Media & Religion
As I begin writing this essay, Halloween is one day away. We’re planning to help carve pumpkins this afternoon.
But I also want to make it clear at the outset that this is not an expert who is doing the writing. I am not an expert. I'm not an expert on Halloween nor anything else. In fact most of my life I have thought less of myself because I was not an expert at anything. I was never at the top of the class at something or other. In seminary one of my teachers said to me many years ago, maybe you’re meant to be a generalist instead of a specialist. It took me a long time to accept that judgment, but I’m finally getting there. I write as a generalist, as someone who thinks about things, as someone who asks questions of things, and as someone who sometimes makes connections between things. That's what I'm trying to do here.
In the last week, with Halloween approaching, I have seen many posters and decorations that leave me cold. Themes of death and spooky scenes. Skulls. "Beware" signs. You Halloween lovers may well call me a wet blanket. And that’s OK. There has been an emphasis on Halloween sorts of themes on the television. The truth is I’m not attracted to any of them, though I'm not totally unfamiliar with the genre. I have watched a couple of Stephen King movies and I particularly enjoyed one of his books that we read some years ago.
About a month ago Mary Pat asked me if I’d like to see a Netflix miniseries with the title “Midnight Mass”. I quickly responded yes I would be interested. Midnight Mass at Christmas -- and later Midnight Mass at Easter -- have been important experiences for me since I was an adolescent. They provide a kind of frame of reference for what a liturgy "ought" to be -- what in somesense I aim for every week.
If I had known ahead of time that this series was a "supernatural horror streaming television miniseries," I would never have considered watching it. But I ended up choosing to watch it all the way to the end.
Why?
I kept on with the mini series and ended up enjoying it not because there wasn’t something of the horror movie in it, it had been directed by someone who is a leading prominent in the horror film industry. I kept watching because all the way to the end there was an undercurrent in the drama that took religion very seriously and tried to portray it with honesty, as well as what I think was an honest criticism of it.
In episode five there is a scene that illustrates my point. Two of the characters each respond to the question, what do you believe happens to someone after they die? Their answers are not just in character, but are probing and in different ways not unlike what I wish I would say when I asked that question. And I have been asked the question. I think it is a common one for parents to have to field from their children.
Like most parents I have mostly given simple answers that we imagine are age-appropriate and will suffice. Having inherited those kinds of answers from our parents, most of us, teachers or pastors, end up quietly wrestling with the questions for years afterwards.
One of the things that makes it difficult is the troubling way in which religion has been handled by the media over the years. The church that I am familiar with has had a sometimes cautious attitude towards media, then finally embracing it proves itself in adequate. I began my ministry when evangelical Christianity was just beginning it’s near monopoly at times of the use of media to promote its version of Christianity. The media has often portrayed Christianity in either a saccharine kind of way or as not very important. It has been at times portrayed in a sensational way, but that was mostly to enhance profits not out of appreciation.
One writer put it this way,1
Religious stereotypes pervade all forms of media and all types of religions, from the portrayals of Eastern religions seen in Kung Fu Panda and Avatar, which conflate diverse faiths such as Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism into one ‘mystical’ tradition, to the action-packed portrayals of Christianity seen in The Da Vinci Code. At the same time, many religious groups see media as inherently secular and view new media as a threat to traditional religion.
Issues related to religion abound in our society. There is widespread concern and interest in religious matters. Consider the following as samples of what I mean:
- religious demographic shifts
- religion as identity
- religious beliefs and rituals
- religious persecution
- religious hypocrisy
The list could go on and on. I have no idea what the higher-ups at Google or Facebook would say, but my sense is that searching and commenting about religious matters is among the largest categories they deal with.
In my view, most of the treatment of religion in the media does not take it seriously on its own terms. The media might understand it from a psychological perspective, or regard it as politically important, perhaps a business investment, but conversations like "What happens to you after you die?" are mostly off-limits.
I am still very much on my journey of faith, begun so many years ago. I have no sense of "having arrived." I am still very much interested in the questions about "What makes life worth living?" I am not so much looking for a pat and succinct answer to the question. I am looking for companions on the way. I am looking for well-seasoned guides who can point in the right direction. Yes, I do want to see and hear a resolution when the chaos of life seems more than one can bear. But some answers are simply inadequate. "It'll be all right." "You'll get through it." "God doesn't test you more than you can bear." It so often seems that what is taken to be religious is far too shallow or monochrome to be the handiwork of the creator of the universe. At least the universe that I see is so splendid and multi-color that I mostly don't have words for it.
I am on a journey, with fellow travelers. Thomas Merton was one such.
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
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