I can relate to the way Saul of Tarsus must have felt, once he “got it.” In his experience, scales literally fell from his eyes, and he could see. My scales were not literal, but my experience going from “blind” to “got it” is certainly a similar experience. Only my blindness had to do with the way the mainstream media portrays religion, God, Christianity, and what used to be lumped together into one umbrella term called “family values.”
By my reckoning, all this started after WWII – really in the late 50’s and early 60’s, and I think a lot of it was either triggered or exacerbated by the exposure of Communism in Hollywood. It seems to me that this was the turning point, where the entertainment and news industries went from being fairly representative of the political spectrum in America, to tilting far to the left. Things happened. The Hays Office was abolished, replaced with the toothless MPAA rating system. Stories began featuring the “anti-hero.” Movies were no longer required to show that evil people turned out no good in the end, but could win, despite their “badness.”
This quickly became a self-perpetuating phenomenon, for as both the entertainment and news industries reached critical mass on the liberal scale, it became harder and harder for conservatives to even gain entry into the business. Which brings us to today’s sermon, on the programming choices of the major broadcast networks.
In a time when movies like The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe are setting box office records, you’d think that fine folks at NBC, CBS and ABC would try and tap into that market, and give Christians something they could get behind. But, no. Shows like Joan of Arcadia (where the lead character talks frequently to God, and learns a lesson in each week’s show) are canceled (despite good ratings) to make way for The Ghost Whisperer – a show where a psychic talks to the dead. Then there’s The Book of Daniel.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you how awful The Book of Daniel is. I didn’t see it. But I did watch the teasers, and cared enough to do some research on the show. What I found was pretty appalling. The lead character is an Episcopal priest (for the record, I’m an Episcopalian) who’s family looks to be bound for either Oprah or Jerry Springer. Oh, yeah, and he talks to Jesus. This Jesus looks like he just hitched a ride in from Malibu, and gives some very UN-scriptural advice. And that’s just in the trailers. I’m not talking about the show, because the trailers turned me off so much, I refused to watch the show.
Pause with me for a nanosecond.
Lest you think I’m some kind of a right-wing nut job, keep in mind, I’ve seen Monty Python’s Life of Brian a number of times. It’s hilarious. Great satire. Ditto for The Meaning of Life. (Although, I found some of that to be pretty tasteless at times.) I loved Mel Brooks’ History of the World, Part I. I’m not offended by religious humor. What DOES offend me, however, is a network thinking that The Book of Daniel represents some kind of olive branch to Christians. “Hey, look…lets go after that Christian market. We’ll do a show about a priest with a family full of screwed-up basket cases – throw in homosexuality, infidelity, embezzlement, drug abuse, and a physical manifestation of Jesus, who has all the best sarcastic lines. They’ll LOVE it!.” (Um…no, we won’t.) Think I’m picking on one narrow example? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you the season premiere of Crumbs, starring Jane Curtin and Fred Savage. Within the first five minutes of the show, we see that Curtin’s character is mean, petty, vindictive, and just leaving a mental institution. Her son, Savage, is a closet homosexual, who’s partner is his psychotherapist. (I turned it off, before it got even more weird.)
Okay. That’s two very recent examples. But how about trends? In the 50’s and 60’s we had shows like Ozzie & Harriet, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, and the Andy Griffith Show. Each had very strong father figures, who usually had the right answer. Today, fathers are the punch line for a joke that exists just to show you how stupid/wrong/selfish/greedy/insane the father is. But why have things changed from then to now?
I see this as a battle for the hearts and minds of America. Watch TV, and you’ll see countless examples of Christians and those with moral values portrayed as “narrow-minded,” “Puritanical,” “judgmental,” and “stupid.” You’ll see those with no moral compass portrayed as “understanding,” “open-minded,” “just” and just this side of “omniscient.” Give me a break. The liberals/moral relativists/humanists want you to believe that morals are a flexible thing, malleable to any circumstance. To them, there is no “truth” just “shades of gray.” For those ideas to flourish, they must extinguish the position of those who believe in absolute right and wrong. And they are doing it in a very clever way, for you see, change doesn’t happen overnight. It happens gradually.
It’s a lot like the somewhat risqué joke about the elderly millionaire who propositioned a sweet young thing, with the question, “would you sleep with me for a million dollars?” After thinking about the offer for a couple of seconds, she replied that she would. He then asked, “well, would you sleep with me for a hundred dollars?” She indignantly replied, “of course not…what kind of a girl do you think I am?” He countered, “We’ve already established what kind of girl you are…we’re just haggling price.” Unlike the rich man in this joke, the entertainment and MSM don’t go from one extreme to the other overnight. They begin with small things – a dirty word here…a broken taboo there. Then they ratchet it up in the name of “ratings” and “sensationalism.” Take enough baby steps, and in a short time, the effect is the same as if they turned a show like “Leave it to Beaver” into “Show Us Some Cleavage” in one episode.
We’ve come a long way since TV portrayed June Cleaver as wearing heels and pearls to clean her home. Some of our progress is genuine and good. (Go watch the first episode of Bewitched, where Darrin “forbids” Samantha to do her housework using witchcraft. If that show was airing today, she’d just turn him into a newt.) But just as all progress requires change, not all change can be qualified as progress. When the MSM and entertainment networks use their power to advance an agenda that attacks our traditional values, are they really any different than those that wish to destroy our country by other means? I don’t think so.
One last thought. Do you know how to boil a frog? You don’t throw the frog into boiling water…he’ll simply jump out of the pot. Nope, you put him in a pot of room-temp water, then turn up the heat gradually. The frog dies without ever realizing the water is getting hotter. From The Book of Daniel and the PC/ACLU assault on Christmas, to the portrayals of traditional family roles as stupid and unnecessary, the media is daily turning up the heat on all of us. The only question remains, is, are we willing to jump out of the pot, or would we rather just enjoy the hot tub until it’s too late?
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