Hollywood's Perception of Christianity

Recently, on a Monday evening, I watched a fairly new show called Perception which airs on TNT.  The premise of Perception is that a brilliant professor of neuroscience, Dr. Daniel Pierce (played by Eric McCormack), helps a former student and now FBI agent (played by Rachael Leigh Cook) solve crimes.  The twist is, this brilliant professor  is also a paranoid schizophrenic and regularly halucinates individuals who help him arrive at the identity of the culprit - thus the title Perception.  His "perception" is much different than that of the people around him, but it is his "unique" perception that gets the job done.

As with most crime dramas, someone is murdered and the rest of the show is devoted to finding out "whodunnit."  This particular episode turned out to be centered around a young man who claimed to hear God speak to him.  I rolled my eyes when I figured this out, as Hollywood's depiction of Christians tends to either leave me arguing with the television and determined to send a letter to the network (which I never actually do) or sitting there in stunned silence at the fact that anyone could get even the  basic tenets of Christianity so wrong.  This episode did not produce anything different.  The "hero" of the show, the brilliant professor, was not only skeptical of all things Christian, but had a good rant about the myth that all religions represent.  The only redeeming scene was when one of the professor's halucinated characters pointed out that Dr. Pierce's belief that no religion was based in any kind of reality was rich coming from someone who is often not in touch with reality himself.  Aside from that, it was typical Hollywood blather.

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that the problem with Perception is that the writers have the wrong perception (profound, isn't it?).  There could be several reasons for this.  They could be too lazy to do their homework about Christianity.  They could be writing from the perspective of someone who has been hurt by "religious" folks.  Perhaps they don't like what they see on the surface whenever "Christians" make the news (most often the "not-so-stable" fringe element).  Or they could really be antagonistic toward the faith and are all too pleased to make Christian characters look like 1) narrow-minded racist, judgmental, fundamentalist, hateful bigots;  2) dogmatic, anti-science people who come straight out of the dark ages; or 3) Stepford-esque mindless followers who have been taken advantage of by a "wolf in sheep's clothing" (my personal favorite).  Yeah, I could go on and on about Hollywood's skewed "perception" of Christians.

Problem is, it wouldn't really be fair to lay all the blame on the beautiful people...

Truth be told, there are plenty of Christians in church every week who have just as skewed a perception of their faith.  If we, as Christians, were truly living out what Jesus commanded, there would be a lot less to ridicule and make fun of.  We have this extraordinary Savior who wants His followers to live extraordinary lives in Him, but it turns out the followers aren't following all that well.  We're too busy either building our own "spiritual" kingdoms or arguing with each other about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin.  Can't imagine where Hollywood writers get their ideas about Christians...*cough, cough*

I read a short little book today called Epic Jesus written by Frank Viola.  It reminded me how amazing Jesus Christ really is.  It is kind of sad that I had to be reminded that Christianity was never intended to be a religion, but a living, vibrant organism based in relationship with Jesus who is, in fact, our life.  The long and short of it is that unless and until we stop focusing on everything but Jesus Himself, we will continue to play the parts that Hollywood has written for us.  Parts with no power and no depth...a joke, really.  And SO not funny.

That Picture In My Mind

Idealization.  I have struggled for most of my life with idealization.  You know, it's when you picture something a certain, amazing way, when in reality it doesn't bear much resemblance to that picture in your mind.  Family gatherings, for example.  For years, I pictured family holiday gatherings being something straight out of a Normal Rockwell painting when in truth, the actual event never lived up to my idealized version.  We had fun, but they were never like I pictured them.

I think I have idealized the practice of writing as well.  I have longed to write something significant for years and have dabbled with ideas here and there.  But lurking in my mind somewhere is this picture of myself sitting in a corner at Starbucks, developing profound thoughts into great tomes to be admired for generations to come.  Well, I'm actually sitting in the corner at Starbucks at this very moment and the profound thoughts are nowhere to be found.  Everything I have written to date has been hard work, with much revision and agonizing over the perfect word.  So much for the picture in my head.

Sometimes, I idealize things from the past.  Like that job I liked so much better than the one I have now or that one birthday.  Okay, the birthday is a bad illustration because at this point, any birthday in the past is better than one in the present simply because the numbers were lower.  But looking back on a time in the past and making it something it really wasn't is something that I think most of us are pretty good at.  We long for "the good ol' days".

But "the good ol' days" weren't without problems of their own...

Granted, things are different today than they were a few years ago.  My worst fear as a kid in school was humiliating myself by tripping and falling in the hallway in front of a cute guy.  I never had to think about someone coming in with an automatic weapon and shooting.  But things back then weren't ideal, by any stretch of the imagination.  There were enough worries to go around and enough sorrow and heartache.

So why do we paint this rosy picture of times past?  I think it's because when we look back, we know the outcome.  It's already happened.  There's no longer any uncertainty.  Not so with the time we are living in.  Uncertainty abounds.  And that "not knowing" makes us anxious, scared, and at times, neurotic.  So the past looks like a welcome friend.  Even when times were bad, they're over with.  We made it through.  We can only hope and pray to make it through whatever lurks around the corner of our future.

I've been reading the book of Ecclesiastes over the last several days.  It's not a real cheerful book.  According to it, "there is nothing new under the sun."  I think the author is right on the money.  No matter where you look across the span of human history, there has always been gladness and sorrow, security and fear, hopefulness and despair.  And we have survived.

Maybe there is a good reason to look back with rose-colored glasses and enjoy our perception of "the good ol' days."  I have a dear friend who is dealing with more than her share of hardship at the moment.  And when she looks only at the obstacles before her, discouragement takes over and she becomes overwhelmed.  I tell her to look at the things around her that are good - and there are those things - because if she looks only at the uncertainty, she will drive herself crazy.  So maybe there is a place for those idealized memories.  Perhaps their purpose is to help us persevere.  After all, one day, these days will take their place in our minds as "the good ol' days."

Love, Grace, and a Chicken Sandwich

Anyone and everyone has been weighing in recently on the issues of free speech, gay marriage, and gay rights.  Unless you’re living under a rock, in which case you won’t be reading this blog anyway, you know that what sparked this round of passionate debate were comments by an executive for a national fast food restaurant that happens to be run by a Christian family.  I'm not against passionate debate.  However…

As I look at the interchange that has taken place over the last couple of weeks because of this issue, I get {cough} slightly frustrated.

This is going to upset a lot of my brothers and sisters in Christ, but since I’ve never won any popularity contests anyway, I’m throwing caution to the wind.   I am ashamed of a lot of the “Christian” response to all this.  I have watched as post after post on Facebook from those in the Body of Christ have taken an “in your face” and “so there” attitude.  I’ve seen posts that ridicule, rant, and are just downright rude.  Granted, I’ve seen some of the same coming from the other side of the fence, but the overwhelming majority of the “mud-slinging” has come from Christians.

Beloved, this should not be…

“Sling mud at those who oppose you!  Ridicule them and treat them like pond scum!  Then everyone will know how you feel and how righteous you are, and that you’re not going to take any garbage from anyone!”  Is that what Jesus said?  Um…no.  The proper instructions tell us just the opposite (see Luke 6:27-36).  Did Jesus get “in your face” with people?  Well okay, yes, he actually did.  But it was with {gasp} “religious” folks (see Matthew 23 and Luke 11).  Some of us tend to forget in our zeal for what we believe that the greatest commandment according to Jesus is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind….And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)  I haven’t seen a lot of this lovin’ going on lately…

To my Christian brothers and sisters, the “royal law found in Scripture” (James 2:8) should guide our interaction with anyone and everyone we meet.  In this country, we may have a legal right to shake our fist and give someone who disagrees with us a verbal “what-for” but that doesn’t mean that we should.  The example given us by the One we claim to serve is an example of humility and of not grasping at our “rights” (Phil. 2:5-8).  In our Father’s Kingdom, we serve to lead, surrender to win, die to live.  That’s how it works.  Let’s trade our indignant outrage for humility; our bitterness for gentleness; our anger for love.  It is possible to be true to God and still love people in the process.  

Two other posts this morning related to this whole thing have grabbed my attention.  The first made me horribly sad.  It was a picture of the lines outside of the heretofore un-named restaurant and the caption said, “You’ll never see that many Christians line up to help at a food bank or a homeless shelter, and that’s something Jesus actually said to do.”  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of truth to that statement and it breaks my heart.  Not just because a majority of Christians aren’t lining up to help those in need, but because I haven’t lined up at the food bank or the homeless shelter either.  I won’t embarrass myself by making any excuses.  I need to do better.

The second post made me glad because it gave me hope that as Christians, we CAN get it if we would just get down off of our soap boxes and figuratively pick up the towel and basin of water.  The post is from a friend and colleague of mine, Rev. Amy Williams (www.amylynnwilliams.com):  “Before people get bent out of shape remember that you had the freedom to participate on Wed, they have the freedom to participate today.  Why don’t you buy them a lunch while they are there (or at least offer).”

May we all be as gracious to others as our God is to us.