meditatio at the water's edge

Scripture Gets Left Behind Again

Watching NBC's latest biblical fumble might be offensive if it wasn't so pitiful. There are likely some people out there, maybe quite a few, who think NBC has an agenda against the church. I think that the truth might be that they are just ignorant when it comes to the Bible. They are trying their hand at producing 'Christian' religious programming but just can't seem to 'get it.' The problem is that they don't seem too concerned to ask for help.

Looking back at NBC's offerings of Noah's Ark and the latest 'Revelations' (one might also include ABC's 'Judas' in this genre of 'biblically illiterate made-for-TV-movies') suggests to me that there is not a malevolent agenda, but a failure to try to learn what the stories and messages of the scriptures are actually saying. I seem to remember that Lot showed up in the Noah's Ark movie. Did they even read Genesis?

One thing I want to say to NBC is that the last book of the Christian scripture is 'Revelation' (singular), not 'Revelations' (plural). When you screw up the title, you can't expect much from the rest of the project.

The next thing I noticed involves the promotion of the series. The tagline was, "The greatest story ever told...has a final chapter." Apparently NBC never made it there. Now, I'm one who thinks that the Left Behind movies (and books) are nonsense--sorry folks, but the interpretation of scripture Jenkins and LaHaye use is just not good interpretation at all (ask any reputable New Testament scholar)--but at least they tried their hand at interpreting the text. NBC's 'Revelations' doesn't seem to be trying to use the text at all--aside from their transitional (mis)quotes of various texts, whose contexts are completely and astonishingly disregarded. I want to laugh. I want to cry.

Not only is this series ignoring the actual text is it supposed to be portraying, it is not even attempting good writing--at least what I've seen so far. Wouldn't a good writer be interested, in this kind of story, in the source material? If this story is an attmept to court evangelical viewers (honestly, if that is what you are attempting NBC, you're doing about as good as George Bush is at 'winning hearts and minds' in Iraq), at least respect the material.

I know NBC is capable of finding great writers. I've seen it in some episodes of West Wing, Homocide:Life on the Street, and even ER. So why can't NBC, who seems so interested in getting ratings from among the 'newly discovered evangelical Christians' in America, get their best writers and producers together with some actual Old and New Testament scholars and theologians like Walter Bruggemann, N.T. Wright, Stan Hauerwas, and Rowan Williams--heck, they'd be doing great to talk with Bob Lowery, John Castelein, and Gary Hall in little Lincoln, Illinois!--and put together some really good art?

Maybe that's too much to expect.