it's sinful, but I would say that I think it's probably unwise, because there's something about the

Codex as a book that has a kind of solidity.

Also, for me, it would be a practical matter that I need to have my sermon and the sermon notes and the

Bible so that I can use them both simultaneously, but I think those are things that every session has to work through.

There are some things that are better than others, given a different circumstance.

So, would I like a pulpit that's raised above the floor? I think that that's usually in terms of an architectural space and in terms of the acoustics, that it's much better.

Visually, you can see if a pastor's up above the floor level, you can see him better, and so those sorts of things have to be taken into account.

But could I preach? Could we have a church in the catacombs if we had to? I could also wear a polo shirt, or I could wear a toga if I was in Rome, or something like that.

I tend to like to dress up, because I think there is something to the dignity of worship that requires us to maybe dress differently on Sunday mornings.

I know I'm totally out of touch with the way most people feel about that, but we do have to distinguish with what we're personally attached to and what is either good or bad for our worship.

One thing I was wondering what your thoughts were, and this has been around for quite a while, it's not a new innovation, but I can remember a day when no one was doing it, or very few were, the overhead projection for hymns.

I can see one immediate benefit, and maybe you disagree with me, but the immediate benefit

I see is just even in the posture one is taking with their head looking up rather than down at the hymnal, might be more productive or conducive to the projection of one's voice, but perhaps you have a different opinion on that.

Yeah, I mean here's another place where I would say it's a case of wisdom, and that may differ in terms of different congregations and their different situations.

I remember the best use of projected hymns that I've ever seen was when

I preached in Cairo many years ago, and I was in, I think it's called Heliopolis, where they had a church that reminded me of Tenth Press, so this was like the flagship church of the small

Reformed community that's there in Egypt, and I'd been asked to go and give a lecture, and I was asked to preach that Sunday, so I preached in this church, and on either side of the pulpit, they had screens that were illuminated, and they showed the hymns instead of above, and so I felt that it really didn't distract from the preaching.

I think a bigger problem is whenever the scripture is projected, especially up on a wall or something,

I think the focus ought to be on the preacher and paying attention and having eye contact with him.

So I think that each congregation or each session, each group of leaders that make these decisions need to be prudent in the way that they conclude, will come to whatever conclusions they come to, but it's important for people to be focusing on the worship leader, who in turn is seeking to get them focused on the

Lord through his word. So I'm not a huge fan of the

PowerPoint, you know, there are a lot of times ministers in the middle of their sermon.

The worst example to me is when while they're preaching, different sermons, different scriptures that they refer to are projected up on the wall.

I just think that really distracts from the one who is leading worship.

Now wouldn't you distinguish between using that kind of, or those kind of tools in a worship service, or should

I say during a sermon, and somebody who's teaching, because I have found those things incredibly helpful if somebody is teaching or giving a lecture on something very technical as opposed to preaching.

Right, yeah, well it certainly can be good, and there's a, you know, the

PowerPoint is a very interesting technology or an app, and what

I've discovered, and I've used it for slideshows, and so I think one effective way of using it is, and in teaching,

I don't happen to use it, but I've seen people use it where there are pictures and maybe a small description.

The danger of PowerPoint, again, is that it gets your focus off the eye -to -eye contact that you have with a speaker.

It doesn't mean that it's always unwise, it just means that that's something that the speaker needs to be aware of, and the name of the man is escaping me right now off the top of my head, but there is a brilliant man who is a statistician, and one rarely thinks...

Let's pronounce Chris Arnzen. No, this is someone, oh, it's

Tufte, okay, that's the name, it's Edward Tufte, and the New York Times called him the

Leonardo da Vinci of statistics, so statistics and fine art don't usually go together, but he has learned the importance of communicating statistics in ways that people really understand, and he has a little booklet on PowerPoint in which he shows that people really don't understand how to use it effectively, and therefore most people shouldn't use it for teaching because people would rather have a handout and be able to have eye -to -eye contact with the speaker.

I think, you know, that's something that's a toss -up. I mean, I've seen it used effectively with an outline, and it sort of gives people a visual way of staying in touch with the order of what you're teaching.

The danger is that, as Tufte points out, many people will take their sort of unorganized thoughts and they plug it into PowerPoint, and they think that because PowerPoint will organize anything that you throw into it, and that there's somehow that their thoughts are organized because PowerPoint has put it up there with bullet points, and so that's just simply a danger,

I think, of PowerPoint, and of course there are a number of other apps that might do a better job depending on what you're seeking to achieve.

Yeah, I'll give you an example of one area where I think it was used very appropriately and effectively is when

I saw a lecture by a well -known Biblical scholar on the veracity of the most ancient of New Testament manuscripts evidence, and you know, you had to see things blown up because of the ancient writings and so on, and he was going into why over the centuries when these texts were copied, how mistakes could easily be made because of the way the

Koine Greek fonts looked, the lettering looked, and so on, and it was just, it really opened my eyes to a lot of things, but that was not a sermon, that was really an instruction course or lecture that I was watching.

Right, oh yeah, and I think, I mean, that's an obvious example of something, and pictures from the mission field are similar to that, where the visual is very important to people so they can have a sense of the location of your work, in this case of the kinds of distinctions and nuances in a text from the ancient world.

Earlier you had asked me a question and a follow -up that I really forgot to follow up on was, what has changed since you wrote the book?

In fact, could you pick that up as soon as we return from the break? Yes. And we are going to a break right now.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr. Greg Reynolds, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. So don't go away, we're going to be right back with Dr. Greg Reynolds. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

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Harvey Cedars, where Christ finds people and changes lives. Welcome back.

This is Chris Sarnes, and if you just tuned us in, our first guest today is Dr. Greg Reynolds. He is pastor of Amiskag Presbyterian Church in Manchester, New Hampshire, and the author of The Word is

Worth a Thousand Pictures, Preaching in the Electronic Age. Our second guest joining us at the top of the hour is

Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, New York, and he is going to be speaking about the theme of West Sable Reformed Bible Church's 21st

Annual Full Bible Conference. That's at the West Sable Reformed Bible Church on Long Island, New York, so stay tuned for Pastor Bill at the top of the hour.

But before we went to the break, Dr. Reynolds, you were going to address a question

I had about how things have changed since you wrote the book originally, the book The Word is

Worth a Thousand Pictures. Yes, thank you, Chris. A lot has changed, of course.

I think the fundamental principles in the book I think will be helpful for years to come, but since the book was written or published, actually it was written in the late 90s but published in 2001, and social and mobile media have really had a tremendous influence over the last decade.

And I have a book that I would highly recommend. One of the things that Bill Shishko had recommended that we talk about is some of the books that would be helpful, a few books that would be helpful to sort of bring us up to date, and one of them is by Sherry Turkle, Alone Together, Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.

Wow, that's a great title. Alone Book, it's Basic Books, 2011. Sherry Turkle is the

Abby Rockefeller Maus Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, the founder and director of the

MIT Initiative on Technology itself, and a licensed clinical psychologist.

And here's something that she says. This is a quote from her that I often repeat, and I use this especially in the introduction, something

I'll talk about in a moment, which is a lecture that I have also, an article that is published online and both in print as well at the

Ordained Servants site, which is a journal for church officers that I publish for the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church. But thinking about the importance of face -to -face, which of course is built into her subtitle, this is what she says.

She says, I reported on this work that is of the interreaction between, interrelationship of real and virtual worlds in my 1995

Life on the Screen, which offered, on balance, a fairly positive view of new opportunities for exploring identity online.

But by then, my optimism of 1984, when she wrote her first book called

The Second Self, it had been challenged. I was meeting people, many people, who found online life more satisfying than what some derisively called

RL, that is, real life. And so there,

I think, we encounter a major theme in our culture, which is that face -to -face relationships are being undermined by our technology.

I think it was Oz Guinness that referred to, and others have referred to this as well, the

Gnostic tendencies of the internet. That is to say that it is a kind of a disembodied life, and we have disembodied relationships.

And I've always believed, even back before the social media, when, in fact, there's a sense in which all media are social media because they connect us with others in different ways.

But that email was a wonderful medium if you, first of all, know somebody face -to -face, that that's when it can actually enhance relationships.

But we've also discovered in the church that, in fact, recently had someone leave who said that their relationships were, they wanted their relationships to be online.

And it reminds me of what we've been seeing recently at universities about having safe spaces and trigger warnings that we, the more we distance ourselves from personal encounters, the more we want to protect ourselves in ways that really keep us from having deep and profound relationships.

And so I've always said that to be a part of a church is definitely harder than just isolating yourself.

It's much more healthy than isolating yourself, but it's definitely more difficult, and that's why people tend to want to sort of escape into their little

Facebook illusions, which I think are very dangerous, and which Sherry Turkle is helpfully pointing out is a danger to us.

I did a study, Chris, on face -to -face relationships and the importance of the face in the

Bible, and it was an astonishing study in terms of how much it revealed about what the

Scriptures teach. And so there, you know,

I could, well, people might be interested in going and looking at the article that I have.

In fact, I think there's also a lecture, a Sunday school lecture, online at amiskagechurch .org.

But the importance of face -to -face ministry, actually, this was given to a group of church officers, so ministers, deacons, and elders, and just pointing out in Scripture the absolutely central importance of face -to -face encounter, and especially in the ancient world when it was difficult.

Paul, in the beginning of Romans, you remember, says, I long to see you face -to -face.

He wanted to see God's people in Rome face -to -face, and in his letter at the end of 1

John, he says, though I have much to communicate to you, I would rather not use, and I, like a wise guy, put this in email or my smartphone, but he says, pen and ink, instead

I hope to come to you and talk face -to -face so that your joy may be complete.

And I would say that the reality of the Incarnation and the embodied glory that the

Lord Jesus has won for us as our inheritance is a real, it ought to modify and help us to be better stewards of our electronic media.

Okay, we have a listener in Mastic Beach, Long Island, and I'm not 100 % sure

I understand his question, maybe you do, but Tyler in Mastic Beach says, when it comes to electronic -based evangelism, such as on social media, do you think that some

Christian lay people are often misunderstood by the world?

I'm assuming he means that especially a lay person might not have an expertise or a seasoned ability to communicate the biblical truths with clarity, but I'm not really 100 % sure what he means.

Maybe you can give your take on his question. Okay, well, I can add it from a couple of angles,

Chris, and I think that, first of all, ministers are trained in the

Bible and called and gifted by God and those gifts recognized by the Church for a reason, that we each need to be taught to understand and interpret

Scripture properly. But I think a larger concern may be, and so when someone witnesses, they ought to be in a good

Church where they make sure that their theology is sound, is biblical, and consistent with what the

Scripture teaches, so that then, and I've always encouraged lay people to put the

Gospel out there in every arena of life, and that certainly would include Facebook. But a danger would be to think that somehow that's, you know, once someone becomes a

Christian through some form of internet witness, that's the end of it, and it really ought to be the beginning.

And I think part of that witness would be to get people to go and find a solid biblical

Church that they can meet people face -to -face and have face -to -face ministry with a minister or ministers of the

Word who will love them, who will care for them, who will help them to be formed by the

Word of God. We have B .B. in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, do you think that one of the dangers of our modern age and our use of electronic media during worship services is that at times it could be nothing more than showing off the technology that your

Church has been able to purchase, and sometimes there is apparently no real need for using the devices other than to provide some form of a more entertaining way to communicate the biblical teachings?

Oh yeah, I think that's a spot -on comment, B .B. I think that there's a lot to that.

I'll never forget the first time I ever saw someone using a cell phone at a Church meeting.

It was actually at General Assembly, and none of us had cell phones, so this was the only person out of maybe 200 people that had a cell phone, at least that I was aware of.

I remember him getting a call and walking off into a corner, and there was a sort of swagger.

Now, I might have been imagining this, maybe I was envying him, but there was a kind of swagger, and we know a friend of mine,

Charlie Denison, who went to be with the Lord many years ago, but he was very witty on this topic, and he said, now it's no longer holier than thou, it's cooler than thou.

And so B .B. is on to something important there, and another dimension of this, however, is that, you know,

I remember someone from one of these large megachurches, a minister, someone who's quite well known, actually, saying that he wanted the atmosphere of their hall, where they worship, to be like the offices of the professional business people in his congregation, so they would feel comfortable.

I've worked with architect in offices, and the last thing on earth that I ever have wanted would be to be back in my office.

So the point is that worship, however the local leadership determines to frame this, worship should be a unique experience.

It should really be all designed around lifting us up into the presence of God, and I try to remind myself of that when

I preach each Lord's Day. I want people to come into God's living presence, and I want it to be a totally different experience than their ordinary experience in their daily lives, so that they will bring back a transformed mindset into their daily lives, and it will help them live in a very challenging world.

Would you say that one of the dangers of going overboard with using a technology, modern technology, in a worship service, especially when it comes to preaching, that it really dehumanizes where this biblical truth is flowing from, where it's being, who is exegeting it, who is proclaiming it.

It's another buffering factor in between the human that God has chosen to proclaim his word, who he has anointed, who he has ordained as a servant, and it's become more of a media experience than a pastoral one.

Oh, absolutely, and I think this is one of my complaints about some of, maybe even much of, is that it brings a form from the pop culture, which, by the way, is fine just to enjoy in a light way in the culture for entertainment or whatever, relaxation, but the fact is that with that form is a worldview, and to bring that form into the

Church is to completely underestimate the relationship between the forms of things and their substances.

I would say the two really are inextricable, and so to Christianize pop music, rock and roll,

I think is a tremendous mistake, and I'm not against Christians listening to popular music.

There's some that might be quite objectionable for theological and ethical reasons, but in and of itself, pop music, folk music, pop music is not a bad thing, but in the

Church, our music ought to be something that is elevating. Now, that doesn't mean it's contemporary or traditional or old.

It means it's either good music or bad music, and that could be from the third century, or it could be from written last week, and I know there have been some wonderful hymns written in recent

Church history. So putting this back into the context now of the whole of worship, all of those things dehumanize, and anything that distances us from the realities of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the pastor, who is really his representative to the people of God, is dehumanizing.

And I remember years ago, there was someone, and I forget, I don't know even who this is, but I heard the story of someone who had a parishioner who wanted to listen to a famous Reformed preacher who preached every

Sunday on the television. And so one of the parishioners was critical of the local pastor and said, you know, that so -and -so,

Dr. So -and -so, is a better preacher than you, and I'm going to listen to him, I'm not going to be coming to church anymore.

And then the man's father died, and he came to the pastor and asked if he would do the funeral.

And so the pastor apparently said to him, why don't you ask Dr. So -and -so?

So that made a firm point. I'm pretty sure that this local pastor, out of compassion and love for this man, actually did the funeral.

But he had an excellent point, is that the television pastor, however sincere he may be, can't know you and pray for you and care for you and have a face -to -face relationship with you.

And so you're absolutely right that anything that gets in the way of that wonderful relationship between a pastor and his people and between God and his church is a problem.

Yeah, I can even remember one of my earliest experiences in a non -Catholic church, because I was raised

Roman Catholic. I was at a little Pentecostal church, and there was a lot of nonsense,

I believe, that went on in that church. But I can still remember one thing that I could see a lot of wisdom in or a lot of truth in, and I remember the

Pentecostal pastor shouting at the top of his lungs. He was very upset that the church was cutting into their offerings to the local church there and giving it to Jimmy Swagger and Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and all those media charismatics that were popular in the day.

And I can remember him shouting at the top of his lungs, Is Jimmy Swagger gonna be sitting at your bedside in the hospital when you're sick?

Is Jim and Tammy Faye Baker gonna lower your mom or your daddy into the earth when they pass away?

No, it's gonna be me! That's right, that's the point. Yeah, that's an excellent, that's an impressive how important that is.

And so, you know, what I get, I try to get people, I mean, the fundamental theme of my work, and this has not changed since I originally wrote the book, is to ask if my use of media is fostering healthy relationships with God, with His church, with my family, with my friends, and with the world around me, and even the natural world.

And I think we'll find that people are not being very thoughtful about that in the culture, and that bleeds over into the church.

And so, if we are to take seriously Paul's admonition in that wonderful passage in Romans 12 -2, where he says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, if we take that seriously, we're going to be taking care to look at how it is that our use of the electronic media affects those relationships for good or ill.

And just think about the telephone now. We couldn't be doing what I think is a good thing with your excellent program if it weren't for the telephone.

It's a wireless phone that I'm on here, and it's really remarkable technology that God has allowed us to invent.

And so, this was an excellent use, but there are so many dangers out there that we just need to be thoughtful about the way that we use them.

Yeah, one very quick humorous story. When I was visiting a church a number of years ago out in eastern

Suffolk County, Long Island, the church used the King James Version of the

Bible, and I didn't have a King James Bible with me, so I took out my phone and looked up the

King James Version of the passage that was being preached on my phone, and the pastor came up to me later chuckling, and he said,

I gotta tell you my wife said to me after the service, can you believe Chris Harnson was just looking at his text messages or something on his phone during your preaching?

He said, honey, he was looking at the Bible. It was the King James Version. It's so funny you should say that,

Chris, because my wife once said that to me about someone in the congregation. She said, I think so -and -so is checking their email or their text messages.

And I said, no, I happen to know that this person used the Bible on their phone.

It's a good example of not jumping to conclusions. Yes. If you could, in about two minutes, just close with a summary of what you want most etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Well, yes, I think being good stewards of the electronic media and doing some good reading, some good thoughtful reading, we have on the website for opc .org,

that's our denominational website, is the magazine or the journal that I edit, which is

Ordained Servant. And if you go there, you will find lots of reviews of different books on media.

And I have a number, I do some of the reviews myself, others do the reviews, and there's an excellent review of the book that I just mentioned,

Alone Together by Sherry Turkle. Also, Nicholas Carr has written a book called

The Shallows, What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. And so while I think that neuroscience as a very new discipline, some people exaggerate its results, especially those that think that all reality is simply material, but nonetheless, it does show one aspect of our thinking process.

And I think there's a lot out there to give us pause in terms of our paying attention.

I will frequently say to people in my preaching that the world, if we're not good stewards of our electronic media, it will unsuit us for the most important business of worshiping, because we will not be paying attention.

And I think across both secular and Christian critics of the media, I see this as a single huge theme, is the inattentiveness of people in the modern world.

That's why we're now electing people based on soundbites and impressions rather than the substance of their characters and of their policies.

So I think we have to be... Renewing our minds takes a tremendous effort, as R .C.

Sproul has often taught us. And if the Lord is to be honored, I think the

Church has tools that nobody else has to be good stewards of the media. And this will be a point of very powerful witness in the decades to come.

Well, Dr. Reynolds, it's been such a pleasure interviewing you again, and let's not wait six years for our next interview.

And hopefully even, let's do a two -hour interview next time. But I want to remind our listeners that the

Amiskag Presbyterian Church in New Hampshire can be found at amiskagchurch .org,

and that would be spelled A -M -I -S, just like in the Bible, K -E -A -G church .org.

A -M -I -S -K -E -A -G church .org. We look forward to having you back, brother. Okay.

Thank you, Chris. It's been really enjoyable. God bless. God bless you, too. And don't go away, folks, because coming up next is my old friend,

Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, who is continuing our theme on media war as a battle for the heart and mind, which is also the theme of the 21st

Annual Fall Bible Conference at the West Savile Reform Bible Church on Long Island, where Pastor Bill Shishko will be the guest speaker.

And again, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Pastor Bill, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We will be right back after these messages.

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That's linbrookbaptist .org. I'm Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and here's one of my favorite guests,

Todd Friel, to tell you about a conference he and I are going to. Hello, this is Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio and Wretched TV and occasional guest on Chris's show

Iron Criticizing Iron. I think that's what it's called.

Hoping that you can join Chris and me at the G3 conference in Atlanta, my new hometown.

It is going to be a bang -up conference called the G3 conference celebrating the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation with Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Baucom, Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, James White and a bunch of other people.

We hope to see you there. Learn more at g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

Thanks, Todd, I think. See you at the Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors booth.

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Iron Sharpens today. Welcome back, this is Chris Arnsen.

If you just tuned us in, our second guest today for the remaining hour of the broadcast is a very dear old friend of mine,

Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, and he is truly one of my earliest friends as a born -again believer in Christ, having heard him speak very shortly after coming to Christ in the 1980s when he was a fairly new pastor on Long Island actually at the time, and we're going to be talking about the media wars, a battle for the heart and mind, which is the theme of the 21st

Annual Fall Bible Conference at West Sayville Reform Bible Church on Long Island where Pastor Bill is the guest speaker, and I just want to make sure

I give you the website of the West Sayville Reform Bible Church for more details on contacting them and directions and so on.

It's wsrbc .org, that's WS for West Sayville, RBC for Reform Bible Church .org,

but it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Bill Shishko. It's good to be with you again,

Chris. Yeah, it's always great to have you and I have so many fond memories of hearing you preach and working with you in radio projects, including one that I hope that we both get involved in shortly with a revival of a visit to the pastor's study, which is something that we did,

I think, nearly annually for quite a while in the old days of me working for WMCA radio in New Jersey.

That's exactly right. That's something, actually, it builds on something I started my first pastorate in McClellanville, South Carolina.

That was way back, probably before you were born, 1979, 1980.

So, but we'll, you and I'll have the opportunity to discuss that, I hope, a little bit later in the program, as well as tomorrow night.

Well, I thank you for the high compliment, Pastor Bill, but I was born in 1962.

I thought you were a young man. When you call me old friend, the older I get, that's a double entendre.

Well, before we even go into the main theme, if you could let our listeners know something, not only about the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, but also something about the denomination itself that was founded by J.

Gresham Machen, and I know Jesus Christ founded it, but I mean in an earthly sense, as far as the denomination is concerned.

Yeah, sure. But if you don't mind, Chris, let me go back. You know, my dear friend,

I knew Dr. Reynolds when he wasn't a doctor. Greg and I were best friends from day one at Westminster Seminary, beginning in 1976, and I'm so thrilled that you interviewed him.

He's a very self -effacing fellow, and I don't know that he even mentioned, other than at the beginning of the broadcast, that he mentioned his book, and I wanted to remind your listeners of that book.

I'm working through it for the second time. It is absolutely the most detailed, carefully thought -out study in the field of media ecology.

That's the fancy word today, media ecology, that anyone's going to read. And that book is called,

I love the title, The Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures, Preaching in the

Electronic Age by Gregory Edward Reynolds. The Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures.

But for your listeners whose interest has been piqued by the presentation in the last hour, they want to get that and read it.

It's not the kind of thing you're going to read overnight, but it would be well worth the study for your listeners.

So I'm not giving that plug, do you? Oh no, and I urge them to order it through one of my sponsors,

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com. That's CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service .com.

And I want to thank Todd and Patty Jennings for sponsoring our program and for being faithful supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron since we relaunched here in Cumberland Valley.

Great. I must correct something. As of the end of last month, as of the end of August, I am no longer the pastor of the

Orthodox Church in Franklin Square after 35 years and three months and I don't know how many days,

I've been called by my presbytery, which is a regional group of churches, to serve as a regional home missionary of the

Presbytery of Connecticut and Southern New York. And when people ask me about how my retirement is,

I tell them that they are bearing false witness against their neighbor. I am busier now than I ever have been, but maybe later in the program you'll let me tell you a little bit more about me.

That's okay. Orthodox Presbyterian Church, that was the first church body formed as a result of the so -called fundamentalist modernist controversy in the 20th century.

That was when doctrinal liberalism had begun to really erode, more than erode, it began to eat the heart out of historic

Protestant denominations, began basically even the Episcopal churches, Methodist churches,

Lutheran churches, and Presbyterian churches. The Presbyterian Church of the

United States in America, the so -called mainline Presbyterian Church, Northern Presbyterian Church, had always prided itself in an educated clergy, which in itself is not a bad thing, but when your clergymen have been educated over in Germany and have been steeped in teaching that denies not only the fundamentals of the

Christian faith, but the fundamental of the fundamentals, that the

Bible is the Word of God, when men are infected with that, come back to pulpits and begin to teach and preach it, it's putting toxins into the church system.

Anyway, that kind of theological liberalism developed in the early part of the 20th century.

It's a fascinating, sad story, which included the takeover of Princeton Seminary, which was a bastion of historic conservative

Presbyterian and Reformed thinking, taking over that seminary by liberal elements.

And all of that came to, that fascinating story, came to a head in the 1930s when

Dr. J. Gresson Machen, as you mentioned, Tim, who was something of the Martin Luther, I would say, of the 20th century,

Dr. Machen had written a book called Christianity and Liberalism, which, again, whether people get it from Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, wherever they get it,

Christianity and Liberalism by Dr. J. Gresson Machen, probably one of the most critical doctrinal works of the, at least the first quarter of the 20th century, in which

Dr. Machen, brilliant New Testament theologian who had taught at Princeton, said that theological liberalism, we're not talking about the political variety, but doctrinal liberalism, which denies the fundamental doctrines of the

Christian faith, the Bible, that the Bible is the Word of God, that Jesus performed miracles, and they really were miracles, that he was born of a virgin, the meaning of the blood atonement of Christ.

The denial of those fundamental doctrines was not another version of Christianity, but it was not

Christianity. And that that doctrinal matter became basically a war in the

Presbyterian Church in the USA in the 1920s, the 1930s.

In 1936, those men who essentially would not support the boards of the

Presbyterian Church USA, which were proliferating liberal teaching, these men were defrocked by the

General Assembly, or at least their defrocking was upheld by the General Assembly, and these men, a number of ruling elders from Presbyterian Church USA churches, and of course many individuals, formed the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936. So it was fascinating,

Chris, that when this was happening, this made news headlines in the New York Times, because the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church was the first denomination formed as a result of the so -called fundamentalist, modernist controversy in religion.

So it's an honor for me to be part of that body of believers. Wow, I did not know it was the very first one, because I knew some others came out of it, like the

Bible Presbyterian Church, and so on. So that's interesting to know, and you'll be happy to know that I had as a co -host in my studio very recently

Pastor Jeffrey Waddington of the Knox Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, and he is,

God willing, going to be returning to the studio on occasion to co -host with me when his schedule permits.

So very dear friend, and dear brother, and very scholarly fellow. If you could have some of your programs directed toward the field of defense of the faith,

Jeff is very gifted in that area. Yeah, and I didn't even know until after we went out to dinner after the show that he was an old fan of Iron Sharpens Iron, dating back to when the program first began airing in 2006 -2007 on Long Island at a

WNYG radio. Interesting. And you are going to be, as I mentioned, one of the—well, you are the primary, if not the sole, speaker at the

West Sable Reformed Bible Church's annual full conference, their 21st annual full conference, and please give my warmest greetings to Pastor Drew Enigenberg.

I miss my fellowship with him, but this is going to be on the theme that we have been discussing today, media wars, a battle for the heart and mind.

Tell us something about this conference. Well, this is, in a sense, Chris, a building on the conference

I did there two or three years ago on Discipline for Discernment, and this is,

I guess in a real sense, sort of the other side of what we're dealing with. The conference is called

Media Wars, a battle, and it's very important, a battle for the heart and the mind.

There's three sessions. The first one is at 10 o 'clock in the morning this Saturday at the

West Sable Reformed Bible Church, 10 to 11, 15. The actual lecture material—and

I won't be using PowerPoint, incidentally. I've got to kick off that discussion along the way, but 10 to 11 o 'clock will be more of a presentation on Amusing Ourselves to Death Revisited, which you can chat about in a few minutes, about a 15 -minute discussion.

There'll be a break, and then 11 .30 to 12 .45 is session two, and I did borrow from my dear brother

Dr. Reynolds' book, the title, The Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures, Christ, Christianity, and Media, which is something—it is an overview, not just of church history, but in a sense it's an overview of biblical history as well in that hour, and then

I think what most people are going to be anticipating the most is the session after the lunch, and I will tell you that the people at West Sable Reformed Bible Church are great cooks.

They always have a wonderful spread of food. It would be enough, Mr. Arnzen, to entice you to come just for that meal.

I remember that because I've been to a number of them. I've been having a lot of fun, actually, working through these various sessions, and my trick here,

Chris, is I'm happy to whet people's appetites for these three segments, but I'm not going to tell them too much because I want them either to come or to get the

MP3 files, which will be available through the West Sable Reformed Bible Church.

I do have a listener waiting to have a question asked, if you want me to ask it now or do you want me to wait?

I'll leave that up to you. Wow, that's shy. I haven't said very much, but sure, give me the question. It'll be fun.

Okay, we have Harrison in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who asks, I have seen and heard more and more, even

Reformed churches, during the closing comments by the preacher, you will hear the tinkling of a piano or the tinkling of the keys on an organ to set some kind of a mood.

I was startled when I heard it being done in a Reformed church because prior to that experience,

I had only witnessed it in Charismatic churches and other non -Reformed churches. What is your opinion on this?

Well, I appreciate Harrison asking the question and I'm glad. First, I'm glad he didn't ask me how I feel about it because it doesn't make a difference how

I feel about it, but he asked me my opinion. Well, something like this is not wrong, and I think we need to be careful when we're dealing with these issues, that we don't develop a whole new code of legalism when it comes to communication.

However, it's a capitulation to a culture that has to have musical bridges for everything.

We have musical bridges in commercials, we have musical bridges in announcements that come, we have musical bridges for traffic reports, and everything else.

And so this is kind of a cultural oil -in -the -crankcase type thing that sort of eases people into what a technical word is, segues them into something.

And I'm like Harrison. I don't see the need for this. I ask the question, why do we do it?

And also, it's a fusion of two completely different media.

Music can be a medium for thought.

If you're listening to a Bach concerto or something, it's going to stimulate your thought.

Most people don't use music from Bach as the musical bridge to or the music underlying their announcements.

They use some kind of entertaining, warm, soothing type music or exciting music.

And basically what that does, whether people realize it or not, it's meant to kind of move the message with the mood of the music.

And so you'll have sometimes kind of exciting type of music before a sportscast or something like that, or very somber music before news that comes in.

Even if you do believe that somehow the words are insufficient or not necessary,

I don't think it's really necessary to try to launch your announcement with that kind of music.

So is it wrong? No, it's not. Do I like it? I'm with Harrison. I don't like it at all. I frankly find it very distracting.

Well, one of the things that is obviously a benefit to our modern technology is that these conference sessions that you'll be speaking at are going to be eventually on MP3 files,

God willing. And this is the kind of thing that is definitely a powerful plus in the realm of spreading the gospel in a very easy and inexpensive way in our modern era.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, all technological developments give, and all technological developments take away.

And you can fill in the blanks as much as you want with those things. But since you mentioned it, it's interesting, and I thought the same thing.

Here, Dr. Reynolds and I push, as we both do, we've discussed this a lot.

We've both been quite captivated by the Apostle Paul saying at the beginning and the end of Romans and elsewhere,

I'm writing to you essentially with pen and with ink, but I'd much rather come to you and be present with you.

I always tell people that this was the original email. It was an epistle in which he wrote.

And yet even in his email, he made clear that there was always a preference for personal presence.

And I'll get to the point of this in a moment, but people miss the fact that in,

I'll say, Christian communication that is fully Christian, personal presence is an inherent part of that.

My favorite text in that regard is in 1 Thessalonians 1, when Paul says,

Our word did not come to you in word only, but in demonstration of the

Spirit and of power. And here's where the ESV version really blows it in its translation, which is otherwise a very good translation.

Paul says, Inasmuch as you knew what manner of men we were among you for your

And rather than slide over that prepositional phrase, among you, remember how profound that is.

The word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

In fact, without giving it away, this is crucial to my second presentation on Saturday on Christ, Christianity, and Media.

The resolution, if you will, of issues regarding word and image are in Christ, who is the image of God made flesh.

And that profound point, which breaks down into many practical applications, is something that's missed.

Now, why do I say that? There's something, there will be something about this conference on Saturday that people who are there for the sessions hearing it personally will,

I'll use this word, experience that those just listening to the MP3 files will not.

I'll be looking at the people, and I agree completely. I don't use PowerPoint for many reasons.

One is I want people to be looking at me when I'm teaching. My eye expressions, my enthusiasm, my energy, but the way

I look at them, that's part of communication. And it is inseparably connected with the effect and the power of the communication.

So anyway, and the interaction of a speaker with the people and so on, very often people, the effect, if not in every case, the power of a ministry to people is not just enhanced, it is coupled with the personal involvement of the speaker with them.

I could go on and on about that, but so, yeah, the MP3 files will be available, thank the Lord, because there's going to be people in your listening audience who are not going to be able to get to 31

Rollstone Avenue in West Sayville, New York on Saturday. And the fact that they can hear the content is great.

Another reason I don't use PowerPoint, because then they're going to say, well, I want the PowerPoint. I don't want them to have that.

I want them to hear that material as it's presented for oral communication, what

Dr. Reynolds and others call profoundly orality. And there's a particular power in orality.

You know, one of the points that will really drive this home with a lot of people is how easily, when you don't see a person or hear them and you're not in their presence, how easily arguments and hurt feelings have erupted over email, because you totally get 180 degree different meaning from an email than the person who wrote it intended by it.

You don't know if the person was furious with you, or if they were saying something in jest, or if they were saying something as a compliment or as an insult on occasion, because sometimes the thing that changes the meaning of a particular statement is the twinkle in the eye, the expression on the face and the tone of voice.

Absolutely, absolutely, Chris. Yeah. I mean, and frankly, you were referring to the debate, which really wasn't a debate last night.

I mean, it was a prize fight. That's really what you're doing. You got, you know, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are in the ring, and you even heard the language, you know, was there a

KO in this thing, a real knockout? And I mean, there's a lot of implications of all that, but it's one of the reasons why, as people in our home last night were listening to the debate, my daughter and a young man who's staying with us, they had their computers on.

They wanted to watch Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but that's not wrong. I didn't want to watch them. I listened.

I listened on my Bose radio unit so I could pay attention to the words. Now, is one wrong and the other right?

No, but I wanted to pay attention to the words as they went out.

And apropos of your point, Chris, people need to realize that, and this is more

Dr. For example, a text, you wouldn't text somebody that his or her mother died, because a text is designed to communicate, you know, not necessarily trivial information, but little bites of information that are necessary.

That's fine. But when you are having to deliver something tragic, for example, the importance of personal presence when a soldier has been killed overseas,

I mean, the US military doesn't give them a phone call telling them this. They send a representative to the house to communicate this to them.

And see, those are the kinds of things not only that we need to be aware of, but especially as Christians, we need to be aware of.

If we're meant to be a fragrance of Christ to other people, we need to pay attention to exactly how we are doing that.

Yes. And one thing that you, when you were talking about the debate last night, just immediately reminded me of when

Richard Nixon debated JFK and everybody, or the majority,

I should say, who heard the debate on the radio clearly thought Richard Nixon won. And the majority who saw the televised debate thought that JFK won hands down.

Absolutely. Yeah. And you hear this, and I think you're going to break coming up. This is the one that drove me up a wall.

Who looks presidential? Quite frankly, who cares? William Howard Taft was a very good president.

William Howard Taft weighed 340 pounds. He got stuck in the

White House bathtub. Can you imagine if he had been in that debate?

He's even heavier than Chris Christie. Can you imagine if people had thought, well, he doesn't look presidential because he's roly -poly?

See, that's an idiotic way of thinking about the next president. But you notice how it is sanctified by the media.

Who did people believe looked president? Who cares? Right. A lot of people would say that's one of the key reasons

Ron Paul never really achieved success while running for president. But, of course, there are differences of opinion on what he stands for.

But we have to go to a break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Pastor Bill Shishko, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Pastor Bill Shishko of the

Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square. No longer the pastor there, but not retired either.

And we're going to be returning after these messages. Chris Arnson here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia.

And here's my friend, Dr. James White, to tell you why. Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

I hope you join me at the G3 conference hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church at the

Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st, in celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation. I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Votie Balcom, Conrad M.

Bayway, Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars of what

G3 stands for, gospel, grace, and glory. For more details, go to g3conference .com.

That's g3conference .com. Thanks, James. Make sure you greet me at the

Iron Sharpens Iron exhibit booth while you're there. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am

I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,

I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, Pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

We are a Reformed Baptist Church, and we hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts.

We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do, than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

We believe by God's grace that we are called to demonstrate love and compassion to our fellow man, and to be vessels of Christ's mercy to a lost and hurting community around us, and to build up the body of Christ in truth and love.

If you live near Norfolk, Massachusetts or plan to visit our area, please come and join us for worship and fellowship.

You can call us at 508 -528 -5750. That's 508 -528 -5750.

Or go to our website to email us, listen to past sermons, worship songs, or watch our TV program entitled,

Resting in Grace. You can find us at providencebaptistchurchma .org, that's providencebaptistchurchma .org,

or even on sermonaudio .com. Providence Baptist Church is delighted to sponsor

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million members be wise with money. We provide guidance that reflects your values so you can protect what matters most.

We help members live generously and strengthen the communities where they live, work, and worship. Learn more about the thriving story by contacting me,

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Again, 717 -254 -6433. We know we were made for so much more than ordinary life.

Lending faith, finances, and generosity. That's the Thrivent story. We were made to thrive.

Welcome back, this is Chris Arns, and if you just tuned us in, our second guest today is

Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, Long Island, New York, and he has a ministry that we will be discussing a little bit more in a regional home missionary project,

Reformation Metro New York, that perhaps before we go off the air, we will have him summarize a little bit more for you about that.

But if you would like to join us on the air with a question about media wars, a battle for the heart and mind, which is also the theme of the conference

Pastor Bill is speaking at, at the West Savile Reform Bible Church on Long Island, New York, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

And that conference, by the way, is this Saturday, correct? Yep, Saturday, October 1st, begins at 10 o 'clock and it continues till 3 in the afternoon, a wonderful lunch that will come about 1245 or so.

And the website for West Savile Reform Bible Church, for more details, including directions and so on, is wsrbc .org,

wsrbc .org. We have a listener, let's see here, where is he from?

We have John in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who, he asks, do you think that we have had too many wars with Brethren in Christ, with whom we agree with on so much over more trivial matters, which may include the style of music and other things that we introduce into our worship services?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, John raises a profound point, and we have to keep in mind, these are in -house discussions that we have.

You, Chris, are well aware with your program, Iron Sharpens Iron, there's times that you just have to, you know, throw down the gauntlet when it comes to what is not

Christianity, even though it may profess to be Christianity. That's not what we're dealing with in this.

There is an extremely important issue here, even as Neil Postman said in his book,

Musing Ourselves to Death. He was a conservative Jew, and by his own testimony, his coming to grips with the

Second Commandment, that God was not to be represented by images, had quite a profound effect on him.

And he said this God is a God who is concerned about how He was communicated, and that is exactly what we're dealing with here, how

He's communicated. John's point, let me kind of counterpoint here.

It's very easy for, I'll put it this way, people who are more traditional in their view of worship, and I don't mean that pejoratively, it's just descriptively, they're more traditional in their view of worship to criticize, quote -unquote, contemporary worship hymns or music.

Well, there's a lot of contemporary worship music. Some of it's junk, some of it, like the works done by Keith and Kristen Getty...

Oh yeah, they're great. Absolutely amazing, and they're designed for congregational singing, and they're rich with doctrine, so you don't want to paint with too broad a brush.

Yeah, we have one of those in our bulletin at least a few times a month that we sing from at the

Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle. Yeah, and we did the same at the OPC in Franklin Square with a songbook that we created.

We called it something like, out of our storehouses, things old and things new. Now, for those who want to only defend the so -called traditional ways of doing worship, well, quite frankly, some of the songs that are used are incomprehensible to the modern listener.

I've mentioned this even Sunday evening in a service with which I was involved, and I don't mean this critically, but we need to think about this.

You know, here I raise mine Ebenezer. Imagine somebody coming in off the street and coming in and hearing this, as at least the minister should explain, as they're singing this, something of what here

I raise mine Ebenezer means. And personally,

I believe there's an important biblical principle here in 1 Corinthians 14, which in the context was dealing with the issue of tongues and worship, and it was appropriate at that time, but there were basic lessons.

One is that we're to sing and speak with the understanding. If people don't understand what they are singing, then it doesn't make any difference if it's contemporary or traditional.

It is not honoring to the Lord. So I think there, we go back to...if we go back to basic biblical issues on these things, then

I think we'll be better off. Style of music, I think there, we would...our

elders in Franklin Square had three basic standards for what we would sing. One, is it scriptural?

And number two, is it suitable for worship service? Some things may not be suitable for worship service, but they're okay for a camp or something.

Is it scriptural? Is it suitable? And is it singable? Because one of a big burden of the

Protestant Reformation is that singing be taken away from these selective choirs, quote -unquote, and put into the congregation so people could sing.

It seems to me if we go to these basic biblical principles and realize we're going to have some in -house disagreements about the application of these things, we'd be a lot better off than giving broadsides at one another.

By the way, John in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I don't know how close you are to Manchester, but you might want to look up, if you haven't already, the

Amiskag Presbyterian Church, where our first guest is the pastor. And again, that website is

Amiskagchurch .org. Amiskagchurch .org.

And by the way, since you're a first -time questioner, John, you're going to get a free New American Standard Bible, compliments of the publishers of the

NASB, and it will be shipped to you by our friends at the Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

So keep your eye open for that. In fact, we need your full mailing address as well. All we have is your city and state,

John, so if you'd like to get that free Bible, give us your full mailing address.

We have Aaron from Indianapolis, Indiana. I wonder if Mr.

Shishko has—is that okay if they call you Mr. Shishko? That's my name. That's just so foreign to my ear, hearing

Mr. Shishko. It is to me, too, but that's fine, yeah. I wonder if Mr. Shishko has data on an opinion about the success or efficacy of sharing the gospel or theological memes on Facebook and such, or whether they are more off -putting to the unbelieving

Facebook friends. Yeah, well, that's a massive—I'm sorry, her name was what?

Aaron. Aaron. I was just so stunned that she called me Mr. Shishko. Well, she—I guess she heard me—you clarified that you're not the pastor anymore, so.

Okay, that's all right. I'm still a pastor, I'm just not a pastor in Franklin Square, so. Well, that's a massive question that Aaron asks.

Do I have data? No, I don't have data. I think just some general principles.

I mean, certainly—I mean, in my opinion, this is only my opinion.

Now, Dr. Reynolds would actually be better at dealing with this. Facebook has become a means—here again, the medium is not the message, but it is a metaphor.

The medium communicates something. And in my opinion, Facebook communicates not necessarily something that's trivial, but something that is in this massive pile of—I won't say junk, but a massive pile of material we have on our desk.

And you kind of pick through it, and there may be a picture that you like, there may be an article that you like, there may be something, and then basically throw it in the trash can afterwards.

And people laugh, but that's exactly what this is. I get a Facebook thing, and so -and -so has posted this article.

I may find that interesting and want to read it, or I delete it, or a photo, and that's kind of neat, and I'll look at it and then delete it.

Now, that communicates something right away. This is something that is like junk mail, okay?

Well, using that as a means to try to communicate something that is exactly the opposite of junk mail doesn't make it wrong, but people need to realize that it does alter the message.

It seems to me that you're—let's say you're on a Facebook—and this just kind of rankles me to speak like this—you're in a

Facebook conversation with somebody, and the person says, you know,

I really have a problem with Christians, I really—you know, there are a bunch of hypocrites, and they're all homophobic, and you know, whatever the thing would be.

I think rather than try to tangle this thing on Facebook, these are big issues, and they're important issues, and they're sensitive issues.

You can't—apropos of your point, Chris, before—you can't communicate those kinds of sensitivities via Facebook.

Far better to find this friend, yeah, ask if you could personally, if you could call this friend and speak with a friend, or better yet, if the friend is nearby, take the friend out for lunch or a cup of coffee or something, and speak with the person personally.

This is what we mean by kind of media sensitivity in what we do. So I may not be answering

Aaron's question directly, but I would say step back, ask how the medium, whatever the medium might be, or the effects of what

I'm saying, what is the best way I can communicate what I want to this person?

Far better to do it like that. Well, thank you very much, Aaron, and keep listening to Iron Sharpens Iron and spreading the word in Indianapolis, Indiana, about the program.

I really, before we run out of time, before we know it, I want you to make sure that you have said all that you wanted to share with our audience about your regional home ministry project.

I'm just going to invite myself back on your program, a whole hour on it. How's that? Well, that sounds great.

I would definitely like that. Yeah, I would, because basically Reformation Metro New York is a means of doing what you're doing.

It's a means of allowing people in the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition to make better use of media.

There's three facets to what I'll be doing, and this is apart from my more traditional work of working with groups that want to start churches.

One will be something like what you're doing in terms of Visit to the Pastors study, where your program is kind of a more broadly doctrinal thing.

Mine would be bringing pastoral ministry to radio, and I'm working with Redeemer Broadcasting on that.

Another thing that we're exploring right now, remember, I've just been working on this for the last month, although I've been thinking about it for a while, is actually a seminary of the air, which will allow people over a three -year period, this would be the beginning of this, to go through an historic

Reformed doctrinal standard and receive a certificate of completion. That we're looking into.

All these things, Chris, we're working on with lots of counsel from people who are familiar with the broadcast world and what's needed, and so on.

And then the third, which would be down the line, would be a series of demos.

Again, it's different media, but in this case, I want to be able to be looking at the people I deal with, or at least they're looking at me, on taking the material

I've done on pastoral theology and putting it in sort of bite -sized formats for pastors.

In each case, we're trying to fill what we see to be a void in Christian media today, but I'd love to take an hour out here.

We're good friends. I'll invite myself to your program for down the line and can dilate on this a bit more.

Well, I have a calendar here, so after the show's over, if you stay on the phone, I can go through some open dates that we have.

Looking forward to it. May I talk a little bit more about the conference on Saturday? Oh, definitely. Yeah, great.

Well, again, if this is going to be held at the West Sayville Reformed Bible Church, which is a congregation of the

United Reformed Churches of North America, a beautiful building on 31 Rollstone Avenue in West Sayville, New York, which is out in Suffolk County of Long Island, and you did give their website, it's wsrbc .org.

That's kind of like Reformed Baptist Church, Chris. Reformed Bible Church, wsrbc .org.

And you can actually call their office for more information, 631 -589 -9281, 631 -589 -9281.

And I'm excited about this conference. Basically, this is the kind of thing I hope to be doing in other places.

The conference is called Media Wars, a Battle for the Heart and the Mind, Section 1, 10 o 'clock to 1115.

It's called Amusing Ourselves to Death Revisited. And Neil Postman's famous book, it's one of the few secular books,

I don't know how many copies I've given out to other people, it's one of the few secular books that Banner of Truth magazine reviewed, which is basically a

Calvinistic theological publication. But Neil Postman's book

Amusing Ourselves to Death came out in 1985. He was regarded as being just kind of a

Luddite. He was regarded as being somebody who was just out of touch with reality when he warned about the dangers of television.

Now, 26 years later, or 21 years later, or whatever, 31 years later, wow, it's something.

Yeah, I remember James Montgomery Boyce in the 80s bringing up that book. Oh yeah, it came out in 1985. And so, actually, there's a 20th anniversary edition of it that his son did the foreword to.

Anyway, what we're going to do is we're going to, I'm going to give a kind of an overview of that fascinating book, and then highlight some of Postman's main points, and then at the end give some examples.

I've had a, I guess it's kind of dark humor in a way, as the last week

I've been making it a point to listen more to radios, since I'm not really much of a

TV fan anyway, but even radio today, and listen to the way a word medium has become very much an amusement medium.

And it's amusing, but it's also kind of sad. Anyway, so we're going to revisit amusing ourselves to death, 10 o 'clock to 11 15.

There's a break, 11 30 to 12 45. Dr. Reynolds' book title, I borrowed the word, is worth a thousand pictures.

And while it's called Christ, Christianity, and Media, what it's going to be is an overview, essentially, of biblical history, where there is a very thick stream of essentially warning about the,

I'll put it this way, the abuse of the image in religious worship. And we'll show how that issue of image and word is beautifully resolved in Christ and in the

Church, and then we're going to show how in Church history that got distorted, revived in the

Protestant Reformation, and also, I believe, even in the Protestant Reformation, to some extent, in a different way, got distorted.

So it's an interesting, very interesting historical approach, and that will bring us to the present, and the kinds of questions that your listeners have asked in the program today.

And then, 1 45 to 3 o 'clock, after the excellent luncheon people will have, winning the

War of the Media Worlds, and there's where, as a pastor, and every pastor is a theologian too,

I've been thinking through, essentially, the way we think through these issues biblically, and resolve these issues, and without giving it away,

I have become fascinated with the fact that in the New Testament, there is an absolutely profound way this issue of image and word are brought together, and I'll just give a hint, it's without having to do pictures of Jesus, or Jesus films, or that kind of thing, which, for many reasons, really are contrary, are very much contrary to the way the

Gospel is to be presented. Amen. Well, we've got to make sure that as many of our listeners as possible, especially those on Long Island, go to that conference, and the website, again, for West Sable Reformed Bible Church is wsrbc .org,

wsrbc .org. We have time for one more listener's question.

We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who wants to know, do you have any objection to a movie about biblical topics that do not portray an image of Jesus Christ, but perhaps the apostles, disciples, etc.,

where there are extra -biblical wording inserted into the script because of the fact that we have limited knowledge from the biblical data on certain things that may have occurred between texts that we read?

Yeah, again, that's a very thoughtful question from Arnie. I myself, early on in my

Christian life, this was a time of black -and -white movies, but back in the early 1970s, black -and -white movies about the apostles and the missionary journeys in particular, and of course,

I wasn't familiar with Asia Minor and all these places, and these were very tastefully done.

And no, so long as there's not...so long as there's not depictions of Christ, and I need to kind of highlight this point, this issue of images of Christ is poo -pooed in the evangelical community today, and sadly to say, not a little of the

Calvinistic community. Trying to depict Jesus Christ is both a dangerous and wrong -headed endeavor, and I'm going to deal with that at the conference, particularly in Section 3.

One thing, it's impossible to do. Number two, it can only mislead people.

And number three, it misses the better way in which these things are to be done. But when it comes to...and

it depends what you mean. Is it a documentary? Is it a, you know, the

Ben -Hur kind of thing, where it's fiction, but you kind of weave in things about Christ? So long as people understand what that genre is and what it is not, if it's a documentary, it should try to represent the biblical data as much as possible.

If it's historical fiction, that is, that is put in a movie form, people should understand that.

So long as people are self -conscious about what this is and what it is not, no,

I don't have a problem with that at all. Thank you, Arnie. And one thing that came to mind about a very serious negative effect of using imagery of Christ in a movie,

I saw a movie that otherwise I enjoyed very much and did not know that there was actually going to be imagery of Christ in it.

But the Joseph Fiennes movie, Risen, about the centurion who had been in charge of the guards watching the sealed tomb of Christ.

And then when they later on in the movie had depictions of the risen

Christ in the film, it was the same actor that was in a very notorious film playing a drug dealer and dangerous criminal.

And that was something that could not be erased from my mind when I was watching the imagery.

Chris, that's absolutely profound. That epitomizes what I think both Dr. Reynolds and I have tried to say.

The medium, see, they're the medium, that actor is inseparable from the message that he communicates.

And in this case, it utterly detracted from it. But I'm glad you've pretty much ended the program with that little nugget, because it does epitomize the kind of thing we're saying.

And I'll just add a little PS to your listeners. Please don't say, but God is using it for.

With all due respect, God used a jackass in the Old Testament to speak his word.

But that doesn't mean you put a jackass up in the pulpit. Yeah, that's pragmatism at its worst there.

Well, I know that the website for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square is opcli .org,

O -P -C for Orthodox Presbyterian Church, L -I for Long Island .org. But do you have any other website or contact information that you care to share?

Yeah, I do. Reformation Metro New York, and that's all one word, ReformationMetroNewYork .org.

I think it's just N -Y .org, or you can Google it and you'll get it. That'll give you a little picture at this point of what we're doing, although that website has to be updated.

I actually would prefer, Chris, that your listeners contact me. My email address is my last name,

Shishko, as Aaron had it right before, S -H -I -S -H -K -O,

Shishko, dot, and then the digit 1, at O -P -C, like Orthodox Presbyterian Church, dot

O -R -G, Shishko .1 at O -P -C dot org. And I invite your questions, your comments.

I'd love to interact with you a bit. My work is still pastoral ministry, just that I'm doing it more through the media right now, different kinds of media.

So I'd love to hear from your listeners. Well, Pastor Bill, it has been such an honor and privilege to have you back on the program, and I hope that we have more frequent visits from you on Iron Sharpens Iron.

I look forward to having you back on to even dedicate, as you had mentioned, an hour or two on your new ministry that you're involved in.

And I just want to thank everybody who actually took the time to write in today with your questions.

I look forward to hearing from more of you tomorrow for our guests. And I just want all of you to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. And I hope to hear from you soon with your questions for our guests on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

God bless, and we'll talk to you soon, Pastor Bill. Looking forward to it. I'll stay on the line. I've got my calendar open.