Reflections on the Hallmark Channel Controversy

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2019/dec/15/hallmark-channel-embroiled-in-controversy-after/

In the end, it's all about the money. If Hallmark refuses to air the 'gay' television ads, then the advertisers who run their commercials on Hallmark will catch flak and so to avoid it, they'll start pulling their adverts from the channel.

Personally I am not all that familiar with the channel. I've seen it from time to time usually when over at some relative's house. My kids noticed right away that even old shows like The Waltons are sped up and edited. And so we've never had any interest in it anyway. And aside from maybe a more decent show like The Waltons, it would seem a lot of their airtime is used up by terrible shows like Highway to Heaven and Walker: Texas Ranger... veritable garbage.

The solution to all of this is very simple. Just turn it off. I did back in the mid-1990's and my wife and I lived for many years with a VCR that allowed us to watch videos if we wanted but the television (13" no less) was something that was put away, something that we got out on a Friday night and of course we had total control of what we were viewing.

Then high-speed internet arrived and slowly a lot of 'viewing' started to creep back into our lives. Some of this has been good, some less so. Some I regret to be sure, certainly the wasted time. It's so easy when you're tired to just put something on. My wife and I have enjoyed revisiting older programmes from when we were kids. For us the 1970's were the Golden Age of Television if such a term is applicable. Of course revisiting those old shows we've been forced to admit they weren't all that virtuous either but at least there was some decorum when dealing with delicate and controversial questions. Though many will disagree we prefer the shows of that time to the stuff that's on today.... and I've tried. We've had Netflix and Prime at different times and I've 'checked out' some of the new shows. Many got turned off within ten minutes, some didn't even last a single minute. From the camerawork, to the over-the-top plots to the whole style of modern programming, for the most part I just don't care for it.

Today we have options that we could have scarcely imagined thirty years ago. With the ability to stream we're no longer slaves to the television schedule. And yet there are many frustrations with the world of streaming. I've actually come to dislike free services and won't use them. I can't stand the ads and I don't want to sit in my living room and suddenly be forced to watch two men kissing. I won't have it and so I won't use those channels. I will pay for a service if I want something. Of course nowadays even trying to navigate their menus is offensive enough and so I'm reaching the point in which I'm more or less dispensing with them as well.

But here's the thing I keep thinking about... if there were really all the Christians out there in the kind of numbers that Evangelicals claim, then why are we having this argument? If Christians simply refused to watch a channel that ran gay ads, then the channel should collapse. Why isn't it happening? Either Christians are caving in and accepting it or there really aren't that many Christians out there. Or perhaps it's a bit of both.

If our numbers were really that great there should be more of an impact. This has nothing to do with politics. I'm talking in simple market terms, questions of supply and demand.

But just as Christians are quick to cave when it comes to their jobs, paychecks and maintaining respectability I suspect they've given in on this point as indeed they have in the political realm. I have had a few conversations in recent years with some non-Christian acquaintances that I've known for twenty-plus years and it startled me. When I first knew them back in the 1990's, they were not gay-friendly. They weren't necessarily opposed to the behaviour on deep ideological or Christian grounds but they were certainly opposed to it... as most people were (and perhaps are... I wonder sometimes).

But the television has done its work and now they are totally on-board with the agenda. They've watched too many shows and as more people 'come out' and wear their perversion on their sleeve, the run of the mill folk I'm speaking of have been beaten down and have at last capitulated. I am convinced that if it wasn't for the television they wouldn't have come to this point.

In the art drives the culture/culture drives the art debate there is circularity. They drive each other. Some overemphasize the role of the one to the exclusion of the other. Authoritarian states have always gone after the arts and indeed the Christian Right certainly would if it were granted political control. I'm not interesting in taking the reins of art or transforming culture. But the Church has been schizophrenic. They've tried to teach 'worldview'... getting everyone to engage and transform the culture even while swimming in its waters and drinking deep from its wells. It hasn't worked. In fact it has largely backfired and worldliness and compromise are on the rise... to the point of enveloping and swallowing the Church.

It is only by maintaining a strict antithesis and teaching its 'worldview' that the Church can navigate such perils. The culture can produce its evil fruits as indeed it always will and yet if the Church has a unique identity and calling and a deep sense of antithesis then it can survive and remain relatively unscathed. There's a cost of course. Isolation, mockery and even persecution will result but the Church will survive. History bears this out.

But the Culture War mentality hasn't worked. The Hallmark story testifies to this. A family channel... a for-profit venture. Guess which value wins out? Evangelicals should take note. Because if being respectable is essential and having a cultural presence is a theological non-negotiable, then the money is always going to win. Because without it, you're nothing. At least that's how the world thinks and the worldly Church has embraced that same way of thinking.

So turn off Hallmark and be prepared, someday (maybe sooner than we realise) we'll just need to unplug altogether from the world of streaming. For my part I miss my VCR. I liked the way I could control the video. It was better than DVD's and way better than streaming and its sloppy and unreliable control mechanisms. I hope VHS makes a comeback, but if it doesn't, so be it. We actually love it when the power goes out, which happens quite often where we live. Our kids don't have 'devices' but they do get online via desktop or laptop and pursue their interests and do schoolwork etc. But when the power goes out, the board games come out and it's like the old days. Face to face interactions and engagement. They've come to enjoy it so much that we've noticed they're doing it of their own accord even when the power is on. The computer is a part of our lives and a very useful tool but we labour to keep off to the side... a secondary tool, not the centre of our lives. I'm not opposed to 'videos' or even decent movies but 'television' is something I dispensed with long ago. Whether it was an optional move at that point in time or not can be debated but we've more or less reached the moment that there is no longer a real option. The faithful need to turn it off.