My 3 Excuses for not watching The Bible on the History Channel
(It’s guest post Friday! Here’s one from Scott Higa. You can check out his blog here and follow him on Twitter. If you want to write a guest post for SCL, here’s how!)
My 3 Excuses for not watching The Bible on the History Channel
I have a confession to make.
I didn’t watch The Bible on the History Channel.
There, I feel better. My load is definitely easier, and my burden is much lighter.
I’m not opposed to Christian programming. I endured The Passion of the Christ and shared how it made me feel with my small group. I have watched numerous Veggie Tales movies and have even sung “The Hairbrush Song” at the top of my lungs. I even sat through Psalty, the singing praise book, which scarred me more than Mel Gibson ever could.
I’m not opposed to watching The Bible, but here are some reasons why I couldn’t:
No Cable
Dave Ramsey told me that I couldn’t have cable. As long as I have seminary loans and a fledgling emergency fund, I feel like cable is a luxury I should be ashamed to even want, much less have. Most of the time, it feels really good to tell people that my wife and I don’t have cable. I’ve noticed a lot of Christians wear their lack of cable like a badge.
“We spend too much time settling Catan and having family devotions to watch TV.”
“We use that $60 a month to fund clean water projects in Africa.”
“We don’t want to provide a smut-conduit directly into our living room. Would you want your toilet to empty next to your couch?”
But what do Christians do when not having cable comes in conflict with watching The Bible? I suppose we just have to hope it comes out on Hulu or Netflix because we all know those don’t count as watching TV.
Church
I also couldn’t watch The Bible because I was at church with our high school group. A lot of churches have Sunday night services or small groups. Are we supposed to ditch church to watch TV? I thought that was only acceptable during the football season. I know that I missed out on The Bible, but I was more than happy to spend that time with a small group of high school guys. It’d be really convenient to attend virtual church on a Sunday night: you could watch church on one screen and The Bible on another, all while eating Chicken and Waffle Lays potato chips.
I Like the Book Better
The book is always better than the movie. Even though they might be evil, I read all of the Harry Potter books and then watched the movies. The books were much better than the movies. As a book, the Bible has been a best-seller for years and years. No matter how amazing the movie is, I can’t imagine it will live up to the source material. Mark Burnett is a talented producer, but even he can’t hold a torch to the inspired word of the creator of the universe.
I hope to eventually see The Bible, even if I have to wait until it’s on Netflix. More importantly, though, I hope others will see it and draw closer to God because of it.
What did you think of The Bible? Or, what’s your excuse for not watching it?
For more great writing from Scott, check out his blog!
