Turn on your TV set any night of the week and you’ll
see entertainment that would have delighted the most bloodthirsty
citizen of ancient Rome.
Out of a sense of decorum, television news programs usually
omit the most horrific images of crime or tragedy. But for those
who relish every bloody detail, we now have "shockumentaries"—and
they have no problem living up to their names. They seem to
be getting worse.
One recent program showed police photos of the naked corpse
of a young woman, lying by the road where her killer dumped
her. Another program routinely shows murder victims in the blood-spattered
rooms where they died. Narrators describe every detail of how
victims are kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed.
And if that’s not enough to turn your stomach, tune into
shows that include "dramatic reenactments" of the actual crime—reenactments
that dramatize every sickening detail.
"Shockumentaries" are so popular that during ratings weeks,
networks pull their regular shows to provide extra helpings
of real-life blood and gore. But Christians ought to hit the
off button long enough to ask themselves what impact these programs
are having.
The early church faced something very similar: It took a strong
stand against the bloody gladiatorial contests. In the second
century, Bishop Tertullian criticized
Christians who enjoyed these spectacles, and warned that their
own degradation would result from nourishing a "passion for
murderous pleasure."
A story from Augustine’s
Confessions helps us understand why. Augustine had a
friend named Alypius, who was disgusted by the brutality of
the gladiatorial games: He vowed to avoid them. But one day
Alypius met some friends who dragged him to join them at the
arena.
Augustine writes that the arena "was seething with the lust
for cruelty. Alypius shut his eyes tightly, determined to have
nothing to do with these atrocities. If only he had shut his
ears as well! For an incident in the fight drew a great roar
from the crowd."
Alypius could not contain his curiosity. He opened his eyes,
and, Augustine says, "his soul was stabbed with a wound more
deadly than any which the gladiator had received in his body."
He reveled in the gore, drunk with bloodlust. He was hooked.
The Roman playwright Seneca
warned that when we make sport of maiming and killing human
beings, we render ourselves less humane. We destroy the respectful
kindness, the humanitas, characteristic of the virtuous
person. Modern research bears him out. Criminologist James Q.
Wilson describes research that links violent television with
real-life copycat crimes.
Those of us who would never dream of watching a trashy film
think nothing of sitting down to an evening of real-life murder
and mayhem. But programs that turn human suffering into entertainment
coarsen us, making us less sensitive to the pain of others.
And, as Alypius discovered, they’re addictive.
So, the next time you’re channel surfing, surf right
past the "shockumentaries." And whatever it takes, don’t
let your kids watch these programs. For so-called entertainment
programs like these literally destroy our humanitas—our
compassion towards those for whom Christ died.
Radio Transcript No. 010130
2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. All
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