Mmmm....afternoon tv.

I got sucked in yesterday. I couldn’t help it. My wife, her friends, and all of our male, homosexual friends have been addicted to this American phenomenon for a long time. I, for my part, have avoided it like the plague. The “crack cocaine” of mid-afternoon television to which I refer is none other than Oprah.

Most of the time I find her show to be nothing but nonsensical, emotional drivel with no real meat or substance. She got in trouble in Texas for being anti-meat, as a matter of fact. She pushes a kind of feel-good, pseudo-spirituality that has no real basis in reality on no real impact on the lives of its adherents. We get nothing from her but flowery statements of “feed your spirit”, “live for tomorrow”, and other such fodder for framed inspirational posters in office cubicles where people have no hope of escape and no direction for their lives. That stuff makes sense to them as they rush home to watch their favorite “afternoon prophet”, Tivo’d earlier in the day. They sit on their couches, chain smoking cigarettes, petting their 15 cats, and eating a bag of Oreos covered in ½ gallon of ice cream. Am I generalizing? Yes. Am I exaggerating? Yes. But only a bit. She represents an American Dream that can be summed up in an hour talk show. I find any dream like that to be suspicious at best and downright dangerous at its worst.

That said, there are bright points where an episode stands out as both relevant and powerful. My wife was watching a Tivo’d episode yesterday, featuring Ellie Weisel and a number of high school essayists. The students had all won a contest organized by Oprah in which they had to write an essay about the impact of Ellie Weisel’s novel, Night, on today’s society. Night has been one of my favorite novels for a long time. At the very least, there is probably no novel that has impacted me more. The essays were excellent. She even had two students from American schools who had survived the slaughter in Rwanda. As small children, younger than my 7-year-old daughter, they had seen their families slaughtered, other children hacked apart, women raped and killed, and other such heinous atrocities. One of the young girls was convinced her family was dead. Oprah reunited them on her show. They had not seen one another in 12 years, since the daughter had escaped to a refugee camp. I will admit, it was too much for me. I cried very hard.

I also found myself becoming very angry. Ellie Weisel has been speaking and writing for years to help the people of the world to declare, “Never Again!” to the slaughter of innocents. Yet, the slaughter continues. We have not learned. I also felt convicted. I am focused on trying to finish my basement, planning for a vacation, going camping, working to make more money, and other such trivial pursuits, while people all over the world are dying from murder, AIDS, starvation, ethnic cleansing, and the ignorance and apathy of the rest of the world. The Vineyard Churches have recently dissolved their International Consortium for no better reason than that they couldn’t get along. WOW! I am a Vineyard pastor, and I love my family, but this is inexcusable. Yes, I know, there are people in the trenches doing good work, but we need to have a visible, global presence as the Church of God. I am not only speaking to Vineyard, but to the Church. How can the Kingdom advance? We speak of the Father’s Heart for the Nations, but we seem to be very far from the heart of the Father on this issue. It took Oprah to show me the light. World missions is about standing between the innocent and their attackers, between the woman and the machete. Whether she is rich or poor, Christian or Muslim, black or white, we have to step in to be salt and light. We have to reconcile with our brothers before bringing the sacrifice of praise to the altar. How can we be a worshipping church, when we can’t even get along with other believing leaders?

We all need to start watching Oprah. She will show us the way. But seriously, the Spirit is moving right now through the world. When that girl was reunited with her family on the show, she raised her hands in praise to Jesus. What a statement from someone who’s concerns for the Kingdom of God in the world are much more profound than ours seem to be.

Bewitched

OK, so I went to the Christian book store (the white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant, evangelical, upper-middle class, republican, family values propaganda store) in the area, and I was hit immediately by the overwhelming amount of Narnia crap that absolutely filled the place. Disney has marketed this film to Christians in a way that only the Disney advertising juggernaut can, and I find it all hard to take in. It may be that I just barely missed being attacked by the live lion they had prowling around the store as a way of drawing attention to the Narnia display (thank God he found that cute little blond-haired 5 year old boy instead of me) (I think the lion was attracted to the smell of stolen "Testamints" candy on the kid's breath). It may be that I love the books and even read them to my unborn daughter while she was in the womb, and I am very afraid that Disney will destroy my favorite books. I think I have figured out the three main reasons for my disturbed feelings:

1) Disney and Evangelicals Make Strange Bedfellows

Evangelical Christianity has a long, happy history of protesting everything Disney. The very existence of Disney has been a thorn in the side of Evangelicals for years. Christians love to portray Disney as the Magic Kingdom of Satan (mostly because of Disney's acceptance of "The Gays") Disney, for its part, is quintessential US consummerist culture. Disney is the Evil Galactic Empire. It is all about buying and consumption. Looking back at the astronomical success of Mel Gibson's The Passion, Disney wants to grab some of those Christian bucks. Disney and Evangelicals working together is as disturbing to me as the union of Flava Flav and Brigitte Nielsen.

2) White American Evangelicals Will Co-opt the World, If They Can

The Passion, Left Behind, multi-colored leather bibles, X-treme faith stuff, Christian hip-hop, and other such stuff are all examples of boomer generation Christianity trying to look cool to my generation and younger. I am an "Xer", and it started with marketing youth groups to my generation and grew from there. We had "X-treme Ski Trips", "X-treme Pizza Blasts", and X-treme Contemplative Retreats" pitched at us ad nauseum. The difficulty with this is twofold. First, it is a self-deception on the part of Christians. We have fooled ourselves into believing we are the controllers in this consummerist marketing Christian explosion. Sorry. Mega-conglomerates like Disney laugh at these naive simpletons who were protesting them yesterday and are now PAYING CHURCH FUNDS TO MARKET FOR DISNEY!!! Disney no longer has to even spend for its own advertising. I have no problem with Disney. In fact, I already have my tickets to see the movie with my kids. However, you will never see a shred of Narnia advertising in my church. I am not saying I am above anyone else. I am just sick of seeing the Church that I love act like a whore, spreading her legs for whatever company or product comes with a smile and a nice ad pitch. John Cusak, an actor who has become a pseudo-voice for my generation, summed up our feelings best in "Say Anything" as Lloyd:

"A career? I've thought about this quite a bit sir and I would have to say
considering what's waiting out there for me, I don't want to sell anything, buy
anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or
processed or buy anything sold or processed or repair anything sold, bought or
processed as a career. I don't want to do that. My father's in the army. He wants
me to join, but I can't work for that corporation, so what I've been doing
lately is kick-boxing, which is a new sport...As far as career longevity, I don't
really know. I cant figure it all out tonight, sir, so I'm just gonna hang with
your daughter."

FROM ROD'S QUOTES FROM SAY ANYTHING

3) Pretty Picky With Our Witches, Aren't We?

I love C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, as I said earlier, but please. Why is this British witch acceptable and Harry Potter is the devil? I love the Harry Potter books as well. There are a number of lessons in those books about growing up, facing fears, and handling the worst of life. Yet, Christians have avidly protested the books and the movies. They have been very self-righteous as they have driven to bookstores and theaters in their GM SUVs (burning a ton of gas, while GM has been liked to Apartheid in South Africa) to march in their Nikes (made in Indonesian sweat shops) while drinking Coca-Cola (linked to murders of Columbian peasants) bought from Wal-mart (guilty of almost completely destroying the US small market economy and keeping minimum wage at an unjust level), while they burn books in front of the children who love them (causing these kids to have a horrible first experience of Christianity). The Lewis books are full of magic and fantasy, but they are acceptable, because they have been marketed to Christians. The fact is, Lewis did not write them for Christians or even as an evangelistic tool. He simply wrote them to share with his niece, Lucy. The Holy Observer whote an excellent sarcastic article after the 5th Harry Potter novel offering new children's books to protest for Christians. The hypocrisy and the picking and choosing of our little "stands" makes us look like fools.

My point is this: I believe this worshipping at the feet of American culture is destructive of the Gospel message. I am not an isolationist. I believe we need to enter the culture and engage and connect with as many people as possible. I also believe we are to be set apart. We can love people without marrying the culture. I am looking forward to the movie, but I will keep it in perspective. I will not sell my soul to Disney.