Back from vacation
I spent much of my vacation in bed, sick. Channel surfing discovered a theme on religious television: there are QVC-like mainstream religious programming devoted to miracle vitamins-- a three-month supply for $90. Read the good book and take a pill, I guess.
I think I saw Lindsay Lohan even in my hallucinations. To that, I want to say: Mama, thanks for all the times you said no. You could not watch yet another cable television new show dissecting her life without feeling sorry for her upbringing, with mom apparently wanting to be more like the partying sister and dad in and out of jail. What a combination. The best thing about what Britney (a mom herself) and Lindsay and Paris are going through is that they provide current, real-life material for every parent trying to be a parent, and not a best friend.
Some of the saddest I came across: "Maury" television, where producers can always find a young woman who needs a DNA test to determine her baby's daddy, and with cameras rolling, she and the rest of us find out from the "test results" that neither of the two men on the stage, who she swears were the only ones, are ruled out by DNA. I sat and watched a whole show of women needing paternity tests. The women and men cursed each other so badly, that I was hoping the paternity tests showed that the child didn't belong to the mother, either.
Dogfighting? Maybe the humans should be put in those contraptions.
And, how did pornography become cute and "acceptable?" There's this reality show with Playboy magazine icon Hugh Hefner and his three girlfriends. They all live together -- and one of them wants to have a baby for the 80-ish Hefner. They don't bare everything on the show -- from what I've seen -- but the show makes their lifestyle and the women acceptable. I guess it shouldn't be surprising: Even Black Entertainment Television, once chock full of shows to feed the brain, has a glut of artist videos resembling soft porn.
OK, it was just good to get that off my chest.
Comments (5)
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Welcome back, Nancy, Hope you are recovered. I pity your being stuck with the tube. Read any books, though?
The basic themes you pick out from your TV viewing seem to be the commodification of faith, love and (lack of) charity. "There but for the grace of god go I" is just another shot of Schaedenfraude.
Except for ol' Hef's troubling dilemma. My big concern is the much higher odds of children born to older fathers for having autism and schizophrenia. It's not fair to risk that just for ratings.
Posted on July 26, 2007 10:26 PM
I hope you're feeling better Nancy. I know spending your vacation in bed sick was no fun at all.
Posted on July 27, 2007 8:00 AM
I ‘m sorry you were sick during your vacation, Nancy; and even sorrier that you tuned into the degradation that floods the tube these days. Hopefully, you viewed some better stuff as well.
What your experience confirms is the flush of American culture into the moral and spiritual sewer. What we don’t apprehend, I’m afraid, is the relationship between that phenomenon and the results in people’s lives. Through their lurid efforts to make a buck on depravity, many shows are giving us a vivid “Bible Study.” Galatians 6:7 & 8 tells us,
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh [sin] shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting [divine quality of life].”
All the scenarios you cited were living proof of the debilitating and painful results that sin, and the lack of biblical wisdom in childrearing, and life generally, have in the souls and lives of real people. And those were just the very tip of the iceberg: it’s happening in the lives of pedestrian, workaday folks in our own town, down the street and next door – perhaps in the next room – maybe even in the mirror.
There is a tragic DISCONNECT in our cultural perceptions, wherein we fail to see that our anti-biblical choices regarding life values are destroying our nation, slowly yet inexorably. TV today is like a mirror (and would-be teacher) showing us our sinful and degraded cultural self. Yet we continue to champion the cause of baby killing, premarital and extramarital sex, occultism, perversion, after-sin pills, pornographic “freedom” of speech, Marxism, humanism – all antithetical to biblical truth and morals. This is because sin blinds the eyes of perception to the spiritual light of God’s Word; causing the hapless victim to become more and more enslaved and deceived – and resistant to calls for repentance and renewal.
I do not see America as the “Great Satan,” but we HAVE made the fatal choice to reject the true and living God and His Word; and are even now reaping the whirlwind. We are indeed following the leadings of Satan and demons rather than God. Our stature in the world is not hurt so much by our fallible foreign policy as by our moral and spiritual disintegration.
Whenever I chance to see a bit of the programs such as you mentioned, Nancy, I always end up in prayer for our nation, and the people ensnared by the moral transgressions regularly paraded before us. The personal pain and suffering sin causes is incalculable. Its debilitating consequences ruin marriages, alienate children, diminish job performance, impair judgment in all areas – and cumulatively undermine the stability and prosperity of the nation. But we seem hell-bound on ignoring the spiritual lessons set before us in the negative illustrations of TV “Bible studies.”
May God graciously open blinded eyes and illumine closed minds before the final lever is pressed down.
Posted on July 27, 2007 8:56 AM
You're right. I should have taken the opportunity to read from the pile of books I have on my 'next' list. It's just amazing what people are exposed to on a daily basis.
Posted on July 27, 2007 11:27 AM
You're right. I should have taken the opportunity to read from the pile of books I have on my 'next' list. It's just that I'm amazed by what people are exposed to on a daily basis.
Posted on July 27, 2007 11:28 AM