Influence: The Church or Hollywood?

This may come as a shock to you but Hollywood has far less influence on our culture than does religion. Yes they have prominence in what you see on TV, but then again Hollywood virtually controls the medium. But prominent visibility doesn’t necessarily equate influence. As a nation, 120 million of us attend Church on a regular basis which is far more than the number who attend movies in a given week. When you consider that less than 25% of Americans read one book a year, and only 1% of them are in college, it is a safe assumption that listening to the weekly sermon is still the most widely practiced form of intellectual activity in America. If one were to look just at expenditures, Americans give 25 times more money to their houses of worship than they do to their local movie houses. So if the Church is so influential in our culture, why is it so seemingly invisible? The late news anchor Peter Jennings, himself a Canadian, was baffled by this. He thought it was odd that America was so deeply religious and yet it was nearly invisible to the news media. I have a couple of theories as to why this is so. First of all, unless you do something exceptionally weird, good, or flashy at your church, it’s of no value to the media. Every Sunday the vast majority of us come together and pray, worship, hear God’s Word, and fellowship with one another. It’s a good thing, but doesn’t create the kind excitement that plays well on film or television. Secondly, Americans consider their freedom to worship almost as sacred as their actual religion. In the name of respecting the freedom of others that we enjoy ourselves, we don’t make this an overt part of our personal or national discourse. It doesn’t mean our faith has no influence on America, it simply comes in through the back door of personal relationships which once again is hardly a media event. Perhaps a better gauge of understanding the Church’s influence in America would be to imagine if it didn’t exist or were suddenly removed (which would be a dream-come-true for militant homosexuals and radical atheists). Not to be over celebratory here, but the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches of this country were huge partners in the building of our civilization and to this day provide countless hours of community services and emergency food and relief without any government help or incentive. The only real motivation is Christ’s great law: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. If this great influence were removed from our society, America would be less like itself and more like the Hollywood Babylon that some think we should be.