Not in my name - or on my TV either!!!

Following on from my 'Creepy Christians' comments I was challenged to actually take a look at the offerings on my television and see them with 'kindly eyes'.

Well I've taken up the challenge and found a very mixed bag indeed. Some of the programmes were interesting and presented a bunch of balanced people discussing stuff and I was rather encouraged. Then I tuned into another which taken up entirely with please for money. I watched for a few minutes, saw people twist Scripture to encourage giving, then shouted at the screen and moved on!

Moving on I found people being pushed over, blown over, and swept from their feet by the mere waving of a hand and to be honest have to say that I don't think ministry in the Spirit (and I'm being kind here) is ever good as a spectator sport and shouldn't be regarded as such. What I saw looked like a bad day in Bedlam* and my depression was only lifted when I was given the offer of a free personally handcrafted something designed by the great spiritual person on the screen before me as a response to my freewill donation. Not only that but if I gave over a certain amount my gift would be finished in gold! Now call me a cynic but if I get a gift for giving a tenner and a better gift for twenty-five quid, what's happening is that I'm buying something! A 'free' gift is one where I call (on the freephone number) and days later receive a gift for which I've paid nothing (or am I merely as confused as I am angry?).

I then moved through a number of gatherings which screamed that illness was a result of sin. Not only that but if we had too little then this was due to having too little faith and unconfessed sin. Another (replete with gold flashing teeth) explained how God was no man's debtor and that I couldn't outgive God - so if I donated £100 to the church, God would give me more back, in fact sevenfold more back. Reaching for my debit card I quickly turned over (I'd already turned off!0.

Next was a kid's programme which was toe-curlingly trite and twee but at least it was Scriptural and the message was sound.

next was a wonderfully theatrical Franciscan who told me about a miraculous happening some years back and opened the life of one of the saints to me. Captivating and throughly worth watching, I stayed until the end and moved on.

To a recording of one of the UK's denomonations and their annual conference. Worship was good, teaching was, like the Curate's Egg, not all bag and the prayer was sound too! The programe came to an end and what follwoed was another strutting, shouting, arm-waving, hallelujah ridden madhouse and so I move away.

Sixteen channels and what I saw was generally full of begging bowls, shouting, theatrical slaying in the spirit and spin-ridden Bible passage. There were little lights of sanity and Christian reason but one has to choose the viewing very carefully and those who are not believers must think that we're generally an amazingly mentally-weak and emotionally unstable bunch should they miss the 'Adult' and shopping channels and find themselves in the Christian area. Mind you, I enjoyed the Cartoon Network at the end of the trawl :-)

Wonder what my free handcrafted gift would have looked like (and would he really have prayed explicitly, and personally, for the prayer request I never sent in?) or perhaps the 'blood of Jesus oil' that another offered. And as an aside I see the begging bowl has reached six figures (GBP) - anyone want to watch my TV channel (I'll go and get our video recorder, seems that some I watched have do exactly the same so I know it works)?

As a postscript I was asked why I never watched a certain lady broadcaster - so I did and my answer next time we meet will be, "Because she's a snake oil merchant!"

Think I'm going to be sticking to books this end of the wire :-)

Caveat Emptor

Fancy conducting your own experiment on Christian TV? Here's a list:

Life TV www.christiantelevisionbroadcasting.com
God Channel www.god.tv
God Europe www.god.tv
Wonderful www.wonderful-tv.com
TBN Europe www.tbneurope.org
DAYSTAR www.daystar.com
Revelation www.revelationtv.com
UCB TV www.ucb.tv
Inspiration www.ini.tv
LOVEWORLD TV www.loveworldtv.co.uk
EWTN www.ewtn.com
Gospel Channel www.global.is
Word Network www.thewordnetwork.org
Genesis www.revelationtv.com
Faith TV
KICC www.kicc.org.uk