If you have not seen the new NBC TV show “The Book of Daniel”… don’t bother, especially if you are a subscriber to the Christian faith. It may seriously compromise your personal vows of morality, especially in so far as those vows affect your use of profanity. It is difficult to describe this show without the use of profanity. The show itself, in my opinion, is profane.
I waited until I had actually seen the show to make any remarks about it. Now I have seen it... and I am sickened by it’s message.
I found myself questioning the reason for airing such an abomination on the nation’s airways. I came up with only one conclusion. It is just another attack upon the Christian faith.
But what bothers me, even more than the show itself, is the lack of outrage by the Christian Community. Maybe the Christian Community has been cowed by the constant drumbeat of attacks. Is that it? Could it be that the Christian Community no longer has the courage of its convictions? I mean, Christ DID take a whip to the moneychangers in the Temple! Even He understood that we have only two cheeks!
You would think the Episcopal Church has enough problems of it’s own, currently, with it’s brothers and sisters in the worldwide Anglican community. You would think the ECUSA would rise up, in righteous indignation, and demand that this show be removed from the airways, or, at the very least, ask that it’s membership boycott the advertisers on the show.
Maybe this has happened and, somehow, I have missed it!(?) Somehow, I doubt it.
I have contacted my own local NBC affiliate and asked them to remove the program from their line up. I don’t expect them to do it, of course. Not so long as they have sponsors who are willing to spend good money to continue the attack on the Christian Church, that is. And there are a host of such advertisers available both locally and nationally.
Christians are such easy targets. We don’t fight back. And when we do manage a counter attack it is not a coordinated attack under the leadership of the mainline denominations. Oh, no. The mainline denominations apparently feel it is beneath them to defend the faith. And here, I always thought that was a part of being a Christian… to defend the faith, I mean.
Well, the Romans had the lions; the Americans have the TV networks and Hollywood! It is truly telling. The morality of America is roughly on a par with that of ancient Rome under Nero.
The Scriptures tell us “It is appointed unto man once to die and, after death, the judgment.” Well, yours truly has a lot to answer for. But one of the things I will NOT have to answer for... is allowing this attack upon the Christian Church to go unchallenged.
How about you?
Longstreet
I'm glad you reserved judgement until you had watched it. There were some complaints in the news about it, before it was aired. Seemed a little haisty to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat is wrong with it? I've not seen it. But I've heard it is a reverand that is sort of irreverent. Though many shows liek that will have a good moral at the end. Or the characters end up doing "the right thing". I've heard they smoke the whacky weed on the show. Anything else offensive?
Nicholas: If the show were a SitCom, I'd probably not watch it because, as you may have guessed, that sort of show does not appeal to me.
ReplyDeleteI am a Lutheran. I no longer claim to be an ELCA Luthern because I can't follow the liberal moves of the national church. That said, let me go a bit farther.
My Lutheran congregation is combined with an Episcopal congregation (since the ELCA Lutherans have "full communion" with the Episcopal Church in the USA.) We can trade ministers (pastors and priests) back and forth between congregatons and so forth.
I know Episcopalians the same as I know Lutherans.
The Episcopal church has a lot of problems currently. Problems it has made for itself. What it does not need is an attack from outside which would tend to show the Episcopal church in an even worse light than it currently is seen.
That's what The Book of Daniel does.
You have an Episcopal priest who swears, using God's name in vain, is hooked on Vicodin pills, his wife is an alcoholic, his daughter just got busted for selling dope, and to top it off, she is sleeping with her adopted, oriental, brother. The priest's "blood son" is a homosexual. The priest's brother in law has absconded with the church's building fund which had 3 million dollars in it, there is a Jesus Character, who is more "hippie" than Christ...and it goes down hill from there.
The problem is... there are people out there who will believe this is an accurate depiction of the church... not just the Episcopal church but THE CHURCH.
Now, my family has a number of ministers in it. I was even, believe it or not, a lay minister for a while. I KNOW the depiction of the chuirch made by The Book of Daniel is completely wrong!
The network, in my opinion, is doing a disservice, and great harm, to the Christian community with this offering. I was deeeply offended by it.
I felt, as a Christian, I had a duty to take them to task for it.
Watch the show and decide for yourself. I'd recommend that to everyone.
Longstreet