The Audiovisual Sermon

The stand-up sermon, many church men agree, is a dying art. But what should take its place? According to Dominican Father Anthony Schillaci, the answer is the mixed-media homily. A colleague of Communications Theorist Marshall McLuhan at Fordham University, Father Schillaci presented his vision of the sermon of the future to a meeting in Toronto last week of the Catholic Homiletic Society. "If you see anything you don't like," he calmly warned the audience, "boo or hiss or knock the guy next to you off his chair. This is intended to stir up all kinds of emotions."

Schillaci's homily was on the passion, death and resurrection of man. Switching on an array of equipment, which included five 16-mm. movie projectors, four slide projectors and two tape recorders, Schillaci depicted passion in a wide variety of forms--refugees suffering in World War II, color images of bikini-clad girls, and motorcycle gangs from a Canadian-produced film entitled Satan's Choice. The sounds of Herb Alpert and Bob Dylan blasted the audience's ears.

The death sequence utilized another film, a parable about two neighbors fighting for ownership of a flower growing between their properties. There were also screened shots of soldiers dying in Viet Nam, mixed with scenes of'crying orphans. A slide projector flicked on one wall the question: "Why do things the hard way?" In the finale, a projector cast a few words from Schillaci himself on the screen: "As most of the world's ills are traceable to old imperatives, old superstitions and old fools, this church is exuberantly dedicated to the future." The message was accompanied by a pop ballad, What the World Needs Now Is Love.

Reaction to the mixed-media spiritual message was understandably mixed. "There is no question that the multimedia sermon is the coming thing," said the Rev. Edward Theisen of Milwaukee. "To appeal to the whole man, which multimedia purports to do, provides an answer." But many of the preaching experts were decidedly cool. Some questioned whether audiovisual imagery can actually say more about Christian faith than an inspired verbal sermon. Still others felt that Schillaci's superhip technique was a lot more appropriate to a college campus than an urban congregation.

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