Monday, March 11, 2013
330 - The Bible: Reality TV Gets It Right
Spirituality
Column #330
March 12, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
Tip: Watch “The Bible,” History Channel, Sundays at 8 p.m. throughout March.
March 12, 2013
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville
The Bible: Reality TV Gets It Right
By
Bob WaltersTip: Watch “The Bible,” History Channel, Sundays at 8 p.m. throughout March.
The truth is I don’t watch a whole
lot of TV.
And while I am good-naturedly
chuckling as I think about this, I especially have no interest in reality shows
like “Survivor” and am offended by the “historical Jesus” nonsense routinely offered
as “documentary” programming.
The manufactured predicaments of
what little reality TV I have seen – jungles, bachelorettes, whatever – make me
cringe: the programming allure seems to be the revelation of the ugly truths
and deceptions of the dark side of humanity.
Coarseness is king (and queen). Dignity
is for losers. It reminds me of me at my
worst. Yuck.
“Historical Jesus” is a lately-popular
secular academic and entertainment media euphemism best translated as “the
Jesus of the Bible didn’t really exist.” This is a dark deception of the most lethal
sort – the spiritually dead trying to kill the rest of us; the blind leading
the blind (Matthew 15:14) into the inglorious pit of doubt and death.
There is a great reason why there is
so little historical evidence of Jesus: the grace of Christ and the glory of
God are written in the Bible and in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, not by
scribes in the pages of secular history. “What is
unseen is eternal,” (2 Corinthians 4:18) is how the Bible puts it.
Modern culture, on that score, has
it just backwards: it insists worldly physical evidence trumps inspired faithful
truth and ridicules any suggestion to the contrary. Rather than understanding that Jesus is
author of true freedom and the remover of all shackles, culture portrays
Christian faith as limiting rather than freeing – the Bible is for the
close-minded; church is for the intellectually limited; serious biblical
exposition has no proper place in mainstream cultural conversation. Satan revels in the lies.
All that may explain why every other
on-air and cable TV network rejected the five-episode miniseries “The Bible” (8 p.m. ET Sundays) which
began airing March 3 on the History Channel.
The series was produced by Mark Burnett (producer of Survivor, which is why I was chuckling
above) and Roma Downey (actress, Touched
by an Angel). It is backed by author
and Pastor Rick Warren (40 Days of
Purpose) of Saddleback Church. “The
Bible” is a big time, truth-telling production.
In this case, seeing really is believing.
And the truth is, this is must-see
TV.
Walters
(rlwcom@aol.com) sat in on a national online media kickoff conference
March 2. “The Bible” producers Burnett and Downey think public schools should
teach the Bible (Wall Street Journal, March 1) because “Westerners cannot be
considered literate without a basic knowledge of this foundational text.” Walters couldn’t agree more.
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