US TV shows are not among my favourites, but they are extremely popular. Certainly series like Scrubs and Glee are de rigueur for most 20s and 30-somethings.
These shows regularly promote the friendly face of what we might call ‘secular grace’. The ethos is one in which everyone is accepted. That is absolutely right when it comes to such matters as race or disability. But the agenda of these shows is more generally to do with morality — especially sexual morality. Morals are relative, a matter of opinion. We are all aware of our own failures. So we don’t judge anyone. We just accept — like grace.
Pushing the envelope
You find this secular grace / political correctness running through series like Friends, Frasier, Sex in the City, House and all the way back to M.A.S.H. If you want to follow the trail on this, the book Prime Time Propaganda by Ben Shapiro, subtitled ‘How the Left took over your TV’, would be a worthwhile read. Shapiro’s thesis is that there is no organised conspiracy, but creative people tend to be liberal in outlook and are drawn to work in a creative medium like TV. Being liberal and seeing traditional morality and family life as restrictive to self-expression, and therefore, in their terms, an ‘evil’ in society, they have tried to ‘make a difference’. So they produce light entertainment which subtly questions and undermines the old standards. Audiences laugh along as their viewing pushes the envelope on moral issues.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …