The Book of Daniel

I have to put my quick two sense in on this Book of Daniel TV series coming out. Apparently it will not be shown in several cities including Little Rock. The show has not even aired yet and it has caused quite a stir. It looks like the show is based on a priest who has a drug addict wife, gay son, and other personal and family problems. It also looks like Jesus makes a few cameos throughout the show to help this priest out with everything. You can only imagine the uproar this has caused in Christian circles—they don't want the show aired at all because it is just not right theologically and religiously.

Here's what I think. This is typical of American Christianity—let's attack this show because it has something to do with the Bible. What about all the other shows that constantly portray Christians as rigid, extreme, women oppressors who can only see one side of an issue?

ER is about as anti-Christian as it can get sometimes. For instance, last week a conservative Christian family comes to the ER because their 15 year old girl was raped and now pregnant. The parents said it was God's will for this to happen and they want to keep it. The show then portrayed the girl as an innocent, brainwashed victim of an oppressive Christian home. Long story short, the girl is given a special application of something that hardens the uterus and somehow causes a miscarriage in many cases. The girl is told that this is God's way to reconsider his will, and her parents will just think it is a miscarriage—Christian dilemma solved, oppressive Christian values defeated. Hmmm. . . lying, dishonesty, deception, etc. Where is the outcry against this? Wait, ER is too good of a show, it just represents our culture, blah, blah, blah. Don't worry, we'll keep watching it in my home.

We could go into so many more examples in shows like CSI, The Office, Scrubs, The OC, Las Vegas, etc. I mention these because we watch many of them and we're not doing anything about it either. My point is this—be consistent. We can't pick and choose shows because they "directly"? deal with the Bible and it might look bad for us "Christians."? We need to be on the front lines against many shows that attack Christianity and make us look crazy.

The real bottom line: the best way to get rid of TV shows is to not watch them (like Joey, per example) and show people what Christianity really is (like Curt Sparks). I've heard estimates that the country is 90% Christian. That is a lot of TV programming power. But more than that, people need to see what Christians are really like from your actions, not ER.

Unfortunately, ER and other shows are not exaggerating what they've seen Christians to be like, they don't need to. And what if, like the Book of Daniel series, some Christians are fighting battles against addictions and homosexuality, while looking for Jesus—even if what he says does not seem perfectly theologically consistent to us. It might not be a bad representation of many Christians, or it might be a slam on mainstream Christianity. . . I guess we'll have to watch and see, since it does not conflict with our other shows. As for me and my household, we will serve the __TV __LORD (Check one).