No Cheers for TV

It is incredible that, in our increasingly illiterate, violent, and uncivil culture, anyone would want to give any cheers for TV. Douglas LeBlanc ["Two Cheers for TV," July/August] says that "any Christian who really cares about redeeming culture" will watch television. But he never says how watching TV—and even "thinking critically" about tv—really contributes to redeeming the culture. His trouble is that he doesn't go far enough in thinking critically about television. It is simply not enough to examine the content of television through Christian lenses; the nature of the medium itself must come under scrutiny. Unaccountably, LeBlanc failed to consider one of the most important books about tv: Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (Penguin Books, 1985).

While Postman's critique of the medium itself is noteworthy, I fear that LeBlanc is also too uncritical about the values promoted on television and accepted without question by our culture. I will never forget John Piper's assault on television, delivered as a warning to aspiring preachers at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in November 1994:

Turn off the television. It is not necessary for relevance. And it is a deadly place to rest the mind. Its pervasive banality, sexual innuendo, and God-ignoring values have no ennobling effects on the preacher's soul. It kills the spirit. It drives God away. It quenches prayer. It blanks out the Bible. It cheapens the soul. It destroys spiritual power. It defiles almost everything. I have taught and preached for twenty years now and never owned a television. It is unnecessary for most of you, and it is spiritually deadly for all of you. ("Preaching As Worship: Mediations on Expository Exultation," Trinity Journal, Spring 1995, p. 44)

Christians cannot—and should not—ignore the fact that television has a tremendous effect on our culture. But at the risk of being labeled a "neo-Manichaean," I propose that Christians—and, in fact, everyone—would be far better off not watching television. My wife and I have been without TV for more than a year. And, if anything, we are more concerned than ever to redeem our culture because we are not benumbed by the bombardment of images that is television. LeBlanc speculates that the apostle Paul, if among us today, would appear on Nightline or cite a character on Homicide. But we don't have to speculate on Paul's instructions to us for living a godly and peaceful life: "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things" (Phil. 4:8, NIV). How much of television really meets those criteria?

Roger Bryant
Spencer, Iowa

Cracks in the Liberty Bell

Mark Noll's excellent essay "Cracks in the Liberty Bell" [July/August] deplores the absence of moral complexity in recent historical literature on the American Revolution. Noll wants a more honest and nuanced history which might help us "use the story of the Revolution as a source of reasoning about political morality today."

Noll might also have observed that both the patriots and the radical critics adhere uncritically to what Walter Wink calls the myth of redemptive violence. The point of the revolutionary drama, both sides assume, is that the good guys should win the war.

The first task for Christian political moral reasoning today should be to deconstruct this myth. If the overriding lesson of our history is that liberty is the product of good people winning great wars (or of oppressed people finally getting themselves organized to win), how shall humanity survive the twenty-first century when thermonuclear and biological weapons can be carried around in suitcases?

Our story of violent national origin distorts our thinking about means and ends. For moral reasoning appropriate to the goals of disarmament and security, we should give our attention to the peacemakers of the 1770s, who offered plans to change the constitution of the British Empire with a view toward greater colonial autonomy. Joseph Galloway's plan came within one vote of passing at the First Continental Congress, but who today has heard of Galloway? Those who say such change is impossible without major warfare might reflect upon the recent history of South Africa or the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The myth of redemptive violence keeps us from remembering and imagining alternatives to a history in which warfare is the alleged author of liberty. Pacifists in American history have been indicted for being too optimistic. Nevertheless, the pacifist question adds an additional dimension of complexity which is presently excluded on all sides of American Revolution historiography. Might the causes of justice and liberty have been more advanced for more people if American colonists had not gone to war in 1776?

James C. Juhnke
Bethel College
North Newton, Kan.

Mark Noll's "Cracks in the Liberty Bell" was very thought-provoking and illuminating. Regarding the issue of slavery, however, I would have preferred that he point out that even the slaveholders among the more prominent Founders expressed grave reservations concerning that "peculiar institution." George Washington, in his last will and testament, provided for his slaves' freedom and even their education after his death. Thomas Jefferson failed to go so far, but was discussing the tragedy of slavery when he wrote: "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever." Patrick Henry admitted: "It was a debt we owe to the purity of our religion, to show that it is at variance with that law which warrants slavery." In addition, Federalists John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, who abhorred the radical egalitarianism of the French Revolution, were unflinching in their opposition to slavery.

Jeff McAlister
Longview, Tex.

The Uneasy Fundamentalist

Wow! Garrison Keillor, one of the high priests of public radio, a fundamentalist—even if "uneasy." After reading the headline on your cover, filled with optimism, I turned to Martin Wroe's interview. What I found was not fundamentalism—even of the "uneasy" sort. What I found instead was the predictable New Age blather.

To illustrate, I will provide a few quotations from Mr. Wroe's interview, together with the New Age interpretation.

Garrison Keillor: "I don't know what else I could be [besides a fundamentalist]. But I doubt that fundamentalists would consider me a fundamentalist."

New Age interpretation: Your truth is not necessarily my truth.

GK: "God is beyond our knowing."

NA: None needed.

GK: "The church is a great mystery, and there is only so far that one can go in stating the mystery in terms that do not deny its mystique."

NA: It's OK to say silly things about Christianity, as long as they sound intellectual.

Lake Wobegon confronting postmodernity? Not in this life!

David A. Anderson
Naperville, Ill.

Denominations and Dinosaurs

As a recent convert from a growing, culturally relevant, seeker-focused church to a diminutive (by comparison) Episcopal parish complete with belltower, I found John Ortberg's concluding remarks in his review of Nancy Tatom Ammerman's Congregation and Community ["Denominations and Dinosaurs," July/August] deeply troublesome.

While enthusiastically concurring with Ortberg's assessment that "in order to survive, the church must be about more than its own survival," I am frustrated and puzzled by his judgment that "the days of the belltower are over. Yearning for their return will do no good." Perhaps if we explore, embrace, and even act on this yearning instead of discarding it like yesterday's news, we will be en route to a more adequate response to a frenzied culture drowning in technology, a culture starved for intimacy and mystery, a culture desperately in need of redemption and rest.

If yearning for the days of the belltower makes me a dinosaur in my midthirties, so be it. I remain hopeful that the heart, desires, and attitudes beneath the yearning can serve God's purposes for good in our sin-drenched world. And when I hear the church bells ring, however rarely, I will continue to pause, reflect, and pray.

Lori Leaman
Grass Valley, Calif.

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