Saturday, October 2, 2010
Television's Influence on Religion
Often overlooked is television's affect on religion through the demonstration of evangelical speakers, influence of celebrities' and their new-found lifestyles, politicians' usage of rhetoric to mobilize voters, and the misconstrued and often stereotyped views of several religions. People have an excuse to not go to church because they can simply watch the sermons/message on T.V., thus taking away from the sacredness of devoting Sundays wholly to God. The term Televangelism was coined by Time magazine as an effort to demonstrate the idea that evangelists on television use Christian biblical messages in order to aggrandize themselves, which is self-seeking and entirely hypocritical. Celebrities expose newer religions such as scientology (Tom Cruise, among others), to viewers who aren't familiar with it, but may appeal to it because they are fans.
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I never even thought about how the media might affect a viewer's stance on religion. I suppose this would be most true with people who are not dedicated to one particular religion or those who are in "limbo"! I also agree that it seems hypocritial for evangelists on television to use the media as a mean for personal gain. Very intereting!
ReplyDeleteHumm... talk about a loaded topic. On one hand I agree, Televangelism is totally hypocritical and manipulative because these Evangelical speakers are portraying themselves as something selfless but they're out for their own gain like most of the media. But on the other hand, the media can be an effective tool for educating people on other alternatives. As someone who is personally dissatisfied with most of the mainstream religions I've come across (Catholicism and Christianity predominantly), I find all of this new, albeit biased, information interesting. I may not worship the Kabbalah even though Madonna herself is awesome, I most likely would never have heard of it otherwise.
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