YouVersion and the Demise of the Bible

The hydra-headed megachurch in OKC is on the verge of launching an online Bible project, ominously and ironically named YouVersion. The question on their front page: "Is the Bible relevant today?" The answer, and I don't mean this rhetorically, if you're lifechurch.tv is an unqualified "yes!" Craig has made a career out of making the Bible "relevant" for the lctv groupies. Which is to say he's made a career of glossing over the difficulties and nuances, all the while providing easily-digestible, pithy synopses of Bible excerpts for the consumers at lctv to take home and "apply to their lives today."

YouVersion is an attempt to extend the relevance of Scripture in the environment of Web 2.0. (Before anyone takes issue with the appellation, please know that I'm not an evangelist for web 2.0, but I recognize that evangelicals are trying to develop apps that take advantage of the 2.0 hype.) Much like eBible, YouVersion will allow the user to append notes, links, and other study helps. The move into 2.0 in this case takes the form of allowing the user to link to film clips, videos, and music files. Let's say you and your Bible study group, also known as a "small group" in the parlance of Church 2.0, are studying the Epistle of James (not that you would without great qualifications). Someone in the group wants to extend the group into web 2.0 by creating a group on YouVersion using James as the jumping off point. The group can be created, the notes shared, and any files linked or attached can be accessed by the group. So, instead of some dry old Calvin commentary on James, you can pick a favorite movie clip or perhaps have your son or daughter do an impromptu rap based on James 1. (That could be an audio or video file.) Just imagine that instead of reading a stuffy old Interpreter's Commentary, you can watch a sermon of Craig or a video clip of The Passion of the Christ to illustrate the benefits of suffering.

I don't foresee YouVersion being a huge hit for a couple reasons. People don't read their Bibles much anyway, so it's unlikely they will read the Bible plus appendices. And, why the hell would anyone care about film clips attached to certain passages? Especially at a fundangelical church? For example, to illustrate the point of "bear one another's burdens," the best recent example comes from the ending sequence of Black Snake Moan, but people who go to Lifechurch.tv aren't going to post a clip from a movie featuring a naked, smoking hot Christina Ricci chained to a radiator. The use of the grotesque (in the tradition of Flannery O'Connor) is lost in the prurience of the image. The metaphor is subsumed in the appeal to the flesh. The fundangelical movie fan will only see the appeal, not the metaphor. You can eliminate some of the best "biblical" movies in recent memory based on that criterion: Pulp Fiction, Magnolia, Man on Fire, The Proposition, and any movie that attempts to undermine the myth of redemptive violence. Anyone who still counts profanities or boobs to gauge a film's appropriateness is not the kind of person I want recommending movies for me.

Here's my elitism sneaking in: I don't think the average lctv member is capable of exegeting movies and culture at a sophisticated enough level that their movie recommendations would actually illuminate a passage of Scripture. I'm seeing endless clips of Braveheart and Gladiator, with the occasional nod to The Passion of the Christ, because Americhristians don't really know well how to deconstruct redemptive violence. And as far as their notes on a particular passage go, if preachers can't keep my interest, why would someone with absolutely no theological training and no understanding of the culture or context interest me? Sorry. Maybe I'm an elitist shit, but I think Keen's critique of the "cult of the amateur" applies especially in this case.

I will leave alone, for now, the other critiques about individualism, literalism, and silliness this sort of project engenders.

Comments

[chris]

Actually, what I'd love to see is a sort of scripture wiki. By that I don't mean democratized commentary on scripture, but rather a whole new (democratized) scripture. I'm tired of the old scripture that I don't read anyway. I'd like to see which authors (or directors or musicians or visual artists) would be included in a christian (I guess) "scriptural canon" today. I've got my own personal spiritual canon anyway, but it would be fun to see what other people would add to it.

Someone less lazy than I should get on this right away.

[M.Corley]

Totally unrelated to the thread, but... My brother just had a baby so I'm an uncle for the first time ever. I've never felt so much instant love for a person as that... also, I'm going to New Orleans this week, so I'll hoist an alcoholic beverage in all of your non-puritancal names.