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To say that Christian television is “not my thing” doesn’t even get close. Christian music, Christian bookstores, Christian television, pretty much any aspect of what some call “the Christian-Industrial Complex,” is “not my thing.” Meanwhile, I have a blog called Sarcastic Lutheran, I am married to a Lutheran pastor, am involved in the start of a new postmodern, urban Christian community and, God willing, will soon be ordained to the office of Word and Sacrament ministry in the Lutheran Church, all of which is to say, I’m pretty Christian.

I’m not alone. Simply stated, there are two Christianities in America. (There are countless more Christianities in America that do not fit into the following categories, but humor me.) Group A are Christian and typically still are part of the dominant culture. They read books from the New York Times bestseller list, watch the Simpsons, and listen to pop music. These folks are more likely to belong to the moderate-to-progressive “mainline” denominations. Group B are also Christian, and they read books and watch TV, but they read “Christian” books and watch “Christian” TV and listen to “Christian” pop; these folks are more likely to be found in the conservative evangelical, Pentecostal, or fundamentalist sector of the church. So what happens when you take someone from Group A and expose her to twenty-four hours of Group B in the form of an entire day and night of Trinity Broadcasting Network? That is the question Seabury Press asked me in the summer of 2007. A year later, this book is one answer to that question.

Honestly, my first reaction to the pitch from Seabury to watch twenty-four consecutive hours of TBN was “doesn’t the Geneva convention address that somewhere, like right after waterboarding?” But soon the idea grew on me, and I began to think of it like Theological Fear Factor or Religious Super Size Me, which made it sound kind of fun. So my first question was, naturally, “Can I invite my friends?”

A whole slew of other questions soon followed. Previous to the writing of this book the whole of my exposure to TBN was limited to hotel room channel surfing accompanied by an exclamation like “What in the world?” What little I knew about the world of Christian television I, to be honest, felt superior to. I also knew that while my first reaction to, well, almost everything, is sarcasm, the only thing that would make this project (or test of endurance, take your pick) interesting is if there were moments when I could move beyond snark and ask relevant questions of my subjects and myself. The questions gathering in my head as I prepared for my immersion experience began to take on a bit of an anthropological quality.

Actually, maybe pretending to be a professional would be the best approach. So what questions would famous primatologist Louis Leaky be asking? He’d be interested in mating, grooming, social structures, tool use, and food acquisition. Primatology is still the study of humans; we are primates after all. So in the end, what did I learn about myself as a Christian?

So in terms of mating and grooming: What messages about gender and beauty are given through the way in which the personalities are groomed and who gets to do and say what? Is there gender stratification? If so, what does it look like and can certain beliefs be extrapolated from this? Is sexuality addressed at all?

Social structures: What messages do I hear being proclaimed about wealth? Is there a discernible way in which class is being addressed? What is the connection between faith and wealth?

Tool use: How is the Bible used? Is there a consistent hermeneutic (interpretive lens) involved, or just simple prooftexting (using individual random Bible verses to back up your claim)? Even after years of theological training, did I learn something new? In what ways did the use or misuse of the biblical text make me wish to cause myself physical harm rather than keep watching. At any point did I find myself actually leaving my body, peacefully floating above the room watching myself watch TBN?

Food acquisition: Advertising. Who advertises? Is there continuity between the message of the advertisers and the message of TBN? In what ways does TBN encourage or discourage American consumer culture?

My own answers to some of these questions are found in the following pages, but others remained unanswered. Coming up with sarcastic remarks in response to the poor grammar (Creflo Dollar asking us to “stop living in unforgiveness”) and questionable theology (someone on PTL praying to “Our heavenly father Jesus Christ”) or both (Joel Osteen claiming that “God pleasures in prospering you”) was of course, effortless. Significantly less comfortable were the moments when that window into TBN became a mirror.

I began to wonder what the TBN folks would think of me, a heavily tattooed Christian progressive from a liturgical denomination. How would people in their theological camp respond to my preaching? Would they think, as I do of them, that I misuse scripture? Would they be offended at the aesthetic in the community I serve? Would they dismiss my years of theological education as silly and unnecessary? When it comes right down to it, so many of my criticisms of TBN could go both ways, and if that’s true then could it also be true, despite us both, that God is at work in my community and in (gulp) TBN? Let me just say, this is the last thing I want to be true because I love — seriously, I adore — being right. If I were Julie Andrews, I would be sitting around with a bunch of similarly dressed children singing a song about “raindrops on roses and me being right, other people being

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