This could be interesting…

though I am always wary of TV’s ability to treat of complex historical phenomena (like the Reformation) without simplifying it to cartoonish levels. But Fr. Pacwa is a fair and smart guy, so I’ll be interested to see if the message can overcome the inherent limitations of the medium. Almost anything would be better than the cartoonish creation myth that exists in the minds of most Americans–assuming they’ve ever heard of the Reformation, which is no sure be in our historically illiterate culture. Many postmoderns only know “Something something noble pagans and mysterious Egyptians who might have had contact with aliens, then GreeksnRomans, then the Dark Ages and Christians persecuting womynhealers, then people in wigs, then America when George Washington fought the Civil War, then oppression of Black folk and Indians, then WWI and II, then I WAS BORN AND HISTORY TRULY BEGAN. After that, it’s a chronicle of the changing moods and feelings of the chronicler as he learned how much smarter and better he was than all those dumb people who lived a long time ago.

Anything that can get people out of the prison of thinking themselves the summit of all history and the smartest people who ever lived is good. Otherwise, you wind up with fat, dumb and happy suburbanites who write ignorant and smug things like this comment on this thread:

It must’ve been really cool to be a Christian when the world was flat…it isn’t flat anymore is it? And when the earth was the center of the universe…it isn’t in the center is it? When God was telling the boys what to write in His one and only Word, why didn’t He give us a little foreshadowing of the size of the universe, or at least let on that it wasn’t a flat earth in an earth-centered universe…He sure woulda scored a lot of points with the scientists, ya know what I mean?!?!

…and why is it that the real God won’t just tell us how He wants us to worship Him? Why he’d rather let millions of people die while we’re all trying to figure out who He is and what the “right” way to worship Him is? All he’d have to do is in one convincing move tell the whole world that the Jews or the Christians or the Muslims are doing it the right way and we could all get on board…but it seems that He would rather remain silent and let the killing continue….let everyone be confused about which is the
REAL book of God. Thanks a alot God.

Religion has run its course…it was a good social morality training for the unevolved humanity of a few thousand years ago…and for those still stuck in their 3-6 year old childhood fantasy developmental stage…its OK, we’ll get over it….

From highly evolved dumbbells and ignorami, O Lord, deliver us.