The Church Channel

Tom is determined to get us off cable and onto free TeeVee. Several months ago he subscribed to Netflix for me, and for the past few weeks he has been trying to set up the equipment for accessing digital television sans cable. Like freedom (as they say), TeeVee ain't free; Tom has already spent $150 on a signal booster, a large antenna, and various tools to install the antenna. And the PBS channels still pixilize ever so often. So we haven't cut the cable yet. However, I've been surfing free TeeVee just to see what's available for us here in the huge metropolis of Atlanta: not much, folks. We receive the basic three networks, FOX, three or four variations of PBS, two or three Spanish language channels, the CW (apparently meant to appeal to women 18 years old to 34 years old), and several "Christian" channels.

And thus I discovered The Church Channel. My sixteen-year-old daughter was in the room while I listened to a little of the "news" on this channel, but she couldn't stand more than about five minutes of it. First she complained; then she left the room. A blond-haired, breathy-voiced woman was reading the headlines (cut out of a newspaper and enlarged for the screen) and then asking an older man named Jack what he thought of each headline. A couple of the headlines were about Gaza and Israel. One headline stated that some EU official blamed Palestinians for the Israeli attack on Gaza; another headline claimed that Jimmy Carter believed the Israelis were responsible. "Who do you agree with, Jack?" the breathy-voiced woman said, after reading the headlines slowly, carefully, as if she expected her viewers to be third-graders. "Well, I agree with the EU official," Jack (unsurprisingly) said. He quoted some verse in the Bible about Israel being God's country or something. And then ended with a praise the Lord and support Israel. A headline about the serious problems with drug-resistant bacteria in hospitals elicited from Jack a long recitation of "plagues" and the observation that such epidemics should make us happy that Jesus is coming soon.

That was it. Every headline was directed toward some version of the "End Times" or some simple-minded support of Israel. Now, there is equally vacuous material on secular television channels, but as a once firm (but evidently not firm enough) believer, I am more disgusted with the pablum on television that passes as Christian. Jeez.....what a long way from St. Augustine to the Church Channel.