The Passion and It's Evangelistic Impact

The results are in for "the greatest evangelistic tool in the last 2000 years."  According to George Barna:

Despite predictions that it would become one of the greatest evangelistic tools of all time, Mel Gibson's "The Passoin of the Christ," failed to capitalize on the opportunity, even though ticket sales made it the eigth highest-grossing domestic film of all time.

When Barna did his interviews, most of those who had seen it had a profound reaction immediately upon seeing it, but they had already seen several movies since then, lessening the effects.  This led Barna to conclude:

One of the lessons from this situation, Barna said, is that major transformation is not likely to result from a one-time exposure to a specific media product.

“In an environment in which people spend more than 40 hours each week absorbing a range of messages from multiple media, it is rare that a single media experience will radically reorient someone’s life,” he said. “The greatest impact through media seems to come from constant exposure to a consistent message that is well-presented and is personally meaningful or useful.

“The ‘Passion’ was well received and stopped many people long enough to cause them to rethink some of their basic assumptions about life. But within hours those same individuals were exposed to competing messages that began to diminish the effect of what they had seen in Mr. Gibson’s movie. That does not negate the power of the movie or the value of the message it sent, but it does remind us that a single effort that is not adequately reinforced is not likely to make a lasting impression.”

However, Barna did note that many people who were already religious did make some adjustments to their lives and changes in behavior as a result of seeing the movie.  Many who saw it began praying more and attending church more.

Barna concludes that the movie's lack of evangelistic impact is not a failure of the movie itself, but rather should be a warning to overblown hype about the possible evangelistic impact of the movie:

Overall, one out of every 10 viewers of “The Passion” (10 percent) indicated that they had changed some aspect of both their religious beliefs and practices in response to the movie.

Those figures, he said, translates to 11 million to 13 million people making some sort of change because of the film’s content.

“That’s enormous influence and you cannot fault ‘The Passion’ for not satisfying religious agendas that some people assigned to it,” Barna said.

A couple of thoughts come to mind here.  I think the evangelistic results of the Passion are typical for any outreach opportunity.  Plenty of studies have been conducted to show that when a Billy Graham Crusade goes into the city there is a lot of activity but even of those who make a profession of faith, very few remain in the faith.  If a crusade where the Bible is used and the gospel is proclaimed has such little evangelistic impact we can't expect much more out of a movie.  Christians are usually strengthened by crusades and things like that, but not there just aren't all that many people coming to Christ through them.  By the way, I know someone will read this and say that they came to faith through a Billy Graham crusade and for that I am thrilled, just as I am thrilled for the very small number of folks who came to Christ indirectly through the movie.  I'm just quoting words and stats that come from the Graham ministry itself.

This also reminds me of a comment from a prof in seminary.  When talking about the traditional theistic proofs for the existence of God he said that they had been almost universally denied by atheists and almost universally embraced by Christians.  His point is that the theistic proofs are useful for strengthening the faith of believers, but have very little effect in persuading unbelievers.

As for me, I'm not knocking evangelism.  I think we ought to be involved in it and our church is deeply involved in evangelistic outreach.  I think George hit on something here though.  You can't expect a one time exposure to the gospel to do the trick, and especially not in the form of a movie.  The gospel takes root through incremental and repeated exposure over a period of time in the context of relationship and/or community.

Hat Tip: NT Gateway Blog and Laura's Mind.