John Eklund’s Catholic novel. Yesterday, I wrote in this space that people of faith need to stop complaining about the tone and quality of entertainment media (including TV, movies, music and books) and start creating alternatives.

Now, I’m informed of one writer who is doing that. John Eklund, author of The Third Testament,  is a practicing Catholic who, as his website informs us, “took to writing Christian fiction on a whim and found he loved every minute of it.”

The Third Testament is his first novel. Here’s the synopsis, again from his website:

Widower Fred Sankt is a professor at a small Catholic college who is not at all accustomed to dreaming. When he begins experiencing a series of profoundly vivid dreams that consistently awaken him at 3:00 a.m., he is not alarmed—simply curious. In the last of his dreams, Fred meets a faceless old friend who informs him that he has been chosen by God to record the next testament of the Bible. Fred decides that, even though it has been nearly two thousand years since the last passage in the Bible was written, if it is God’s will for him to take on a project of this magnitude, he has no choice but to accept. But his entire world is turned upside down when his doorbell rings unexpectedly one evening. After he is served a summons, Fred thinks things can’t get worse until he receives the news that his daughter Ellen’s health is in jeopardy. Despite his personal hardships, Fred soon finds that writing is his only solace. As Fred continues on a spiritual journey to unlock the truth, he creates a treasure for all Christians that ultimately reignites the torch of the faithful.

I haven’t read the book myself but it has received some positive reviews in the Catholic media. So, props to Mr. Eklund for jumping the literary pool and creating the kind of entertainment he would like to see.

His book is available at his own website and via Amazon.com (where a Kindle version is available) and BarnesandNoble.com.

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11

It’s time to go on offense (without being offensive). This week I’ve been focusing on the losing game Christians have found themselves playing of biting every time somebody attempts to bring attention upon themselves by intentionally insulting our faith and values in an accelerating and relentless bit to manufacture conflict and controversy.

The problem is we’ve been playing the game by Big Media rules on Big Media turf. It’s time we change that.  Here are ten suggestions:

1.      Don’t complain create.
To some extent that is being done — and the success of several faith-friendly attest.  From The Blind Side to Soul Surfer to all those
Pixar movies, box office results have proven that traditional values maintain strong audience appeal. If we make good movies,
produce great TV shows, create great music and videos and write compelling books the audience will come — if they know
about it.              

2.      Distribution and marketing are key.
The primary problem in getting faith-friendly material out into the culture is that the current media power structure, while it likes
to make money, also likes to be considered cool in their social circles.  Edgy is good. Dark (i.e. cynical and pessimistic) comedies
and dramas are cool.  Hopeful storytelling focusing on kindness and faith are deemed by the critical elite as “treacly” and
“manipulative.”  Certain groups are in, certain groups are out (almost like some kind of high school clique played out on a large
stage). A like mindset pretty much overhangs the entire media distribution and marketing system.

Rather than always depending on cultural gatekeepers who don’t necessarily share our cultural concerns, believers and
supporters of traditional values need to invest in the distribution and marketing mechanism. Imagine if a consortium led by a  
Philip Anschutz (just to suggest a name) had bought NBC Universal. That would have been a true game changer.

Or, imagine if Rupert Murdoch was to take his conservatism out of the realm of news and politics (i.e. Fox News Channel) and
transform News Corporation’s struggling MyNetwork into a non-political entertainment venue for traditional values television.

There’s a lot of money to be made going after a very large under-served portion of the audience.

3.      Stand for consumer empowerment not censorship.
I generally get annoyed at the same things Media Research President Brent Bozell does. I think the media, particularly in recent
years, has taken a nasty turn that is too often hostile to religious faith and traditional values.  Where I tend to disagree with him is
on the matter of the FCC and government censorship. 

Besides actually supporting free speech, I think pushing for additional government control of media is the wrong battle. I’d much
rather see a push for things like mandated ala carte cable deals. You’ll notice that you don’t have to purchase 200 apps to get the
ones you actually want for your mobile device. You don’t have to buy 500 books from Amazon to get the one you want.

Why is television so different? Why are our cable and satellite fees going to support channels we don’t want and may even offend
us?  Why aren’t consumers allowed to choose packs of 10 or 20 channels and have hour fees divided between the cable operator
and the channels we actually want to see?

Sure, a lot of cable channels would disappear due to lack of demand (that’s the way it is in the real world).  But others would grow
financially stronger (in part due to a greater share of consumer fees) and be able to offer higher quality programming (i.e. less
degrading reality crap).

That simple change would result in more programming that is in tune with traditional America.  It wouldn’t wipe
out objectionable programming. There’s an audience for it. But there’d be less of it. And it would have be actively be requested
and invited into the home.

Fight for consumer empowerment, not censorship. 

4.       Expose the demographics scam.
Why in the world has seemingly the entire world has bought into the notion that one sliver of the audience is worth more than
another sliver? Such overt discrimination is not something we’d accept in other areas of life.

Demographic-based ratings have created a system in which you can slice and dice the audience in a thousand different ways to
declare shows with relatively small audiences to be major hits and shows with much larger audience to be disappointments.  What
it really is is a way to elevate one group’s cultural values over another in a way that sidesteps actual societal support.             

5.      Use new media.
Short of buying a major film studio or TV network, new media (i.e. E-books, web videos) offer a great opportunity to put positive
ideas into the culture. Technology has become a major chink in the armor of the cultural gatekeepers.

6.      Don’t be thin skinned.
Everyone doesn’t have to like us or what we stand for.  If some in the media insist on making vicious, nasty attacks it’s usually
better to let it go.  They love the publicity generated by angry Christians (it makes them feel so cool) and, besides, life is too short
to worry about such things.

On the same point, it’s important to make distinctions between legitimate criticism and healthy humor and actual bile. Legitimate
criticism of the Catholic Church’s handling of its sex-abuse scandals, for instance, is not the same as a pointlessly-nasty work of
supposed art (of which we’ve seen many examples) that does nothing but insult a person’s beliefs. Likewise, humor aimed at
Christian hypocrisy can be funny (particularly when it hits on something that’s true) and should be taken not only in stride but as a
lesson on behavior to avoid.   

7.      Play nice.
Christian and/or traditional values media should not be used as a means to get back at others who we think unfairly insulted us.
Likewise, we are not called to judge or condemn other people.  Doing so is wrong and only gets in the way of the positive messages
of  hope, faith, love, personal responsibility, gratitude and forgiveness we should be focusing on.

8.      Avoid heavy-handed sectarianism.
When it comes to actual storytelling, tell great ones with great characters and an underlying attitude of faith.  Bring in religion
and/or Bible quotes only when it actually fits the story. Subtlety is good. Heavy-handedness never plays well.

9.      Have fun.
Society, particularly these days, could really use more entertainment that is just plain joyful and optimistic about life. There’s a
thirst for comedies that find humor in our common humanity and not in snarky putdowns or each other.  Christians should be able
to provide that.

10.  Have faith.
In the end, darkness always gives way to light.

And, as always…

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11

Following up on yesterday’s blog about how Lady Gaga and some others in the media manufacture instances of Christian outrage for marketing purposes, commenter Kenneth had a valid point when he wrote about the “outrage industry” (good term) in which people on both sides of any argument profit financially by stirring up anger and fanning the flames. And, yes, the media (including the blogosphere) also rides the conflict gravy train. Conflict resolution is not really in the perceived interest of professional agitators on the left or the right — but, in reality, it’s in all our our common interest to, as the poem says, “listen to others, even (those we consider) the dull and ignorant,” to respect our differing perspectives without demonizing one another and to reject manufactured conflict.

If even Captain Kirk and the Klingon leader Kang can learn not to be manipulated by forces that draw power from conflict, there’s certainly hope for the rest of us.

More thoughts on this tomorrow.

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11

It’s time to ignore them. This Easter season seems to have brought forth its usual (perhaps a bit more than usual) number of attention seekers hoping to use the holy day to piss off Catholics (and Christians in general) and, thereby, promote themselves into the ranks of so-called edgy artists.

But the routine is getting old and starting to appear more pathetic than bold. Hence, The Wrap headlines:

Lady Gaga’s Easter Marketing Plan for ‘Judas’: Tweets, Leaks, Sacrilege

From the article: “Judas,” with its release originally scheduled for the Tuesday of Easter week until the leak accelerated its release by four days, is provocation on a different level.

A love song of sorts to the man who Christians believe betrayed Jesus … sitting at number one on the charts this week… and accompanied by a video in which Lady Gaga plays Mary Magdalene …  Well, it’s all but designed to draw the kind of attention it got from Catholic League president Bill Donohoe (sic), who said (before he’d heard the song or seen the video), “She is trying to rip off Christian idolatry to shore up her talentless, mundane and boring performances.”

Some music critics weren’t much kinder — Caryn Ganz calls it “a noisy, directionless collage of half-finished ideas” — but Lady Gaga’s not selling to the Catholic League, or to music critics.

She’s selling to her 10 million Facebook friends (she was the first living person to hit that milestone), her 9,458,015 Twitter followers, and the YouTube fans who made her the first artist with one billion views.

And for those fans (monsters, she calls them), a little controversy only serves to stir up attention and rally the faithful.

But Lady Gaga’s not the only one with the M.O. of fueling her career with Christian anger.  Hence  Deadline.com headlines:

Hollywood & Religion: More Controversy To Come If New Films Anger The Faithful

The trend, if that’s the right word, has understandably aroused the ire of Media Research Center President Brent Bozell who, in noting Showtime’s heavy promotion of its new series The Borgias made this observation:

The spirit of Lady Gaga also came alive in April in “The Borgias,” the new Showtime miniseries that dwells playfully on an adulterous, murderous pope – a Spanish mobster in papal vestments. (It’s what Showtime considers “religious” programming.) There’s no historical doubt that Rodrigo Borgia (who became Pope Alexander VI) was flagrantly immoral, with seven illegitimate children, one of whom he named a cardinal. He was a terrible pope and a medieval Judas – and the perfect vehicle to sully today’s Catholic Church.

By contrast, Showtime had too much reverence for the Kennedy family to accept the miniseries “The Kennedys.” New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley joked “fortunately for Showtime, there don’t seem to be any thin-skinned Borgia descendants with powerful friends who can lobby network executives.”

But, of course, The Kennedys (while focusing on a famous Catholic family) did not become a television hot potato because it might offend Catholics.  The icons being skewered (and protected) were not religious but political.

In any event, it’s become pretty clear that offending Catholics, Christians and believers in general has, as The Wrap headline suggests, become part of the marketing strategy for some in the media — who spin such anger into supposed proof of hipness and a supposedly cutting-edge willingness to push the envelope.  We believers, unfortunately, too often play into the strategy.  There’s genuine wisdom in turning the other cheek. It really is time we stop playing the game and, in fact, change how the game is played. Some thoughts on that tomorrow.

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11