The 300-member congregation recently bought the former Playtime Drive-In movie theater to develop as their meeting place, and it held a bit of a surprise for staff members when they closed on the sale: cases and cases of pornography from the 1970s and 1980s.
“Obviously, we knew the right thing to do would be to destroy it, and not let it ever be out on the market, so to speak,” senior pastor Mark Eldredge tells NPR’s Melissa Block.
Hmmm. How did they know what was on those reels?
DaveW — skeptic or attempt at humor? The drive-in theater showed xxx-movies from the 70’s to the 90’s. I’m guessing the titles gave it away.
What does it matter. They are a church, not a bookseller. They bought the property and whatever was left behind and it was theirs to do with as they saw convenient. They had no duty to inspect the items.
They [i]burned[/i] them?
Oh, my! think of all that carbon and other toxic chemicals going into the atmosphere! Where was the EPA and Al Gore with their injunctions? 😉
Stevejax,
It was an attempt at humor. Logically, if you purchase what used to be an adult drive-in and you find film reels there, it’s a safe bet that they’re porn.
Good for them. And their public witness in doing so. I hope they plan a sermon series on the sexual exploitation of women.
Brian
Says something about our society that X rated films were shown at a drive in theater.
Well, now all the church needs to worry about are 2.5 billion DVDs and about 25 million websites. No, I just made up the numbers, although it won’t surprise me if some Episcopalians have done enough “research” to know the precise figures.
It would be interesting to know if the number of Episcopalians who view porn in a given week is higher than the ASA numbers- given the staggering proportion of US adults who log on for such purposes.
#6, to add to this, the men are being exploited as well, even if they don’t know or acknowledge it. The amount of spiritual and psychological damage done to [i]anyone[/i] involved in sexual immorality, especially at that level, is just terrifying.
I wonder if they heard screams coming from the reels as they burned?
Vincent
What is missing in the opening paragraph is that this church is Christ Church, Anglican in Jacksonville, FL. They are a breakway church from the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, located on Jacksonville’s westside. They recently purchased this 13-acre property and it is centrally located in the western part of Jacksonville between I-295 on the west and south and US-17 (Roosevelt Blvd) on the east.
Once they clean up the property, they are definitely in an ideal location.
Two responses I have are
1) Why did NPR see this as newsworthy?
2) I am enough of a student of the Nazi era to have a visceral reaction to anything being publically burned. I am not trying to suggest in the slightest that the congregation has any fascistic tendancies, but I would have prefered another way to dispose of the material without any unintended symbolism possibly attached.
I guess I should have expected this from NPR but I’m still astounded by the comments on the NPR website. They’re taking Christ Church to task for burning — pornography! Apparently, the church is no better than WWII Germany. What is the church supposed to do – hold a garage sale? Call up an adult book store and offer them the material? Another is offended by the burning because it’s not green! Sigh.
So the films got to stink in a new way.
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“Why did NPR see this as newsworthy?” —#11
“I guess I should have expected this from NPR” —#12
We already know that any mention of NPR here will elicit a knee-jerk reaction.
Before you condemn the story, LISTEN to it. Most of it consists of Fr. Eldredge speaking in a friendly, relaxed way about the church, the decision to burn the films, and the outdoor service at which church members burned them.
The interviewer asks one tough question, two-thirds of the way through the story: did the parallel to book-burning give you pause? A fair question—and hardly a biased one in the context of an interview that gave Fr. Eldredge broad leeway to tell the church’s story.
Listen before you condemn. If Fox had carried the identical story, would you be complaining about it?
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“Why did NPR see this as newsworthy?”
This is an engaging human-interest story.
As for why we consider human-interest stories newsworthy, that’s a broader question.
#13, you misunderstand my comments. Nothing wrong with the story. What astounds me are the comments left on the NPR website. Again, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the comments on the website due to the expected nature of its audience but I was surprised nonetheless.
The burning didn’t make me think of Nazis, but rather this:
“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:28-29
FlaAnglican [#14]: To my ears, “I guess I should have expected this from NPR” sounded like a criticism of NPR and not just of the comments its website attracted. Thank you for the clarification.
#13
I am not condemning, as much as suggesting that we need to be careful with the unintended consequences of actions. Being a liturgical church we should be aware that actions can take on symbolic import beyond our intent.
I have not read the comments on the NPR site, but that some would make the Nazi connection does not surprise me. If we are aware that some will make such a knee-jerk reaction to our actions we might want to think again about doing it.
I think the action was perfectly appropriate and that we run the danger of enslaving ourselves to the sensibilities of others (meaning modern popular/secular culture) if we worry too much about what “other people think”.
If it were a matter of denying something such as the uniqueness of Jesus Christ because we don’t want to offend people, then I do wholeheartedly agree. If it is an action that can be misconstrued when another appropriate action is at hand, we would do well to consider it. That’s all.
I find myself wondering if NPR first thought it interesting that a church was meeting in a former porn theater. But when the burning of the films was a part of it, they ran with that as the lead because of the unsavory connotations that would generate interest in the public.
Maybe I am just a cynic when it comes to media outlets.
Let’s just be wise a serpents while being innocent as doves, folks.
And I do wish Christ Church well. May God prosper them.
#19, you are not cynical, your observations are borne out each and every day as the MSM (which very much includes NPR, in fact they lead they the way among the DC/NY elite) shape every story possible to portray Christian conservatives as little more than neo Nazis. The next thing you know, they’ll be throwing homosexuals off the Dames Point Bridge……
A friend of mine read the article I emailed to him, and replied:
“When I read in the title that they BURNED the films, I thought it referred to making copies on discs. [i][i.e., burning CDs to make copies][/i] Glad I was wrong!”
LOL 😉
If I were them and were converting an old porno theater into a church, I’d name it St. Mary Magdalene and run with it.
“I find myself wondering if NPR first thought it interesting that a church was meeting in a former porn theater. But when the burning of the films was a part of it, they ran with that as the lead because of the unsavory connotations that would generate interest in the public†—Richard Yale [#19]
1. Did you listen to the NPR interview?
2. Do you agree that the interview consisted mostly of Fr. Eldredge speaking about his congregation, its decision to burn the films, and how it went about burning them? (See note below.)
3. Did anything about the interview make Fr. Eldredge sound unreasonable or unpleasant?
4. If you were Fr. Eldredge or a member of his congregation, wouldn’t you be glad for the congregation to have received this publicity?
5. Do you agree that the interviewer asked only one tough question? That the question did not dominate the interview? And that the story did not include any critic of the film-burning, not even the ACLU?
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For those who many be interested, the interview began with a 24-second introduction, quite consistent with what you’d expect in a human-interest story (e.g., “The drive-in held a bit of a surpriseâ€).
Of the remaining 155 seconds of the interview, 143 seconds (92%) consisted of Fr. Eldredge speaking.
“NPR … shape every story possible to portray Christian conservatives as little more than neo Nazis” —Chris [#20]
— How exactly did this story do that?
— How would you have covered this story differently?
Am I the only person that thinks not to Nazi Germany but to Acts 19:19, “A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly?” The point was not simply that they were burning what they personally had used to sin against God but that they burned what they owned and knew was detestable to God as a public witness to His holiness. I think this would have been a perfect teaching time for Fr. Eldredge to teach using this passage (I confess I did not listen to the entire story, so he may have done so).
In Christ Alone [#25]: Fr. Eldredge didn’t refer to that passage from Acts, but he did say he would never have considered offering the films for sale on Ebay and trying to profit from them. That’s very much in the spirit of Acts 19:19, which notes that the burned books of sorcery were worth a fortune: 50,000 silver coins.
#24 – whenever anything is burned by a conservative group, you can be sure of the MSM hearkening back to the days of Kristallnacht. Look no farther than the title NPR gave the story: Florida Church Burns X-Rated Film Reels. What is the connotation there? Picture Dana Carvey playing the Church Lady…..
Were I covering the story, the treatment of the film would be at best buried or even omitted. It’s really not relevant to me what the churchy does with property it acquires, be it films or anything else. That the Anglican Church is growing is a good story, but considering their evangelical bent, that does not fit the NPR narrative…..
>>1. Did you listen to the NPR interview?<< Yes. >>2. Do you agree that the interview consisted mostly of Fr. Eldredge speaking about his congregation, its decision to burn the films, and how it went about burning them? (See note below.)<< yes >>3. Did anything about the interview make Fr. Eldredge sound unreasonable or unpleasant? << no. In fact I'd probably enjoy having a beer with him. >>4. If you were Fr. Eldredge or a member of his congregation, wouldn’t you be glad for the congregation to have received this publicity?<< No. I think a liturgy of consecration could have been accomplished without the burning. >>5. Do you agree that the interviewer asked only one tough question? That the question did not dominate the interview? And that the story did not include any critic of the film-burning, not even the ACLU?<< That was interesting in that she clearly was uncomfortable with the connotations of the burning and started to press it, but for some reason stopped. Listen, folks, all I am saying is that symbolism is powerful stuff. We might see Acts 19. A bunch of other people probably won't. Many of them probably reasonable human beings. Let's just be careful.
“Were I covering the story, the treatment of the film would be at best buried or even omitted” —Chris [#27]
Chris: The disposal of the film reels is part of what makes the story interesting—far more interesting than if the church staff had simply heaved them into a dumpster.
Fr. Eldredge certainly thinks the burning ceremony important: he planned it with care and describes it in some detail.
I’ve listened to the story multiple times, and it is certainly not framed as a Kristallnacht wannabe. Sounds like your perceptions are being driven by your preconceptions.
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You assert that NPR “shape[s] every story possible to portray Christian conservatives as little more than neo Nazis†[#20]. Does that hold true for NPR’s religion reporter, Barbara Bradley Hagerty?
“[The reporter’s question about the optics of burning the films] was interesting in that she clearly was uncomfortable with the connotations of the burning and started to press it, but for some reason stopped” —Richard Yale [#28]
Agreed. I took it that the reporter had made her point, teed up her questions, and did not want to be argumentative. That’s consistent with how she conducted the interview: she asked short questions and left Fr. Eldredge free to tell his story.
“Symbolism is powerful stuff. We might see Acts 19. A bunch of other people probably won’t. Many of them are probably reasonable human beings. Let’s just be careful” —#28
Agreed. Burning the films risked misunderstanding, even though the church was dealing only with its own property—unwanted property that it had acquired unwittingly.
CNN covered this last night. From the pictures, it looked like the film had alread degraded, and the cannisters were corroded. So they were probably unsalvagable, anyway.
Some looked ok on the reel, but as with anything like this (and speaking from a librarian perspective when dealing with mold seeping into books), surface appearance can be deceptive and the rot can be inside when not seen on the outside.
Jim Elliott <><
“The rot can be inside when not seen on the outside”
In the case of these films, we might think of it as double rot.
Just as burning the films allowed them to stink in a new way.