Television shows and movies are like sermons. They teach. They illustrate. They exhort. They persuade. The productions that possess a conviction beyond profit have a truth they mean to impart, an impulse they mean to cultivate, a reflex they mean to train.
They do not offer their outline, show their main text, or state the proposition to be defended. Instead, they use the backdoor of imagination to influence: they tell a story. Their stealth makes them dangerous. They aim at man’s belief without alarming man’s reason. They tiptoe past the watchman and shape our innate sense of things. Highly trained actors and actresses are their preachers.
So, when we sit and guzzle from the hydrant of Hollywood, a group notorious for putting dark for light and light for dark, why do we expect so little consequence? We can be catechized hours on end in what the world believes, loves, and sells but think we emerge unharmed because “the story isn’t real.” Such a one might as well say, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing: ‘They will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.’”
The messages are predictable.
