Educational Media Reviews Online

The title of this documentary refers to the world’s few remaining cultures unacquainted with the Christian Gospels. Since 1939, an American company known as Gospel Recordings Network (GNR) has worked to reach this audience by distributing audio versions of Bible stories worldwide. It has accumulated recordings in over 5,000 languages, with plans to translate the world’s remaining 3,000. GNR’s success, The Tailenders suggests, is due as much to its marketing as its message, and the film raises pointed questions about the legacy of religious conversion and the commodification of culture.

With its resourcefulness and drive, GNR mirrors the most successful American enterprises, and a prime example of the Protestant Work Ethic in action. Pioneering low-tech, portable technology (hand-cranked cassette and phonograph players), the company has exploited the “power of the disembodied voice” to reach virtually every corner of the globe. But equally important to GNR’s success, the film makes clear, are its sophisticated promotion and distribution tactics. Identifying and targeting unserved audiences is key. Pitch scripts are tailored to specific groups; in India, for example, this includes Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and “spirit worshippers,” while in Mexico, GNR uses computer models to determine which of the country’s 300-plus languages are spoken in a given region. Considering the vastness of its outreach, GNR faces numerous hurdles in fulfilling its mission. Competition, for one. In India, where there are 330 million gods, Jesus is mentioned by a resident as merely one more. The accuracy of translations is another challenge. In the Oaxaca region of Mexico, for example, vocabulary differences hinder the translation of a Bible story from Spanish to Mixteco: according to the indigenous translator, the words “sin” and “punish,” common in the Bible, do not exist in his language. For all its imperfections, the immense GNR archive constitutes a unique collection, for it contains dozens of languages no longer spoken and hundreds more spoken by so few people they’re threatened.

Passionate yet clear-headed, devout yet pragmatic, the missionaries repeatedly define their vocation in both spiritual and market terms. At a training session of evangelicals in India, a video screening critical of Buddhism is followed by a lecture on the “Five Steps of Selling.” In another scene, a missionary likens Christian faith to financial debt, telling the crowd that “God is the owner of the whole universe… [he] will make us pay for the sins we have committed.” Migrant workers in Baja California, Mexico, are prime candidates for conversion because, observes a missionary, uprooted peoples are more open to the Gospel message. Yet despite this emphasis on demographics and sales techniques, the missionaries seem sincere, their ultimate concern the saving of souls. Unfortunately, one of the film’s key questions – how do people who receive these recordings understand them? – is not sufficiently explored. The film’s languid pace and hushed, almost sedate narration also work against it. Still, The Tailenders is an effective discussion-starter and recommended for academic and larger public libraries.