{"id":30860,"date":"2013-02-21T10:00:14","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?p=30860"},"modified":"2013-02-21T03:22:26","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T10:22:26","slug":"faith-in-abcs-zero-hour-dont-bet-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/02\/faith-in-abcs-zero-hour-dont-bet-on-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith in ABC’s Zero Hour? Don\u2019t Bet on It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I love a well-thought-out conspiracy show; for a researcher like me, there is nothing quite like the thrill of attempting to follow competing storylines and unravel an intricate mystery.\u00a0 As such, I approached the pilot of ABC\u2019s new uber<\/em>-conspiracy show Zero Hour <\/em>with cautious optimism.\u00a0 The series follows Hank Galliston (Anthony Edwards), editor of Modern Skeptic<\/em>, whose wife Laila (Jacinda Barrett) is kidnapped by Vincent, a terrorist (Michael Nyqvist) seeking, it seems, a mysterious clock she had purchased for her shop.\u00a0 This \u201cterrorist\u201d has ties to Nazi experiments that prompted opposition in the church (and specifically the Rosicrucian order) to invoke some little-understood force or device to stave off Armageddon, an apocalyptic event that could be reignited by Vincent and others like him if they can track down the items or persons they are seeking.<\/p>\n

The premise is thus more than a little preposterous, though one expects such leaps in a supernatural conspiracy series.\u00a0 Where Zero Hour<\/em> falls flat for me is in its blatant use of the standard \u201cscience versus faith\u201d trope and in the implications that trope has for the show\u2019s apparent definition of faith.\u00a0 Galliston is from the start presented as the skeptical stick-in-the-mud whose unusual situation forces him to \u201cbelieve.\u201d\u00a0 In one of the most telling sequences of the pilot, Galliston\u2019s co-contributors at Modern Skeptic<\/em> try to persuade him to have faith that his wife is still alive:<\/p>\n

Hank: He doesn\u2019t need us anymore, Rachel.\u00a0 He got what he wanted.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t need Laila.\u00a0 It\u2019s logic; a guy like that, he eliminate loose ends.<\/p>\n

Arron: Screw logic, Hank.<\/p>\n

Hank: Logic is the compass\u2014<\/p>\n

Arron: \u2014that as of right now will get you exactly nowhere.<\/p>\n

Rachel: He\u2019s right.\u00a0 Now it\u2019s all about believing.\u00a0 You\u2019ve just got to believe.<\/p>\n

Hank: After all this, she wants me to have faith?<\/p>\n

Rachel: Yes.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got two ways you can go: you can believe she\u2019s dead and quit, or you can believe she\u2019s alive and find her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am certainly in favor of holding on to faith in desperate situations.\u00a0 But the \u201cscrew logic\u201d version of faith embodied here is hardly the reasonable expectation enjoined by Christianity.\u00a0 Rather, it seems more of a chop-shop version of Pascal\u2019s wager.\u00a0 In his famous Pens\u00e9e <\/em>233, the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal famously argued that, ultimately, it makes more sense to believe in God than not:<\/p>\n

. . . you must wager.\u00a0 There is no choice, you are already committed.\u00a0 Which will you choose, then?\u00a0 Let us see: since a choice must be made, let us see which offers you the least interest.\u00a0 You have two things to lose: the true and the good; and two things to stake: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to avoid: error and wretchedness.\u00a0 Since you must necessarily choose, your reason is no more affronted by choosing one rather than the other.\u00a0 That is one point cleared up.\u00a0 But your happiness?\u00a0 Let us weigh up the gain and the loss involved in calling heads that God exists.\u00a0 Let us assess the two cases: if you win, you win everything.\u00a0 If you lose, you lose nothing.\u00a0 Do not hesitate, then; wager that he does exist. (Translated by A. J. Krailsheimer)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arron and Rachel are following a similar, if somewhat less rigorous, line of thought: I choose to believe because, practically speaking, my odds of achieving my ends in this situation are better if I believe than if I do not.<\/p>\n

But what exactly is the object of their faith?\u00a0 In the conversation above, faith is set up as little more than a faint hope at best, a denial of facts at worst.\u00a0 Hank should \u201cbelieve,\u201d not in anyone or anything particular, just \u201cbelieve\u201d that Laila is alive.\u00a0 In Pascal\u2019s formulation, the argument specifically concerns belief in God and, in its overall context, the Christian God.\u00a0 Curiously, Zero Hour<\/em>\u2019s first episode by no means presents an atheistic world, and yet it is a world whose God is curiously impotent.\u00a0 In the opening prologue set in 1938 Germany, one of the heroic figures asserts, \u201cNot even God can help us now, only the twelve.\u201d\u00a0 Later, another figure involved in resisting the evil forces declares that the Nazis sought out something that would \u201cmake God irrelevant.\u201d\u00a0 In one sense, this theology serves strategic narrative purposes: if God is truly sovereign and working toward a climactic eschaton<\/em> that is foreordained, a degree of suspense is necessarily removed from the storyline.\u00a0 Humans can affect their temporal situation but cannot \u201csave the world\u201d (or fail to), because that ending is held in the hands of a good and omnipotent God.\u00a0 Zero Hour<\/em> thus seems to be establishing a dualistic world, akin to Zoroastrianism, but with hard Nazi science rather than Ahriman as its force of darkness.\u00a0 And its theism is so open that, in placing the world\u2019s fate in the hands of human agency, God cedes control of the final outcome.<\/p>\n

Yet while such a world may make slightly more compelling television, it also makes for highly problematic theology.\u00a0 In the course of its run, however long that might be, Zero Hour<\/em> might take steps to collapse the false binary of skepticism and faith; at its snappiest and most self-aware moments, the dialogue allowed hope for some intelligent nuance in the writing.\u00a0 Similarly, the show\u2019s God could prove more powerful than its pilot suggests, hiding an almighty goodness for a time before intervening (at a convenient plot point).\u00a0 Unfortunately, however, I do not find the initial results promising; Zero Hour<\/em> just doesn\u2019t seem worth wagering on.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love a well-thought-out conspiracy show; for a researcher like me, there is nothing quite like the thrill of attempting to follow competing storylines and unravel an intricate mystery.\u00a0 As such, I approached the pilot of ABC\u2019s new uber-conspiracy show Zero Hour with cautious optimism.\u00a0 The series follows Hank Galliston (Anthony Edwards), editor of Modern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1344,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1484,19],"tags":[1509],"class_list":["post-30860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ofthemoment","category-television","tag-of-the-moment"],"yoast_head":"\nFaith in ABC's Zero Hour? 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