Crosspoint

What sorrow awaits those who have deserted me! Let them die, for they have rebelled against me. They do not cry out to me with sincere hearts. Instead they sit on their couches and wail. They cut themselves, begging foreign gods for grain and new wine, and they turn away from me. I trained them and made them strong, yet now they plot evil against me. They look everywhere except to the Lord Most High. They are as useless as a crooked bow. Their leaders will be killed by their enemies because of their insolence toward me. Then the people of Egypt will laugh at them.

(Hosea 7:14-17 NLT)

- - - - - - - - - -

Instead they sit on their couches and wail. I'm not sure exactly what Hosea was picturing when he said this, but I know the image that comes to my mind. It isn't the picture of someone with their head buried into the armrest as unbearably loud cries of anguish blend with the tears dripping onto the damp upholstery. No, it is rather someone sitting silently still, bags of sleeplessness shadow their eyes that are open and glued in front of them. The lighting comes from directly below our vantage point and flickers off the couch and its occupant in varying brightness and hues. A solitary tear escapes down one eye giving proof that not all their emotional anguish has been buried. Yet they are trying. Desperately they are trying to numb their pain with the television - the barbiturate of the mind.

Walk with me up the channels of this emotion numbing, creativity destroying, time sapping, malicious babysitter found in nearly every home in the Western world. Now, I don't have cable myself. To be honest, I got rid of my TV not long after my roommate moved north so I don't even have an idea what's on regular programming (except Letterman at 11:30). I do, however have the ability to cheat through the use of the internet here at the library. The scary thing is, I've put in more effort in the ten minutes or so it takes me to find out what I'm not watching than most people do for the hours they allow this trash to infiltrate their minds.

We start on channel 2 with Entertainment Tonight. They are doing (another) special on the life of Anna Nichole Smith. My thumb flips the channel quicker than my brain can register what it is seeing and my vomit reflex can kick in. What is it that causes so many people to continue to be fascinated with the idolatry of ANS worship? On Channel 3 we have an episode of the Simpsons. Bart and Lisa are starting to spend time together biking and having afternoon tea. Some others put a stop to that by ridiculing Bart as a mama's boy. Family time we wouldn't want to encourage that. A commercial comes on and we flip the channel. Who wants to be a millionaire? I would've made it through the first five questions without a lifeline. But then we already know I'm a nerd. It's always the pop culture questions that stump me. Flip the channel. Wheel of Fortune. This is just hangman for adults.

Now, on channel 7 I finally have something worth watching: Newshour with Jom Lehrer. But to be honest, it was a pretty boring news day and I've got plenty more channels further up with more balanced coverage. Flip the channel. We've got Friends who won't help friends buy fridges on channel 8. Growing Pains is on 9. I've got to admit I'd rather watch Kirk Cameron play an idiot as Mike Seaver than watch him tell people now that they're all going to hell because they don't know the 10 Commandments. Channels 10 and 11 are playing reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens. I know nothing about either show and the Cable guide blurbs told me less.

Flip the channel. You've got QVC and the home shopping network trying to sell you junk you don't need. Flip the channel. There's five news channels followed by the weather channel and court TV. Flip the channel. You've got five sports channels showing college basketball, hockey, golf and baseball (golf and baseball? It's March!) Flip the channel. OReilley on Fox News, modern witchcraft made easy on TNT (Charmed) and Law and Order (or anything but) on USA. Flip the channel. Star Trek on sci-fi. Flip the channel. Gays on Life. Flip the channel. CSI on A&E. And again on SPIKE. Flip the channel Flip the channel

Already I tire of this but I still have 28 channels to go. That is only if I have regular cable. There's really over 180 channels available plus the 20 or so music stations you can pull in through the TV. It is a never ending gorging of video pseudo entertainment that rots away our hearts and minds and souls. These three things we are supposed to give to God. Instead we have deserted Him with our escapism of entertainment. His response: "let them die [inside] for they have rebelled against me." If Hosea were writing today he would have altered this: "They do not cry out with sincere hearts. Instead they sit on their couches in sorrow. They cut themselves off from the world and ask their TV gods for entertainment, and information, and humor. I trained them to become strong. Yet now they waste away meditating on things that are in opposition to me. They look through all their channels, but they do not look to the Lord Most High. They are as useless as a crooked bow."

OK, I might have been a little extreme here but Well, no. I wasn't. It is OK to watch a little sports every now and then, but when enough people are watching baseball reruns in March for it to be viable programming we are dealing with idolatry issues. I can pick apart our justification for any genre, and nearly every program in similar manner. But the fact is, there are two issues at play here. 1) Where am I spending my time? Even a half hour of TV a day adds up to more than a week a year wasted over junk. That is time we never get back. 2) Even the more innocuous programming still has issues that run contrary to God's word. If we were to read on paper what we ingest through TV, at least our mind would be actively engaged with the subject and we could reject it, or at least try to understand it. Through television we often have no idea with what we are being indoctrinated. We are giving the devil a foothold.