Chapter 5. Worshipping TV

When I was around five years old, I saw a commercial on TV where someone wadded a piece of plastic wrap up in their hand and when they opened their hand, the plastic wrap was gone. I was absolutely dumbfounded. How did they do that? "Man," I thought, "I have to have that." (I ask myself even now, "Why I had to have that?") I used the WT method and got my mom to buy it. When I took off the plastic wrapper and wadded it up in my hand, that wrap did not disappear. I had been duped! Boy, was I embarrassed, but I also learned something. Not all television commercials tell or act out the truth. Over the years I've learned that there is only one Truth that we can count on.

In 1950, the number of homes in the US with televisions in them, reached one million. Few people knew that with prayer, properly prayed prayer; prayer that did not dwell on appearances, but prayer that exalted God, through Jesus Christ, was being given the short end of the stick by this new entertainment device being allowed into the homes of everyone. Few people knew that by their increased interest in the world (through the TV) there would be less of a hunger for God and there would be fewer searching after the abundant life promised by our Lord.

The TV disease was spreading as the entertainment committees who worked for the TV stations found more creative ways and more creative talent to appease everyone's desire for more entertainment and more worldly information to occupy their minds and give them the temporary satisfaction, the temporary break from a bleak and prayerfully weak, unproductive day. To everyone's surprise, after the entertainment was over, after the laughter died down and everyone got ready for bed, the feelings that they had tried to hide, tried to cover up, remained. The next day they had to return to the same old job and do the same old thing, while working with the same old people. Their sad appearance of reality would come back and haunt them to an even greater degree.

If only they knew that if they'd spend the same amount of time in true prayer, recognizing their loving Creator, seeking first the kingdom of God, their days would be filled with creative opportunities, and important spiritual growth.

Do we worship the TV set? Pastor David Wilkerson said in one of his newsletters circa: 1983 or 1984, that we may be guilty of worshipping the TV. He said that the TV is often in the center of the room and all the furniture faces toward it, and people do stare at it, barely relating to each other, as it blares one entertaining situation or informational tid-bit after another.

Exo 20:3 You shall have no other gods before Me.
Exo 20:4 You shall not make to yourselves any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Exo 20:5 You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I Jehovah your God am a jealous God... (MKJV)

Do we want those who desire only to sell products, to actually take control of our thoughts for so many hours a day? Paul, in the New Testament, commanded that WE are to take charge of our thoughts. He never said we were to allow others, with so many cross-purposes, to be the ones to be in control of what we think during a particular time period…

2Co 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds,
2Co 10:5 pulling down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ…(MKJV)

Folks, there is a God. If you've seen Jesus (in your mind's eye), then you've seen God…

Joh 14:9 He who has seen Me has seen the Father. (MKJV)

In 1950, Brazil has their first TV broadcast stations. Television's expansion is getting out of control.

In 1951, the first nationwide coast-to-coast television program was broadcast. Edward R. Murrow hosted this show entitled, See It Now. Now everyone, coast to coast, could be hypnotized to a degree, together. One could wonder, have aliens landed and taken us over, forcing us to watch these large, one-eyed, grey flickering machines? No, you say? Oh, you mean we developed these things and purchased them all by ourselves …so we could sit and stare at them for hours on end? You mean no one is making us do this? Really? We do need help, don't we? Yet TV's endless glut of mind-candy seduces us into thinking we are one with those "characters" we assume to know and identify with. Yet we really know little about the real actors who portray the characters. In reality, their personalities are often a far cry from who they appear to be. We forsake the God who loves us and wants an intimate relationship with us, and trade that for an imaginary person who doesn't even exist.

In 1951, TV broadcasts begin in Argentina (in Buenos Aires) as well as Peru. The interest we have in our personal entertainment/information as well as the carrier of the advertisements we want to run, so we can try to motivate people to consume our products, increases daily. TV will be the most effective way to "westernize" the world with carnal thinking. Not only that, television networks select writers who operate in a belief system of secular humanism. They produce scripts that attempt to make Christians appear shallow, stupid, hypocritical and uncaring.

In 1952, Jackie Gleason begins sharing his talent with the world. He would become a cultural icon. Jackie Gleason developed the Honeymooners. He played a bus driver, common folk, not much money in hand. His best friend worked in a sewer. There were always problems, comically portrayed, comically solved, but never-ending. Many of those problems concerned an underlying bitterness and resentment Ralph and his TV wife had for each other.

Don't think the Christian life is void of problems. Indeed, the Christian, if he is taking his calling seriously, will have problems. But the problems, he knows, are not his own, but God's. Did Jackie "Ralph Kramdon" ever stop to pray for his wife or invite Art Carney "Ed Norton" to a Bible study? The true Christian prays routinely and often, laying his burdens down before the Lord. The Lord takes on our burdens and He solves our problems by giving us inspiration or bringing people in to help. We are NOT doing this alone (as portrayed in the Honeymooners) nor would we have occasion to say to someone, while swinging our fists "Pow, right in the kisser!" when something doesn't go right. Christianity is about caring for one another, loving all the people God brings into our lives, and being humble and teachable before the Lord. It is about praying that God's will be done and about knowing the truth of Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord. For some reason, beyond all of our understanding, we have allowed a non-Christian attitude to envelope us through TV, and, consequently, walk with us through life.

We love to look at ourselves in the mirror and laugh off our flaws rather than be transformed into the image of Christ. TV reflected our own lives so much, that people everywhere rushed to turn on shows just like this one, so they could nod in approval and laugh as they witnessed their very own lives, being expressed by Jackie Gleason. No where does the Bible say we are to continually be bitter with one another, year after year.

Jackie Gleason and TV went well together. Jackie could garner very high ratings with his shows and producers could get lots of high paying advertisers since lots of people watched his creative sketches every week on TV back in the 50s through the 70s.

You might think I'm getting very picky and I should stop criticizing the medium and get a life of my own. You might think I should get off my high horse and let everyone enjoy some TV. After all, you reason, no one is making me watch TV. It's not hurting anyone, you say. And, reiterating what I said in the beginning of this book, I'm not trying to change TV at all. I'm trying to get everyone, and especially those who call themselves Christians, to stop and look at what they are doing and ask themselves if it is something they want to continue doing. It is fairly mindless, the way we have allowed this plague to come over us. It has not come over us for our good—but it has come over us for its good. It is economically driven. We feed it ourselves (sometimes with our very lives, as I did at times in my life). Do we want to continue to let it rule our lives as we spend higher and higher percentages of our day sitting in front of it? God gave us free will. Is this what He wants us to do with it? Did Christ give His life for us so that we could continue to watch TV? Maybe that puts it into the proper perspective. Why not pray, instead, as you fast from TV, and ask God to show you what He wants you to do with your life?

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