One is tempted to question the above title in the manner Tertullion questioned the relationship between Jerusalem and Athens: Television AND the Christian? What have they to do with each other? A good deal too much very often.

Like anything (everything?) in this world, TV has two sides to it. In itself it is merely a thing, a tool, an invention of man, a medium of communication. But again, nothing in this world is "in itself". Like everything else, TV is owned and operated to serve someone's purposes and very rarely, and not at all in this coun­try, by Christians. Since this world is the battleground between Christ and satan, ultimately we must see TV in NZ as owned by satan and hence being used to promote his agenda. That is becom­ing so increasingly blatantly; it is beyond me that Christians can watch it as much as they do, as easily as they do. The apostle Paul says in Philippians 4:8;

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are no­ble, whatever things are just, what­ever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.

That one can turn from reading such a Scripture – and many others would do – to watching TV apparently quite indis­criminately, as is done in many homes, speaks volumes for the depth of our commitment to Christ as the one who is "holy, pure and undefiled", whose disciples we are and whom we are to imitate. Some par­ents are actively undoing in the hearts of their children what they profess to be seeking to do in other ways. (We all do this inadvertently; but let us not do it knowingly.) And, of course, a lot of what one says about TV applies also to mov­ies and the internet.

I cannot remember who, but some­one once said, "Even good TV is bad." I think they had in mind the passivity it requires and induces. But TV has other effects like that that we need to think about also.

It Is Entertainment⤒🔗

Neil Postman in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, says the basic aim of TV is to entertain and at that it has no peer. The problem is that, as man al­ways does when he holds any power, it has become totalitarian. It wants to speak to everything. It wants to contrib­ute to everything. It wants to enter every sphere of human activity. But it does so forcing every sphere of human activity into the entertainment mode. It is at its most banal in The Weather. After all, the weather is simply the weather. Now I am a bit excited about the weather today – it is raining after I don't know how many weeks. I am sure Jim Hickey is a very nice guy, but I feel demeaned being sup­posed to fall into hilarity over The Situa­tion. And, of course, The Weather is such a hard thing to 'preach up', poor old Jim has to lay his tongue on every respectable adjective (and not a few very poor colloquialisms) in the book. Thus the language is further debased and we have to reach for ever and ever stronger adjectives when we really do need them.

It is at its most gross in the Benny Hinn Show, Hour of Power, et al. Having watched 42 hours of "religious program­ming", Postman drew two conclusions about 'religious TV.' Firstly, "on televi­sion, religion, like everything else, is pre­sented, quite simply and without apol­ogy, as entertainment." And secondly, "Most Americans, including preachers, have difficulty accepting the truth, if they think about it at all, that not all forms of discourse can be converted from one me­dium to another." The result, TV being what it is, "is unlikely (to) call forth the state of mind required for a non-trivial religious experience." Which brings me to my next observation.

It Trivializes All it Touches←⤒🔗

Jane says of her husband, "He loves his News." I'm sure you've all heard people say things like that. But what say there isn't any news? What say nothing newsworthy (however that is defined) has happened today? Too bad. The slot be­tween six and seven will carry news. And you listen to it carefully, how much of it is "make-news" – speculation on the ef­fect this will have on the economic re­covery/downturn (pick your day/com­mentator) or on the balance of power in Parliament. For again, it is entertainment, it is a programme above everything else. So this very week, John Hawkesby goes down the road for Richard Long to resume his place on TV1 news. The rat­ings were down and we "listened to our viewers," said TV1 general manager, Shaun Brown.

Even when the medium tries to treat a serious subject well, it does not avoid this. The film Shadowlands on the life of C S Lewis made a good attempt at weaving some of his thought into the portrayal of his life with scenes of con­versations with his intellectual cronies and even a sermon. But in the end, it boiled down to sloganeering, one of the curses of our age.

I am not convinced TV cannot be used for directly religious purposes but you had better have lots of money and be prepared for very small 'audiences' – probably enough money to operate a whole channel because even if you bought 20-30 minute slots with no ad­vertising, you would only get very off-peak times. It would have to be a teaching ministry, not overtly evangelistic and definitely not worship. Even then, it would be trivialised by what came before and after and what must necessarily come immediately before and after – because in the end, the entertainment is really only there to sell soap. But let us never for a moment consider 60-second slots. Such a thing demeans the Gospel as it demeans man as a rational creature called upon by God to consider such weighty matters as sin, eternity, the ho­liness of God and justification by faith. To bring 'sound bites' or 'visual impres­sions' to serve that end is prostitution of the first order.

It Falsifies Life←⤒🔗

Nor does all this remain with television. Because television has so infiltrated our culture, all of life must now be entertain­ment and everything must be wrapped up quickly to a tidy conclusion. One area where this view has been very influential is education. Not only must children not fail at anything, and so not learn their real gifts and strengths and weaknesses; but education must be fun. That is a cruel thing to inflict on our children and some­thing Christian parents must avoid. For it is not true and we give children an utterly unreal view of the world if we allow them to grow up thinking that. It is not even true of education. If learning can be fun, that is a great help and it is certainly good to have some fun in life. But a lot of learn­ing is plain hard work. I had a pretty en­thusiastic Hebrew teacher at the RTC but learning the verb conjugations and memo­rizing vocab was still hard work and I just had to drive myself to that hour and a half every day.

And a lot of life is like that. Hard work. Plugging along through difficult times, in sickness as well as in health. Many jobs are not exciting careers and many peo­ple have such jobs. But when life is con­stantly presented as excitement, we fos­ter unattainable expectations. Does that help people "with food and clothing there­with (to) be content"? It would be unfair to hold TV entirely responsible for this trivializing and promotion of the enter­tainment view of life, but it has certainly strongly reinforced it.

The direct immorality and ungodliness are easy enough to see – although far too well-tolerated, but it seems to me that some of these more subtle effects are much more dangerous. One of the world's own prophets told us this years ago: "the medium is the message" (Mar­shal McLuhan?) but, as in Jesus' day, still today, too often "the children of this generation are wiser than the children of light." Shame on us.