How Come There Aren't Any Christian TV Shows?

Great Debates
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Monday evenings on WB. This coming year will be its fifth season, I think.

It’s about a minister and his family. I forget which denomination of Christianity they belong to. Originally the “7” in the title referred to the parents and five kids (2+5=7, get it?), but they’ve since added a pair of newborns, so you can say the title refers to the seven kids, now aged about 3 up to college. In the other hand, I think the producers are trying to write the two oldest kids out of the show, so it’s back to 2+5=7 again. Anyway…

Despite the father’s job, the kids do get into quite their share of trouble of many kinds, and I find it to be pretty entertaining and realistic. They avoid most of the pandering to violence and sex that appear on other shows, while at the same time avoiding the Donna-Reed-style sugar and fluff just as carefully.

(I must admit that there are other people who do consider it to be Donna-Reed-sugary. My opinion is that their sensitivity has gotten dulled by the abundance of modern trash. Either way, going into its fifth season, someone must be watching it!)

But, would I call it a Christian show?

No, I don’t think so. There are occasional scenes of the church service, usually as a segue to the sermon. But whereas the various characters will not hesitate to talk about “God” when relevant to the story, I don’t remember them ever mentioning “Jesus” specifically.

Therefore, despite the outwards trappings of a Protestant congregation, I consider it more of a generic religious show than a specifically Christian one.

My family and I are observant Jews (some would call us Orthodox or even ultra-Orthodox) and “Seventh Heaven” is the only show on television that we actually encourage our kids to watch. I hope others will see that as a compliment, and enourage your own kids to watch it.

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There was also Sherman Helmsley’s comeback vehicle Amen! and Tom Bosley’s The Father Dowling Mysteries. And I can’t believe people are focusing on Michael Landon’s performance in Little House On The Prairie while forgetting Highway To Heaven.

The problem is, once you truly start to focus in upon a character’s religion, you start driving people away. And I’m not talking about “once you make him a Christian, the non-Christians start turning away.” Let’s talk instead about specific religions. Is it a “Catholic” show? “Episcopelian”? “Methodist”? “Mormon”? Start falling into one of those specific categories, and you run risks of alienating all those who don’t fall into those specific categories. And while the country is overwhelmingly Christian, Christianity encompasses so many sects and differing beliefs that once you start to get into specifics- Literalism of the Bible, Baptism, need for Church, etc.- you start driving people away left and right.
(My apologies if this double-posts; my browser states that it cannot open a connect to the SDMB, so I’m trying again.)

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The vast majority of shows have a Christian element in them, which is all one could really expect since U.S. TV is paid for by commercials, and is therefore out to have as near universal appeal as possible.

On most dramas, sitcoms, etc. that I watch (Simpson’s is about it really), characters have their religion defined and behave accordingly, with some character’s it is more a part of their lives than with others. I think as a main focus of a show it would be too limiting and controversial, momentarily focusing attention but eventually driving away viewers. In other words, many shows contain Christian elements, but not as a central theme because other faiths would be less likely to view it.

Just out of curiosity, what were you envisioning as a Christian show? The new trend towards Skinner Boxes like Survivor, Big Brother, et. al. could make a Christian show intersting. They could put small teams in isolated places with limited resources and see which group, such as Christians, Jews, Atheists, etc. cooperates best, loses faith fastest, etc. Probably have some decent violence and sex too. I give it 10 years or so.

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Does Touched by an Angel really not ever mention Christ? I could swear that in the one episode I saw - the one about the Irish Catholic vs. Protestant people who came to the U.S. - the Roma Downey angel talked about “God’s love” a couple of times. I may be mistaken, though.

My guess is that there are few pointedly Christian shows because Christianity is a belief, not an occupation like PI, lawyer, ER doctor, etc. There aren’t any existential philosophy shows either. What would a Christian show be about? A PI, lawyer, doctor, doing their job in a “Christian” fashion? A PI who prays to the Christian God to help him solve his case?

If there is such a thing, I’d say that Seventh Heaven is a Christian show. Also, there are several Christian-oriented shows on on Sunday mornings. And, as others have said, there are shows about ministers or priests, if that’s what you mean.

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How many shows out there aren’t Christian?

Just about every drama and comedy that I can think of operates under the basic assumption that the characters are Christian (or at least Judeo-Christian) A simple example is the TV wedding. Can you think of any TV weddings that were not Christian weddings? There was Apu’s wedding on The Simpsons, and I guess there have probably been a few Jewish weddings here and there…but that’s about it.

And Little House had many episodes that were explicitly Christian themed. So much so that my mom didn’t really like me watching it. I guess she thought I was gonna be converted or something.

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This of course is preposterous. The ACLU has never tried to prevent anything from being aired, in the broadcast sense or otherwise. If anyone tried to prevent a show from being aired because of its christian themes, the ACLU would be the first to denounce that attempt as an attack on free speech.

In the second place, it seems to me that a character on American TV is considered christian until proven otherwise; any overt religious proselytizing–christian or otherwise–is rare because that’s not what most people turn to Must See TV for.

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Wassa matta - Ned & Rod & Todd Flanders ain’t good enough for ya? heh
I think the reason there are no Christian TV shows is that such shows are doomed to being lame, proselytizing pablum of the lowest common denominator.
Locally, there’s a late-weekend-night show on one of the Christian channels; it’s geared towards youth with it’s MTV-editing and squiggly computer graphics and its cheery, mullet-wearing, fake-game-show-type host. Needless to say, the show is impossibly lame and not even worth watching for camp value.
Christian TV may be good for a few demographics in a few markets, but the innate square-itude and un-hipness of such shows means the advertisers (read: networks) would never touch it with a 10-foot pole.
Touched by an Angel (or as we wits call it, Touched by an Urkel) may have some ratings success, but it sucks even more than Walker, Texas Ranger (another show I would include in the sort of small-town-America-clean-living-and-family-values shows). The only reason it stays on the air is that there are just enough devout fans to make it worthwhile to do so. But only barely.

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AWB, I was just thinking about that. Here is an idea what about having a Christian family that tries to live the Christian life and its ups and downs of doing such. You could have one in high school, one in elementary, and one in junior high. Of course both parents could have their challenges of being a Christians in the work place. I think it would be a good show. Showing that Christians aren’t perfect they just try to live the kind of life Christ would have them live.

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Bill, I really think you should check out “Seventh Heaven”, if you get WB in your area. It’s on tonight.

I have to admit, with the parents being a minister and a minister’s wife, most adults won’t find much relevant to “being a Christian in the workplace.”

In contrast, though, their kids go to public schools, not parochial schools, and they run into plenty of challenges there. Various episodes have been about drugs, stealing, romance, violence, bigotry, and yes, belief in God also.

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Okay, Bill, let’s pick up your example. We’ll even make you the producer and head writer.

First- is the family any specific denomination? If so, are you prepared for losing a large proportion of your possible audience when your show seems to make moral judgements regarding areas in controversy between religions (for example- are your characters literalists or figurativists?) If not, do you think you can continue to bend and contort yourself around issues that others consider essential and lose some of your audience because of it?

Second- what’s the hook? Look, great, family drama about Christians trying to be Christian. Take a look at all of the dramas that have failed in the last five years alone about ‘good’ families trying to be ‘good’ families. Very non-descript about an isolating issue like religion, but still straight down the toilet because nobody cared. Do you really think that there’s a large enough segment of the audience that would watch something specifically Christian to make up the difference?

Third- Are you ready for the outrage, or are you going to keep it to bland? You can either be bland and touch the non-controversial issues (“Don’t do drugs”) and therefore have less of a hook; or you can go all over the controversial issues (“Don’t be gay”) and expect to lose most of your viewers and sponsors. Remember Ellen- being controversial and espousing a position that a majority of people supported still couldn’t make up for a vocal minority combined with generally bad writing.
Or, you can start working on our latest cop drama- shootouts, horrible crimes, and lots of interpersonal drama. Guaranteed to have a hook, deal with controversial issues without taking a stand on them, and be the biggest success in prime time.
Why do you think Hollywood doesn’t do much of the “Christian Family Drama” when given those options?

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next season NBC is airing a new sitcom called “Susan and the Savior”, where this American lady’s gotta marry Jesus so he can get a green card. I’ve seen clips, and they look funny. This one time Jesus gets locked in a bank vault with the landlord, who he feels is self-righteous and not meek enough. Then Susan comes by and gets locked in too. I don’t think I need to go any further; obviously, wackiness ensues.

And don’t forget south park. Jesus is a main character on that show.

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This is Soul Man, IIRC.

Whabbout the Flying Nun?

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I’m sorry. I read this and the first thing I thought was, " this must be some new take on ‘cops and robbers’"… :slight_smile:

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Can you give any examples of this? I can’t think of anything about being christian that presents a challenge in the work place.
Jewish co-workers getting more days off?
Having to work on Sunday mornings?
Roman co-workers & their ‘feed you to the lions’ harassment?
No quiet place to read the bible at lunch?
I left pamphlets by the coffee machine and no one took them?

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Yeeesh, nobody mentioned Christy? That even made it through more than one season, didn’t it?

OTOH, if good “Christian” shows will sell product (the point of TV), then Christy should still be running on one ofthe networks.

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I was wondering about this too. [hyperbole on] I just presumed that what Bill meant was “… challenges of being good, upright, moral and ethical in the midst of the lawless, hedonistic, selfish and rotten heathen scoundrels who are ruining this world.” [hyperbole off]

Sarcasm aside, it’s not easy maintaining one’s standards in a society where the US President admits to doing sexual things that he should not have done, or where major corporations continued to sell tires for ten years which they knew to be deadly. When a movie is rated “R”, how do people deliberately advertise it for pre-teens? How do they live with themselves?

John Corrado posts that the major drama shows “deal with controversial issues without taking a stand on them”, but a lot of us feel that it’s the not taking a stand, which is driving this society downhill. We’d like more shows which do take a stand. And don’t get smarmy about which one is the “right” stand, some cases are tough, but others are pretty obvious.

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In anticipation of seeing this thread appear tomorrow in Great Debates, I bid you all a good night.

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[hijack into GD]

Keeve said:

If you don’t mind, do you have a cite for this occuring? The reason I ask is that in the radio program I heard discussing the issue, one of the major pieces of ‘evidence’ brought forward that this occurs was movie advertising in high-school newspapers. I found that argument absurd: even if only marketing to those 17 and above, over 25% of high schoolers fall into that category, and the “R” rating is not no one under 17 admitted, it’s no one under 17 admitted without being accompanied by an adult, which means that 14 to 16 year olds can still go see this movie with their older siblings or their parents. You want to complain about things, complain about the ratings being too lax, not that they’re advertising to a prospective market.

[/hijack into GD]

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The factual portion of the OP having been dealt with, I’ll move this thread to Great Debates for the debate over, over, over…

Well, I’m not sure what exactly you guys want to argue about, but far be it from me to frustrate the will of the membership when they want a debate!

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I just wanted to point out that there’s good reason to believe that “Touched By An Angel” isn’t a Christian TV show. As far as I know, no one on that show has ever been identified as a Christian. The only time anyone’s religion is ever identified is if they’re Jewish. Now, of course, I have nothing against it being a Jewish TV show if that’s what the producers really intended. But then they hedge their bets and show the angels celebrating Christmas with people. Whenever I see that, I just have to wonder: if I asked Tess the angel if Jesus was the Messiah or not, what would she say? I mean, obviously, this is an issue they don’t want to deal with, because if they said anything, they’d alienate anyone who didn’t believe. But, hey, if I ever met an angel, the FIRST thing I’d ask is if my religious beliefs were correct!