The Atheist/Christian 30 Days Episode

I hate reality tv, mainly because my simpleton head can't get past the obvious misnomer 'reality tv'; it's the definition of an oxymoron. But beyond that, most of what passes as 'reality' in reality tv has nothing to do with reality, and is purposefully staged for maximum dramatic effect. All reality tv is like this to some degree, and the 'reality show' (arrgh, I hate saying that!) 30 Days is no exception. However, I must admit that their fairly recent episode of placing an atheist lady in the house of a 'fundamentalist' Christian family for 30 days was enough to get me to watch.

I'm not really here to comment on the episode itself. The atheist was well chosen by the show. She was reasonable, fairly intelligent, and sober-minded. In other words, she was a respectable version of Newdow. The Christian family, of course, was more stereotypical - inflexible, somewhat intolerant, unable/unwilling to interact with the atheist's views, etc. This is reality tv's version of Intelligent Design, in that nothing about those 30 days was random or happened by chance. Instead, the conflicts and resolutions were thoroughly predictable (and perhaps intentionally designed) based on how the show was framed and the characters chosen. I'm not a partisan devotee of Intelligent Design, but the manner in which this show was 'designed' by a 'higher intelligence' ought to at least make the atheist think for a second or two about how the world works, and how this particular episode might be a microcosm of something infinitely larger. It's hardly unreasonable to draw such an inference.

But anyway, the one thing that really depressed me about the show had nothing to do with the characters. At one point in the show, a familiar statistic was sighted: the overwhelming majority of people in the United States would not vote for someone who expressly stated a disbelief in the existence of God. Now one might think that as a Christian, I would be satisfied with such a thing and would applaud it. And on one level, I suppose I do. I would certainly not vote for someone who did not believe in the existence of God, because I believe the existence of God is a 'properly basic' belief that grounds all reality. Deny the existence of God, and nothing else makes sense; not our laws, not our ethics, not our goals as a nation, etc. Glenn Tinder has written much on this subject at his perch at UMass, and his writings make for interesting and compelling reading.

However, all is not well for committed theists. If most of America will not vote for an atheist as a basic principle, then why has America entered into a post-Christian and even post-theistic period? The desire of most of America to see some kind of theist as President has not stopped many of these same people from radically deemphasizing the transformative nature of theistic religion in the culture. In other words, it's easy for someone to say they won't vote for an atheist, because it doesn't require a whole lot of work other than going in a voting booth once every few years. It's much harder for that same person to put their theistic preferences to work in their neighborhoods, at the jobsite, in the homeless shelter, and in public discourse. This takes work and usually entails rejection. It requires commitment mixed with sensitivity and tolerance. It requires truth and love. Such requirements are often too heavy and numerous, and this is why we have the results we see; we want theistic earthly leadership without having to do any of the heavy lifting ourselves. It's the difference between creed and deed; philosophical orientation versus day to day living. This is a false dichotomy that we are perfecting, and the culture and its 'realities' reflect this unfortunate perfection.