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Chapter 3. The Purpose of Television

The word "television" comes from the mixed Latin and Greek roots meaning "far sight." True prayer leads us into realms, through Christ, that gives us God's wisdom and wonderful "in sight." Since TV means "far sight" and prayer leads to "in sight," we can see that there may be some trouble reconciling the two words.

Television was gradually developed from scientific work begun in 1873 when Willoughby Smith discovered that selenium had photoconductivity properties. Then, according to an article on television in the Wikopedia, Paul Nipkow developed a scanning disk in 1884.

This eventually led to the ability to scan an image, turn it into an electrical current and send it over the wires to a receiver (the TV) at one's home. The receiver takes those electrical currents and reforms them into lines that show up on the TV screen. Our eyes, then, make these static images, quickly reproduced on the TV screen as fast as 30 times a second, appear to emulate moving, talking people or events in which you feel as if you are actually there. From that point on, many different scientific minds began to put the concept of TV together.

It was quickly discovered this medium could create interest for products that manufacturers made, and more sales could be generated. Not only could this new invention, the TV, be sold to make money, but, with interesting programming, ads could be sold that ran on it, and they could make money—and then, the products themselves, which were advertised, could be sold, making more money for more people. What a wonderful concept! It was truly an idea sent from economic heaven. And its only purpose was making money, money, money for the many involved, on many different levels of this product. Money for the ones who made the product, money for those who sold advertising (and for those who made the ads), and money for those who sold their products that were advertised on the TV. The purpose of TV is to fulfill people's desire for and love of, money.

Although there are some exceptions2, secular TV generally does not have a purpose to lift people up to an awareness of Christ, to how much God loves them, nor does it encourage people to trust God and pray to Him, so that they might discover what God's will is for them and truly find their purpose in life and fulfill it. The world makes us chase after materialism, it makes us fearful, it fans the fires of anger in us, including anger that life isn't better than it is. But the world, Satan's playground, is deceitful.

1Ti 6:9 But they who will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which plunge men into destruction and perdition.
1Ti 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all evils, of which some having lusted after, they were seduced from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
1Ti 6:11 But you, O man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and meekness. (MKJV)

Heb 13:5 Let your way of life be without the love of money, and be content with such things as you have, for He has said, "Not at all will I leave you, not at all will I forsake you, never!" (MKJV)

This book is not so much about how TV works, as it is a book on the relationship between Christianity and TV, as well as a consideration of what TV has to offer, versus what prayer has to offer. Although I have watched a lot of TV in my day, I truthfully cannot say it offers much. Now prayer is another matter. As we learn to pray rightly from God's word and the Holy Spirit residing in us, prayer offers the abundant life that God promises we can have.

Over time, TV began to take on a popularity that no one could possibly have imagined back in Willoughby and Paul's day. In the 1930s, people began moving their furniture around to make room for these monstrous pieces of furniture they would place strategically at one end of the room. Each of these early TVs had a tiny screen just a few inches in diameter.

The purpose of television

There are really many purposes to television. The primary purpose of television is, as I said before, to make money for all involved in the hierarchy from product maker who has a product to sell, to the advertising company (who makes the ads to run on TV), to the production company which makes the programming on which the ads run and, of course, the TV stations (local, regional, and national) that run the programming on which the ads run that sell the products. Early TV was "free" and was only supported by advertising which would interrupt the program you were watching every 15 minutes or so. These days we can purchase satellite TV or cable TV and not have to watch very many advertisements. But still, advertisements on "free" TV successfully sell many products we don't need. The "consumer" is often being manipulated by those who want to sell their products to them as they find new angles to make people want their products.

Did you know that television shows are written with cliffhangers designed to keep you tuned in so that you don't turn the channel during the commercial? Doesn't that knowledge sort of feel yucky? Lots of studies have been made to determine what it takes to make us buy something that we've seen on TV. Humor, it turns out, is very helpful in the selling process. That's funny! In addition, over the years, TV commercials take up more time (although they are shorter in length, there's just more of them). According to a Wikipedia article, found when you look up the phrase, "Television Advertisement," the time allotted to commercials has increased remarkably from the 1960s. Re-runs of the shows produced back in the 60s have to be cut by as much as 9 minutes to make room for the commercials slotted today.

The agenda for TV producers is selling products. The watchers of the TV, we "consumers" if you will, have an agenda also. It is to be informed or to be entertained. Do these separate agendas work with or against each other? For those in the world it appears to be a symbiotic relationship that gives each party what they want.

But for the Christian, this whole process has gotten out of hand. Because this is a fallen world, and people who are unable to grasp the significance of Jesus Christ to the world and in our hearts, are making decisions on programming for us. They aren't interested in Christ or Christian values, they want to give us entertainment in the news and programming. They want to feed us mental junk food so we'll watch more advertising. They have no desire or inclination to feed us God's truth as found in the Bible, nor to help us grow and mature in Christ. What would that have to do with selling their products? So we watch the drivel they are serving us because it is mind candy, fun to watch, fun to laugh at, though the programming is completely void of eternal substance. Sometimes the intellectual mind is stimulated by "worldly substance" but, for the most part, spiritual truth is not being shared.

In this fallen world, mankind is determined to be completely dependent upon himself, and not on God. Since Adam and Eve were ejected from the Garden of Eden, all their ancestors have had to fend for themselves, kill or be killed, fight their way to the top, paying little regard to others in their way, and strive for purpose (even as they find that nothing in this world will ever satisfy them for long.)

In this environment, then, it seems only natural that we should "take a break" from our long, unsatisfying day, and become informed of what is going on in the world or be entertained in some way. But the human mind is never really in neutral. It is constantly processing information it receives. Whether on a conscious or unconscious level, our minds do something with every depressing brutality, every injustice, every bloody scene, every terrifying bit of news and even (for many of us) every unattainable display of wealth. If we think it isn't affecting us, we might consider the fact that depression, murder, crime, mental illness, divorce rates and suicides are at an all-time high. Perhaps we should consider that the best "break" from the daily grind should be a sweet hour of prayer.



2. Such as many satellite, over the air and cable broadcasting stations that have Christianity as their foundation, nevertheless, most still fill the airwaves with comedy reruns, sports and other mammon (or worldly interests). In addition, TV, by its very nature, provides only one-way information (no matter how holy it is). It can never take the place of our time spent in a two-way communication with God through prayer. Since it is necessary to find God for ourselves, the TV must be turned off as we retreat to our prayer closets more often. Back


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