“How shall we f--- off, oh Lord?”
--John Cleese, “Life of Brian”
Back in college, a friend commented that he loved the Monty Python movie “Life of Brian.” He seemed apologetic about this, as he knew “you Christians” find the movie offensive. At the time, I’d never heard of the movie. When I later watched it, I thought it was wonderfully irreverant, one of the best portrayals of the human willingness to follow false messiahs I’ve ever seen. So effusive was my love for “LIfe of Brian” that once in a women’s Bible study I described the part about the public stoning only to realize the woman I’d just related this to was the wife of one of the more fundamentalist ministers in town.
She was not amused.
As a graduate student in journalism, one of the things I study is the effect of mass media on culture. Media researchers have a theory called the “Third Person Effect” (TPE) describing an exaggerated fear that movies like “Life of Brian” and other forms of mass media will negatively influence the public. “Third person” reflects the perception that you and I are discerning enough to be immune to such propaganda. It’s those unenlightened others, hence, the third person, who’ll be negatively influenced.
Christians seem especially prone to TPE. In part I think this is because Christianity is centered on the notion of a message: the gospel. Then, too, in recent decades the Christian book, music and television markets have become ghettoized. Though politically powerful, Christians have less cultural influence outside the church than they enjoyed in the past. And so, we see book after book attacking Harry Potter, “The Da Vinci Code,” “The Last Temptation of Christ” and whatever else is currently popular in secular culture, reflecting a perceived power imbalance between the gospel and secular mass media.
I suspect TPE explains most of Carrington Steel’s concerns in “Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid: Oprah, Obama and the Occult” and why popular cultural leaders like Oprah Winfrey are perceived as a particular threat.
Overlooking what appears on the book’s cover to be a racist linking of blacks with the occult--Steele says she’s been an Oprah fan for years--the book is the classic “Woman Bites God” story. It matters little that Oprah selected Christian author Bret Lott’s novel “Jewel” for her book club in 1999 and would likely select others if Christian writers sold more of their books on the secular market.
Steele’s premise seems to be: Oprah doesn’t hold the same beliefs as I do. Therefore she worships the devil. This seems like a stretch. One of the dangers I see with such overreaction to mass media is that, aside from the risk of censorship, it has the effect of communicating to the American public the Christian God is too weak to compete with other gods or with secular beliefs.
Perhaps it’s because of such irrational fear that Steele’s logic in “Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid” is difficult to follow. She states a number of facts, quotes and other peoples’ opinions, but seems unwilling to go out on a limb and say why she considers these facts to be of concern. Many of her “facts” consist of the bare bones of vague allusions to things Christians are taught to fear, such as end-times prophecy, with little or no logical muscle to support them.
For example, Steele describes mindless repetition of meaningless phrases as a form of propaganda, overlooking the fact that mindless repetition of meaningless phrases such as “Our God is an awesome God” aptly describes the contemporary worship music many American Christians sing every Sunday morning in church. She depicts Barack Obama as a false messiah, not because Obama claims to be anything but a presidential candidate, but because news media and celebrity hyperbole portray him in messianic terms.
To her credit, Steele also debunks--sort of--the claim that Obama is Muslim, though she follows the Fox News pattern of including his middle name, Hussein.
In a discussion on Marianne Williamson’s “A Course in Miracles,” Steele states that Williamson’s Web site promotes a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace. Okay, I’m thinking, Dennis Kucinich has proposed the same thing. But then Steele goes on to say, “What have we as Christians been told about future prophecy concerning an international ‘peace’ organization?”
Uh, I don’t know. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God”?
If Oprah rejects the notion of God as jealous, a concept that possibly fits her own past experience of sexual abuse, Steele repeatedly quotes verses that portray God as angry and vengeful, while leaving out biblical doctrine that portrays God as loving, healing and forgiving.
Oprah guests Eckhart Tolle and Marianne Williamson--or at least, what Steele quotes of them--also don’t appear to preach a loving external god, but sidestep the issue by teaching the source of love is within ourselves. To my eyes, their doctrine appears goofy, though it occasionally makes acceptable use of Christ’s teachings, something that could be perceived as either positive or deceptive, depending on one’s point-of-view.
If Steele noticed these similarities, she fails to make note of them, perhaps because throughout the book she seems reticent to share her own opinion at all. A quick check of cited Web sites reveal accusations of plagiarism. Steele also has a tendency to describe herself in the plural, which suggests she may be ghostwriting the book for someone else. A quick check on the Web suggests Carrington Steele is apparently a pen name.
Assuming she’s a real person, what is Steele’s point-of-view? A quick read of her statement of beliefs on her Web site describes her as a “fundamental” (sic) Christian and contains a basic statement of everything a fundamentalist Christian is supposed to believe about God. Steele doesn’t state on her Web site what denomination she attends, but says she attends a “bible-believing church” often a code for evangelical. If so, this would explain her reliance on Bible verses to debunk Oprah’s guests, although in a few instances she either misapplies the scripture, or needs more clarification of her reasons for applying it.
Having been an evangelical Christian for over 30 years, I’m familiar with their disdain for experientialism. It seems likely the weird feeling that allowed Steele to sense something is wrong while watching Oprah on television would have been dismissed had she experienced it while she was attending her church. Worse, she might have attributed the feeling to her own sinfulness. Thus, the very trait evangelicals consider their greatest strength--a level-headed biblical approach to religious doctrine--could literally be their greatest weakness when it comes to recognizing a false messiah.
In this regard, the thing Christians find offensive about “LIfe of Brian” isn’t so much the depiction of Jesus Christ--who’s handled with as much reverence as he is in “Ben Hur”--but the depiction of Brian’s followers. Most of us don’t want to recognize ourselves in the John Cleese character, doggedly following our messiahs though they treat us with rejection or outright hostility.
So it’s telling that, in her Web site description of her beliefs about God, Steele never once mentions the word love, in spite of the fact love is used far more in the Bible to describe the nature of God than is the Trinity.
This begs the question: If Oprah’s audience is embracing false gods, is it because her guests teach them mind control, or because their gods appear more attainable and accepting than Steele’s? In business as in religion, the term evangelism implies that one conveys how desirable one’s product or belief is, not how awful.
In a market-driven society like ours, even spiritual beliefs have become a commodity. A potential risk in the evangelical assertion of John 14:6 that Christ is the only way to God is that this dogma can easily be extended--and often is--to suggest that Christianity is the only way to God. This is dangerous because in America there’s so much brand name loyalty associated with Christianity that it’s possible to repackage the devil and market him as Jesus Christ.
This can happen in New Age religion. It can also happen in evangelical Christianity.
In his sermon on the mount, Christ gave a standard by which we may know we’re dealing with the Heavenly Father and not an impostor. “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children...” The true God loves you more than your earthly father does.
For some of us, it may appear Christ is setting the bar too low. Low bar or not, I’ve attended “bible-believing churches” that preached a god who failed to measure up to this minimum standard.
Relying only on hints and allusions, Steele seems throughout the book so reticent to directly express her personal beliefs that it’s almost as if she’s walking on egg shells. If the truth sets us free, Steele seems so in bondage to her beliefs compared to Oprah that after reading “Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid,” I was at a loss to decide which of the two women had the greater spiritual problem. Oprah may have rejected what she considered an abusive god, but Steele has apparently never questioned whether her awful god is worthy of worship.
The Third Person Effect is usually an overreaction. A 2006 study conducted by The Barna Group on the effect of “The Da Vinci Code” found that about five percent of the 45 million respondents reported changing their religious beliefs after reading the book. While this isn’t insignificant, the study didn’t ask respondents for the nature of that change, or if it had anything to do with Gnosticism. It’s conceivable the book actually improved public perceptions of Christ’s attitudes toward women, at the expense of male religious leaders.
Indeed, TPE often reveals more about the weaknesses in the first person than it does about the third. It could be time to watch “Life of Brian” again.
--John Cleese, “Life of Brian”
Back in college, a friend commented that he loved the Monty Python movie “Life of Brian.” He seemed apologetic about this, as he knew “you Christians” find the movie offensive. At the time, I’d never heard of the movie. When I later watched it, I thought it was wonderfully irreverant, one of the best portrayals of the human willingness to follow false messiahs I’ve ever seen. So effusive was my love for “LIfe of Brian” that once in a women’s Bible study I described the part about the public stoning only to realize the woman I’d just related this to was the wife of one of the more fundamentalist ministers in town.
She was not amused.
As a graduate student in journalism, one of the things I study is the effect of mass media on culture. Media researchers have a theory called the “Third Person Effect” (TPE) describing an exaggerated fear that movies like “Life of Brian” and other forms of mass media will negatively influence the public. “Third person” reflects the perception that you and I are discerning enough to be immune to such propaganda. It’s those unenlightened others, hence, the third person, who’ll be negatively influenced.
Christians seem especially prone to TPE. In part I think this is because Christianity is centered on the notion of a message: the gospel. Then, too, in recent decades the Christian book, music and television markets have become ghettoized. Though politically powerful, Christians have less cultural influence outside the church than they enjoyed in the past. And so, we see book after book attacking Harry Potter, “The Da Vinci Code,” “The Last Temptation of Christ” and whatever else is currently popular in secular culture, reflecting a perceived power imbalance between the gospel and secular mass media.
I suspect TPE explains most of Carrington Steel’s concerns in “Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid: Oprah, Obama and the Occult” and why popular cultural leaders like Oprah Winfrey are perceived as a particular threat.
Overlooking what appears on the book’s cover to be a racist linking of blacks with the occult--Steele says she’s been an Oprah fan for years--the book is the classic “Woman Bites God” story. It matters little that Oprah selected Christian author Bret Lott’s novel “Jewel” for her book club in 1999 and would likely select others if Christian writers sold more of their books on the secular market.
Steele’s premise seems to be: Oprah doesn’t hold the same beliefs as I do. Therefore she worships the devil. This seems like a stretch. One of the dangers I see with such overreaction to mass media is that, aside from the risk of censorship, it has the effect of communicating to the American public the Christian God is too weak to compete with other gods or with secular beliefs.
Perhaps it’s because of such irrational fear that Steele’s logic in “Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid” is difficult to follow. She states a number of facts, quotes and other peoples’ opinions, but seems unwilling to go out on a limb and say why she considers these facts to be of concern. Many of her “facts” consist of the bare bones of vague allusions to things Christians are taught to fear, such as end-times prophecy, with little or no logical muscle to support them.
For example, Steele describes mindless repetition of meaningless phrases as a form of propaganda, overlooking the fact that mindless repetition of meaningless phrases such as “Our God is an awesome God” aptly describes the contemporary worship music many American Christians sing every Sunday morning in church. She depicts Barack Obama as a false messiah, not because Obama claims to be anything but a presidential candidate, but because news media and celebrity hyperbole portray him in messianic terms.
To her credit, Steele also debunks--sort of--the claim that Obama is Muslim, though she follows the Fox News pattern of including his middle name, Hussein.
In a discussion on Marianne Williamson’s “A Course in Miracles,” Steele states that Williamson’s Web site promotes a cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace. Okay, I’m thinking, Dennis Kucinich has proposed the same thing. But then Steele goes on to say, “What have we as Christians been told about future prophecy concerning an international ‘peace’ organization?”
Uh, I don’t know. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God”?
If Oprah rejects the notion of God as jealous, a concept that possibly fits her own past experience of sexual abuse, Steele repeatedly quotes verses that portray God as angry and vengeful, while leaving out biblical doctrine that portrays God as loving, healing and forgiving.
Oprah guests Eckhart Tolle and Marianne Williamson--or at least, what Steele quotes of them--also don’t appear to preach a loving external god, but sidestep the issue by teaching the source of love is within ourselves. To my eyes, their doctrine appears goofy, though it occasionally makes acceptable use of Christ’s teachings, something that could be perceived as either positive or deceptive, depending on one’s point-of-view.
If Steele noticed these similarities, she fails to make note of them, perhaps because throughout the book she seems reticent to share her own opinion at all. A quick check of cited Web sites reveal accusations of plagiarism. Steele also has a tendency to describe herself in the plural, which suggests she may be ghostwriting the book for someone else. A quick check on the Web suggests Carrington Steele is apparently a pen name.
Assuming she’s a real person, what is Steele’s point-of-view? A quick read of her statement of beliefs on her Web site describes her as a “fundamental” (sic) Christian and contains a basic statement of everything a fundamentalist Christian is supposed to believe about God. Steele doesn’t state on her Web site what denomination she attends, but says she attends a “bible-believing church” often a code for evangelical. If so, this would explain her reliance on Bible verses to debunk Oprah’s guests, although in a few instances she either misapplies the scripture, or needs more clarification of her reasons for applying it.
Having been an evangelical Christian for over 30 years, I’m familiar with their disdain for experientialism. It seems likely the weird feeling that allowed Steele to sense something is wrong while watching Oprah on television would have been dismissed had she experienced it while she was attending her church. Worse, she might have attributed the feeling to her own sinfulness. Thus, the very trait evangelicals consider their greatest strength--a level-headed biblical approach to religious doctrine--could literally be their greatest weakness when it comes to recognizing a false messiah.
In this regard, the thing Christians find offensive about “LIfe of Brian” isn’t so much the depiction of Jesus Christ--who’s handled with as much reverence as he is in “Ben Hur”--but the depiction of Brian’s followers. Most of us don’t want to recognize ourselves in the John Cleese character, doggedly following our messiahs though they treat us with rejection or outright hostility.
So it’s telling that, in her Web site description of her beliefs about God, Steele never once mentions the word love, in spite of the fact love is used far more in the Bible to describe the nature of God than is the Trinity.
This begs the question: If Oprah’s audience is embracing false gods, is it because her guests teach them mind control, or because their gods appear more attainable and accepting than Steele’s? In business as in religion, the term evangelism implies that one conveys how desirable one’s product or belief is, not how awful.
In a market-driven society like ours, even spiritual beliefs have become a commodity. A potential risk in the evangelical assertion of John 14:6 that Christ is the only way to God is that this dogma can easily be extended--and often is--to suggest that Christianity is the only way to God. This is dangerous because in America there’s so much brand name loyalty associated with Christianity that it’s possible to repackage the devil and market him as Jesus Christ.
This can happen in New Age religion. It can also happen in evangelical Christianity.
In his sermon on the mount, Christ gave a standard by which we may know we’re dealing with the Heavenly Father and not an impostor. “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children...” The true God loves you more than your earthly father does.
For some of us, it may appear Christ is setting the bar too low. Low bar or not, I’ve attended “bible-believing churches” that preached a god who failed to measure up to this minimum standard.
Relying only on hints and allusions, Steele seems throughout the book so reticent to directly express her personal beliefs that it’s almost as if she’s walking on egg shells. If the truth sets us free, Steele seems so in bondage to her beliefs compared to Oprah that after reading “Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid,” I was at a loss to decide which of the two women had the greater spiritual problem. Oprah may have rejected what she considered an abusive god, but Steele has apparently never questioned whether her awful god is worthy of worship.
The Third Person Effect is usually an overreaction. A 2006 study conducted by The Barna Group on the effect of “The Da Vinci Code” found that about five percent of the 45 million respondents reported changing their religious beliefs after reading the book. While this isn’t insignificant, the study didn’t ask respondents for the nature of that change, or if it had anything to do with Gnosticism. It’s conceivable the book actually improved public perceptions of Christ’s attitudes toward women, at the expense of male religious leaders.
Indeed, TPE often reveals more about the weaknesses in the first person than it does about the third. It could be time to watch “Life of Brian” again.
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