{"id":2011,"date":"2012-06-06T17:44:33","date_gmt":"2012-06-06T21:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2012-06-06T17:44:33","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T21:44:33","slug":"glee-friends-and-ted-klucks-spitfire-the-kinds-of-christians-we-need-on-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2012\/06\/06\/glee-friends-and-ted-klucks-spitfire-the-kinds-of-christians-we-need-on-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Glee, Friends, and Ted Kluck’s Spitfire: The Kinds of Christians We Need on TV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Stephen Prothero recently wrote at CNN\u2019s Belief Blog that Christians, like gays, are \u201ccoming out\u201d on television. \u00a0He refers to the popular show Glee<\/em>, which features a gay couple, a lesbian couple, a transgender singer, and a \u201cGod Squad\u201d of Christians whose sole purpose seems to be to provide\u00a0Glee <\/em>creator Ryan Murphy a foil against which to make his arguments. \u00a0Prothero applauds the following conversation, which took place on the show, for showing Christians struggling with their faith and talking about the Bible:<\/p>\n

Mercedes (Amber Riley) calculates that since \u201cone out of every ten people are gay . . . one of the twelve apostles might have been gay.\u201d Sam (Chord Overstreet) observes that \u201cthe Bible says it\u2019s an abomination for a man to lay with another man,\u201d prompting Quinn (Dianna Agron) go ask, \u201cDo you know what else the Bible says is an abomination? Eating lobster, planting different crops in the same field, giving somebody a proud look. Not an abomination? Slavery. Jesus never said anything about gay people. That\u2019s a fact.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That it\u2019s a theologically illiterate view of the Bible (the old Shellfish Objection is easily dispensed for anyone who has actually studied both sides of the issue), gives no coherent justification for a traditional Christian viewpoint, and never seriously challenges the prevailing assumptions of the show that homosexuality should be embraced and celebrated, does not bother Prothero because he shares Murphy\u2019s point of view on these issues. \u00a0Yet, to be honest, if we cannot have the Bible discussed well <\/em>on television, then I would rather not have it discussed at all. \u00a0I don\u2019t really want Ryan Murphy teaching teenagers the Bible.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

The larger issue this raises, however, is the way in which Christians have been \u201ccloseted\u201d on television in the first place. \u00a0The great majority of Americans are Christian, and yet you would never know it from American television. \u00a0There are some welcome exceptions. \u00a0Everybody Loves Raymond<\/em> and The Middle <\/em>(which features a hilarious youth pastor character) show their families going to church and sometimes discussing their Christian faith. \u00a0And on Smash<\/em>, a gay character convinces his partner to wait on sex and come to church with him \u2014 which, although it\u2019s arguably in service to a pro-gay message, is actually a decent plot element, and I certainly want my gay friends to be welcome at churches. \u00a0Yet the exceptions are few, and even in the exceptional cases one very, very rarely sees an articulate case made for Christian faith or for a traditionally Christian worldview.<\/p>\n

This is not a complaint that we are not proportionally represented. \u00a0If that is so, we need to get in the business and make cultural products of such quality that they simply must be shown on television and on movie screens. \u00a0So this is not a complaint about the actions of others. \u00a0It\u2019s just a question: What is the cumulative effect of all this?<\/p>\n

The stories we tell each other matter. \u00a0I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the Danish writer Soren Kierkegaard, and early in his career Kierkegaard engaged with \u201ctragedy\u201d and \u201cirony\u201d not merely as literary\/dramatic genres but as modes of life. \u00a0To take an example from my own childhood, imagine a class of gymnasts sitting on the floor and watching one video after another of an Olympian performing a skill they wished to learn. \u00a0By watching it done over and over, by entering into the \u201cstory\u201d the video told, you are preparing your mind (and really your body as well) to perform the skill. \u00a0In the same way, Kierkegaard and many of the literary theorists of his day believed, when we watch stories unfolding on the stage or read stories in the pages of our books, we are seeing, and imaginatively entering into, practices and habits, attitudes and ways of being that we will subconsciously absorb.<\/p>\n

Think of it this way. \u00a0The television show Friends <\/em>showed a group of six men and women living in New York City and, from time to time, confronting serious questions about relationships, marriage, vocation, even death. \u00a0For those who watched the show: Do you once recall them turning to God with their questions, or even asking any question about God whatsoever? \u00a0I can recall one episode where Phoebe tried to poke holes in Ross\u2019s confidence in evolution, but that\u2019s about it. \u00a0Now, expand this out to dozens of television programs, scores, hundreds, where people are facing important, sometimes life-and-death questions, without once asking the ultimate questions about God and afterlife and salvation. \u00a0Thousands of characters confronting major life decisions, thousands of times, almost entirely without reference to God.<\/p>\n

What is the cumulative effect? \u00a0We often talk about the rise of \u201cnones\u201d and the rise of agnostics and atheists and apatheists (people who don\u2019t know and don\u2019t care), and I wonder if the thousands of hours the average American spends watching television \u2014 when television is almost entirely scrubbed of references to God or compelling examples of people of faith \u2014 has an effect. \u00a0I don\u2019t mean to deny other factors, including ones that reflect poorly on Christians themselves. \u00a0But to deny that this would have an effect is, I believe, to deny the obvious. \u00a0Are we training ourselves\u2013and training our children\u2013to confront life\u2019s questions without reference to God? \u00a0When you see a thousand characters confront the question of whom to marry, and not a single one expresses that one should take this question to God, isn\u2019t this sort of putting us through the motions? \u00a0Won\u2019t we, like those gymnasts, end up mimicking the people whose performance we have watched and enjoyed over the years?<\/p>\n

Which brings me to a book that recently arrived in the mail \u2014 Dallas and the Spitfire: An Old Car, an Ex-Con, and an Unlikely Friendship<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0Written primarily by Ted Kluck, it tells the story of a Christian writer working alongside an addict ex-con to fix a car and collectively put their lives together. \u00a0It\u2019s \u201cLife as a House,\u201d if the house were a car. \u00a0It\u2019s a story of discipleship, as Ted mentors the young man, and also a story of how God\u2019s grace brings people out of bondage to sin and into a newfound freedom and truth. \u00a0It\u2019s a quick read, written in a wry style (Kluck seems to have attended the Dave Barry Seminar on Comic Footnotes), with a painfully honest look at how one broken Christian \u201cbro\u201d (this may be the most common term in the book) can pour himself into a younger man in need of help \u2014 and, in the process, find healing himself.<\/p>\n

Why aren\u2019t stories like these told on television? \u00a0Rather than having a \u201cTeen Jesus\u201d on Glee <\/em>to give some faux balance and provide the cue for loaded arguments against traditional Christian viewpoints, why not show a thoroughly traditional (and openly imperfect) Christian like Ted Kluck helping a person put his life back together? \u00a0These kinds of stories happen all the time \u2014 all the time <\/em>\u2014 and yet I honestly cannot recall ever seeing a story like this on any television program made in the last ten years. \u00a0\u00a0They don\u2019t have to be saccharine, they don\u2019t have to be hit-you-over-the-head rhetorical; they can just be matter-of-fact. \u00a0This is what people do. \u00a0There\u2019s plenty of comedic potential in there \u2014 Kluck certainly mines a lot of it. \u00a0He\u2019s written a couple essays online that irritated me, to be honest, and this is not exactly my style of book. \u00a0But it shows discipleship and evangelism, being a believer and being the hands and the mouth of Christ, in an honest, searching, nitty-gritty, realistic, funny way. \u00a0I appreciate that.<\/p>\n

What would television look like if it reflected the American people and the things they believe, value and cherish? \u00a0And how can we expect our children to approach life\u2019s major decisions with reference to God and what God has made known, when they have watched thousands of characters confront those same decisions with entirely different criteria in mind?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Prothero recently wrote at CNN\u2019s Belief Blog that Christians, like gays, are \u201ccoming out\u201d on television. \u00a0He refers to the popular show Glee, which features a gay couple, a lesbian couple, a transgender singer, and a \u201cGod Squad\u201d of Christians whose sole purpose seems to be to provide\u00a0Glee creator Ryan Murphy a foil against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[847],"tags":[852,850,1380,849,848,851,853],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-christians-on-television","tag-dallas-and-the-spitfire","tag-entertainment","tag-friends","tag-glee","tag-ted-kluck","tag-television"],"yoast_head":"\nGlee, Friends, and Ted Kluck's Spitfire: The Kinds of Christians We Need on TV - Philosophical Fragments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stephen Prothero recently wrote at CNN's Belief Blog that Christians, like gays, are "coming out" on television. \u00a0He refers to the popular show Glee,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2012\/06\/06\/glee-friends-and-ted-klucks-spitfire-the-kinds-of-christians-we-need-on-tv\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Glee, Friends, and Ted Kluck's Spitfire: The Kinds of Christians We Need on TV - 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