Television program free essay sample

As a consequence, it would be difficult to distinguish them from audiences, say, at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, except for the fact that they have a slightly cleaner, more wholesome look. Reverend Terry tries to persuade them, as well as those at home, to change their ways by finding Jesus Christ. To help her do this, she offers a prosperity Campaign Kit, which appears to have a dual purpose: As it brings one nearer to Jesus, it also provides advice on how to increase ones bank account. This makes her followers extremely happy and confirms their predisposition to believe that prosperity is the true aim of religion. Perhaps God disagrees. As of this writing, Reverend Terry has been obliged to declare bankruptcy and temporarily halt her ministrations. Pat Robertson is the master of ceremonies of the highly successful700 Club, a television show and religious organization of sorts to which you can belong by paying fifteen dollars per month. We will write a custom essay sample on Television program or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page (Of course, anyone with cable television can watch the show for free of charge. Reverend Robertson does his act in a much lower register than Reverend Terry. He is modest, intelligent, and has the kind of charm television viewers would associate with a cool-headed talk-show host. His appeal to godliness is considerably more sophisticated than Reverend Terrys, at least from the standpoint of television. Indeed, he appears to use as his model of communication Entertainment Tonight. His program includes interviews, singers and taped segments with entertainers who are born-again Christians. For example, all of the chorus girls in Don Hos Hawaiian act are born-again, and in one segment, we are shown them both at prayer and on stage (although not at the same time). The program also includes taped reenactments of people who, having been driven to the edge of despair, are saved by the 700 Club. Such people play themselves in these finely crafted docu-dramas. In one, we are shown a woman racked with anxiety. She cannot concentrate on her wifely duties. The television shows and movies she sees induce a generalized fear of the world. Paranoia closes in. She even begins to believe that her own children are trying to kill her. As the play proceeds, we see her in front of her television set chancing upon the 700 Club. She becomes interested in its message. She allows Jesus to enter her heart. She is saved. At the end of the play, we see her going about her business, calmly and cheerfully, her eyes illuminated with peace. And so, we may say that the 700 Club has twice elevated her to a state of transcendence: first, by putting her in the presence of Jesus: second, by making her into a television star. To the uninitiated, it is not entirely clear which is the higher estate. Toward the end of each 700 Club show, the following days acts are announced. They are many and various. The program concludes with someones saying, â€Å"All this and more tomorrow on the 700 Club. Jimmy Swaggart is a somewhat older-style evangelist. Though he plays the piano quite well, sings sweetly, and uses the full range of televisions resources, when he gets going he favors a kind of fire-and-brimstone approach. But because this is television, he often moderates his message with a dollop of ecumenism. For example, his sermon on the question, Are the Jews practicing blasphemy? begins by assuring his audience that they are not, by recalling Jesus bar mitzvah, and by insisting that Christians owe the Jews a considerable debt. It ends with his indicating that with the loss of their Temple in Biblical times, the Jews have somehow lost their way. His message suggests that they are rather to be pitied than despised but that, in any case, many of them are pretty nice people. It is the perfect television sermontheatrical, emotional, and in a curious way comforting even to a Jewish viewer. For television bless its heartis not congenial to messages of naked hate. For one thing, you never know who is watching, so it is best not to be wildly offensive. For another, haters with reddened faces and demonic gestures merely look foolish on television, as Marshall McLuhan observed years ago and Senator Joseph McCarthy learned to his dismay. Television favors moods of conciliation and is at its best when substance of any kind is muted. (One must make an exception here for those instances when preachers, like Swaggart, turn to the subject of the Devil and secular humanism. Then they are quite ncompromising in the ferocity of their assaults, partly, one may assume, because neither the Devil nor secular humanists are included in the Nielsen Ratings. Neither are they inclined to watch. ) There are at present thirty-five television stations owned and operated by religious organizations, but every television station features religious programming or one sort or another. To prepare mys elf for writing this chapter, I watched forty-two hours of televisions version of religion, mostly the shows of Robert Schuller, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson. Forty-two hours were entirely unnecessary. Five would have provided me with all the conclusions, of which there are two, that the fairly to be drawn. The first is that on television, religion, like everything else, is presented, quite simply and without apology, as an entertainment. Everything that makes religion an historic, profound and sacred human activity is stripped away; there is no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no theology, and above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence. On these shows, the preacher is tops. God comes out as second banana. Lab Report| Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business| | | | | Postman stated that there is an evangelical preacher on television who goes by the name of Reverend Terry. She appears to be in her early fifties, and features a coiffure of which it has been said that it cannot be mussed, only broken. Reverend Terry is energetic and folksy, and uses a style of preaching modeled on early Miltion Berle. When her audiences are shown in reaction shots, they are almost always laughing. As a consequence, it would be difficult to distinguish them from audiences, say, at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, except for the fact that they have a slightly cleaner, more wholesome look. Reverend Terry tries to persuade them, as well as those at home, to change their ways by finding Jesus Christ. To help her do this, she offers a prosperity Campaign Kit, which appears to have a dual purpose: As it brings one nearer to Jesus, it also provides advice on how to increase ones bank account. This makes her followers extremely happy and confirms their predisposition to believe that prosperity is the true aim of religion. Perhaps God disagrees. As of this writing, Reverend Terry has been obliged to declare bankruptcy and temporarily halt her ministrations. (Postman 114-117) When I read paragraph, it made me wonder if she was legit or a charlatan and a fake. I thought this because I had an experience with a television evangelist; he claimed that God had given him the power to heal and that my cousin is now cured of diabetes. My cousin went to this evangelist’s sermons every time it came, giving some of his well-earned money to them every time. As of today, my cousin still has diabetes, and is broken-hearted that he wasn’t cured. I believe that many, but not all, TV evangelists are fakes and charlatans. I believe that these evangelists only have one purpose to scam people out of their money. They use the Word of God to use and trick people out of their money by pretending to heal the sick and disabled saying that the more that you give, the more healing there will be, taking money from collections and charity and pocketing it, and selling kits and packages and pocketing the money. I believe that the rest are legit and are actually in it to win souls for the Lord, but the others are making it hard for these evangelists. They actually use the money given from collections and donations to better the church, help the needy, and spread the Word of God. Next, Postman stated that Pat Robertson is the master of ceremonies of the highly successful700 Club, a television show and religious organization of sorts to which you can belong by paying fifteen dollars per month. (Of course, anyone with cable television can watch the show for free of charge. Reverend Robertson does his act in a much lower register than Reverend Terry. He is modest, intelligent, and has the kind of charm television viewers would associate with a cool-headed talk-show host. His appeal to godliness is considerably more sophisticated than Reverend Terrys, at least from the standpoint of television. Indeed, he appears to use as his model of communication Entertainment Tonight. His program includes i nterviews, singers and taped segments with entertainers who are born-again Christians. For example, all of the chorus girls in Don Hos Hawaiian act are born-again, and in one segment, we are shown them both at prayer and on stage (although not at the same time). The program also includes taped reenactments of people who, having been driven to the edge of despair, are saved by the 700 Club. Such people play themselves in these finely crafted docu-dramas. In one, we are shown a woman racked with anxiety. She cannot concentrate on her wifely duties. The television shows and movies she sees induce a generalized fear of the world. Paranoia closes in. She even begins to believe that her own children are trying to kill her. As the play proceeds, we see her in front of her television set chancing upon the 700 Club. She becomes interested in its message. She allows Jesus to enter her heart. She is saved. At the end of the play, we see her going about her business, calmly and cheerfully, her eyes illuminated with peace. And so, we may say that the 700 Club has twice elevated her to a state of transcendence: first, by putting her in the presence of Jesus: second, by making her into a television star. To the uninitiated, it is not entirely clear which is the higher estate. Postman 114-117) While reading this chapter and coming to this section with Pat Robertson, I was reminded of an article and an episode of Dateline that featured Pat Robertson and other television evangelists and a investigation of their lifestyle, income, and scandals. According to the article, â€Å"He founded Operation Blessing, a charity that was alleged to have allowed its planes and pilots to be used to shuttle gold-mining equipment around Zaire for another Robertson enterprise, African Development Company (ADC), a diamond-mining operation. Robertson was ADCs founder and sole stockholder, and he had a close working relationship with Zaires brutal dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. He publicly referred to him as Americas ally in the war on communism. The US State Department charged that Mobutus regime had committed massive violations of human rights including torture, murder, censorship, and religious persecution. Robertsons diamond business also involved Charles Taylor, the Liberian leader who seized power in a violent coup in 1996, and became president after an election, widely considered tainted, held the following year. Robertson refers to Taylor as a Christian, a good Baptist, and a friend. To the rest of the world, however, Taylor is a man indicted for war crimes, including much of the bloodshed and atrocities that have afflicted Liberia and its neighbor nations for years†. (NNDB tracking the entire world) On the episode of Dateline, they said that when Pat left TFC and created CBN, he had sold public stock of TFC (the Family Channel) which gave five hundred million dollars to his company CBN. He is also alleged to have pocketed and used donations and ministry funds for personal use. Postman then stated that there are at present thirty-five television stations owned and operated by religious organizations, but every television station features religious programming or one sort or another. To prepare myself for writing this chapter, I watched forty-two hours of televisions version of religion, mostly the shows of Robert Schuller, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson. Forty-two hours were entirely unnecessary. Five would have provided me with all the conclusions, of which there are two, that the fairly to be drawn. The first is that on television, religion, like everything else, is presented, quite simply and without apology, as an entertainment. Everything that makes religion an historic, profound and sacred human activity is stripped away; there is no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no theology, and above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence. On these shows, the preacher is tops. God comes out as second banana. (Postman 114-117) I agree with him on this loss of spiritual connection; I believe that normal worship practices require you to participate in the rules, rituals, and traditions. It allows you to get close to your fellow worshipers and give you a good feeling of community. This cannot be replaced by the television screen. In church I wouldnt be in my pajamas/boxers or be snacking while the service is going on, but while watching television evangelists, I could do these things and more. As for religion being entertainment on television, I also believe this is true. The crooked TV evangelists use their healing sessions and other things as the entertainment. They use these sessions to convince and persuade others that the evangelist have been giving the power to heal by god and that they should come to give and get healed. These evangelists become like a prophet and they become the most important and as postman said, God comes out as second banana. Lastly Postman stated this, to prepare myself for writing this chapter, I watched forty-two hours of televisions version of religion, mostly the shows of Robert Schuller, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson. Postman 114-117) When I read this it again reminded me of the Dateline episode, around half of the names that he listed was on the show. Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson were on the show, they were alleged to have pocketing church funds and other things.