arndt@lymph.DEC (01/23/85)
Food for thought. Could I ask you, Christian or not, to look over this
article and formulate WHY you agree/disagree with some/all of the authors
points? T.A.T. as you will see in the next installment does not have to be
done from a Christian perspective as they have.
Anyway, hope you find it interesting.
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From: TELEVISION AND THEOLOGY, by George C. Conklin and Linda W. McFadden
"Our central thesis is that our interaction with ourselves and with the world
-- including our attraction or repulsion toward advertising, sex, violence and
other television content -- can be understood in terms of our human condition.
The approach of Television Awareness Training is based primarily upon
psychological and sociological understanding of human behavior. Here we will
reflect on use and abuse of television within the perspective of Christian
theology.
Central to Christian faith is the belief that the ultimate reality of the
universe is God, who created the world and all it contains. As creature,
humankind is intended to live in relationship with all Creation and with the
Creator. Because we are created in the image of the Creator, we also have the
capacity to create. And so humans create -- cities, works of art, codes of
law, languages, systems of belief, technologies. Our very ability to have
developed television -- both the technology and the human social systems
which shape it -- reflects our divinely given creativity.
Created in an act of divine love, we are stewards of our lives and of the
Creation, intended to live in relationship and dialogue with the Creator.
Although we, as creatures, are finite, bounded by the limitations of time
and space and of our physical bodies, we can transend our finitude by being
in dialogue with God. But we are not compelled to be in relatedness to God.
We have a choice. Created in freedom, we are able to choose relationship
to God or to turn away.
The human inclination to turn away from the Source of our being rather than
to live in dialogue and partnership with God is what Christian tradition
has called SIN. In turning away from the Creator, we cut ourselves off from
the Source of our wholeness and creativity, the Source of our ability to
be in relationship. In this cut-off-ness, we experience anxiety and root-
lessness, the sense that we have no 'home' in the Creation and that we have
no essential worth.
When we choose to turn away from the Source or Ground of our being, we rupture
the primary relationship in our lives. Turning away from God is a distortion
or our existence. In choosing to leave the unconditional relationship for
which we were created, we carry with us a desire to be loved unconditionally,
to have ulitmate meaning, to know that we are loved. The Original Sin of
broken relationship with the Creator is worked out in human history in
complex, manifold ways. The unfulfilled, passionate longing for the ultimate
which belongs to our relationship for God creates within us fear, anxiety, rage
-- a nameless terror in the night. Because of this, we reach out to possess,
to dominate, to control, to exploit, to consume things or persons we believe
can satisfy our emptiness.
In our desperate quest for worth and belonging and control of our destinies,
we use our divinely given creativity to fashion gods. We elevate some aspect
of our finite reality -- such as race or sex or affluence or power or another
person -- and bow down before it. Our idols cannot, of course, satisfy our
being; the finite can never satisfy infinite longing, but we persevere. We
love our idols for the totality of their claims on us and curse them when we
discover that they have left unsatisfied our craving to be unconditionally
valued.
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The producers, writers, talent and sponsors of television are no less victims
of the situation than are the viewers. The assurances of being valued and
loved to which the audience aspires are also powerful motivators for the
makers of the dream. The dream-makers seek to wear the right things, know
the right things, have the right symbols of power, be the right persons --
exactly as we, the viewers, do. We share the same dream. It is a measure
of of our unrelenting, aggressive seeking of transcendent value that we honor
a relaive hierarchy of finite values. Ironically, we do homage to those
dream-makers who are most adept at beguiling us through their skillful casting
of the finite in the guise of the transcendent.
-----------------
Christianity affirms that sin is a part of our human nature, but holds the
promise of salvation from our brokenness. We believe that God, in an act of
self-revelation, entered the world in the person of Jesus Christ. His life
and death hold for humankind the possibility of the restoration of dialogue
/communion/relationship between Creator and creature, a healing which we
cannot bring about through any effort of our own.
The central message in Christ's incarnation is: Trust God's love and call to
relationship as the Source of all your being.
The question "What must I do to be saved?" finds its way into television in
several formulations:
How can I obtain love?
How can I be valued?
How can I matter to others?
What must I do in order to be acceptable?
Television's answers also are manifold. News programs suggest WHO is important
and WHAT makes a person important or interesting. The emphasis on economic or
political power, physical or intellectual prowess, or behavior which departs
from cultural norms tends to reinforce in us the idea that power, prowess or
eccentricity make us interesting. Dramatic and adventure programs provide role
models of noteworthy behaviors which are portrayed as obtaining the attention
of others. Advertisements demonstrate countless things which we may add to
ourselves in order to be valued, loved and secure. Television suggests that
salvation from our longing for love and security lies in things performed,
worn, used, applied, driven, learned or experienced.
The message of success, power and affluence proclaimed by television is a
secular gospel in direct competition with the Christian gospel. Television
promises an easeful 'good life', a paradise on earth which is always just
beyond our grasp. Its false promises are a seductive lure away from the way
of eternal life.
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The dream of going beyond the limitations of time, space and mortality is
woven throughout human history. The wish to fly through the air, to travel
in time, to live forever, to be all-knowing or all-powerful has been recorded
in song, fable, art and literature for as long as human culture has existed.
In recent decades, human technology has brought many of these dreams to
realization through developments in aviation and space exploration,
communication and in medical science. Indeed it is the quest for transcendence
which has provided the impetus for the research and exploration which has
pushed the frontiers of human limitation in some astounding ways.
Television technology makes the possibility of transcending human finitude
appear within grasp. Transcendence is depicted primarily in two ways. It
may result from human activity, particularly from science and technology, or
from contact with powers, forces or beings from outside our time, space or
solar system. Television's myth of transcendence is based upon science,
which is portrayed as giving humans the ability to travel backward or forward
in time, venture to other galaxies, or be rebuilt into super beings. The
fantasies once enacted only in art and literature are now acted out with
familiar actors and actresses appearing as reconstructed humans or visitors
to other worlds. The vivid images of such a telecast have every appearance
of reality, and it is left to the viewers' experience of reality to help them
distinguish fact from fantasy.
The difficulty with these tantalizing fantasies is that there is no
transcendence in television's transcendence. Transcendence is trivialized,
stripped of its place in the divine-human relationship. From a Christian
point of view, transcendence of our finitude is a gift of God.
NEITHER THE ENTRANCE OF SUPERIOR EXTRATERRESTIAL BEINGS INTO OUR UNIVERSE
NOR OUR OWN EFFORTS TO BE ABOVE OR OUTSIDE THE CREATION CAN SURPASS THE
POWER THAT IS OURS BY VIRTUE OF OUR RELATEDNESS TO GOD."
To be con't
Regards,
Ken Arndtgeb@cadre.UUCP (01/28/85)
This is a perfect illustration of the different approaches of science and religion. The method of science is to start with the data (e.g. TV) and try to find a systematic explanation. The method of religion is to start with a system (in this case, traditional orthodox Christian theology) an apply it to explain all possible phenomena in the universe. Obviously the author of this tract has spent an enormous amount of time trying to cast a modern cultural phenomena into theologic terms. Certainly, for Christians who accept the theological priseses, this can be helpful in putting culture into their own perspective. For those who don't accept those premises, however, it is of quite limited use. It is therefore difficult to agree, or disagree, with the authors unless you accept their premises. > >The core of the Christian faith stands over and against television today. > >His (Jesus) preaching of the acceptance of God's justice and love was not >simply one among many ideologies to be considered. It called for a yes or no, >not consent but decision. Something in this passage bothers me and seems a bit too fascist. Certainly nothing I've read of Jesus's says that. > >Television shapes our perception of reality -- our values, mores, and >attitudes. The medium is often called a 'mirror of society.' Critical >reflection on the nature of the Church and the manner in which religion, >religious practice, and religious leaders are portrayed on television, >however, suggests that the mirror possesses the curved planes of a carnival >mirror, reflecting a caricature of religious faith and practice rather than >reality. > But it seems like more and more, when one turns on the television, one sees some Bible-thumper or other droning on and on about sin, JEEEZUS, and what not. I agree that it appears pretty absurd, but who is responsible for that? The bit about myth making was said much better by Tolkien (a Christian, incidentally) in his essay "On Fairy Stories" and by C.S. Lewis (I can't recall the place). Of course they were talking about literature. At its best, television is a form of literature, but mostly, it seems driven by commerce, which, while a necessity of life, doesn't always promote the best literature. I think we could argue that at its best, literature, like science, attempts to explain the world by constructs. Of course, some literature is written from a Christian perspective (C.S. Lewis space triliogy for instance), but most is not. In summary, I feel that the problem with the passage posted by Arndt is that in order to sympathize with it, one has to accept Christian theology. And not only Christian theology, but Christian theology as amended by incorporation of the Classical Greek absolutistic theology brought into it as excess baggage by scholastic converts such as Augustine and others. As a matter of fact, if one could translate this passage back into Aramaic and read it to Jesus, I feel confident that he wouldn't have the foggiest idea what they were talking about, with all this about transending the finite, and such. He was talking about his "Father in heaven", a personal (person), anthropomorphic-type God, that the present day Christians certainly don't seem to believe in.