"Remote Control" Bonus Content

What do The Simpsons, Family Guy, Friends, and The Sopranos all have in common?

A. They portray dysfunctional people and families.
B. They mock Christians and creationists.
C. They’re among the most-watched TV shows at Christian colleges.
D. All of the above.
E. Only A, B.

The correct response is “E.” Surprised? I was as well.  After the many conversations I’ve had with Christian college students I would’ve answered “D” . . . that Christian students were watching these (generally bad) TV programs at their Christian college.
 
Recently my son showed me something that verified my fears. He found a website where college students fill out a survey and the results are compiled, showing their TV/movie-viewing habits. It was worse than I’d thought.  You can compare different schools with each other. I compared my son’s “Christian” school with Harvard, MIT, Oxford, and the formerly #1 rated party school in America, Arizona State. To be blunt, I was shocked. You couldn’t tell the Christian school from any of the others.
 
I then went to other Christian schools considered to be “conservative” and, sadly, the results were the same. It turns out that The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Friends were in the top five of all schools whether they were Christian or not.

The gangster series The Sopranos didn’t make the list (and that’s why the answer on the previous page is “E”) even though it is extremely popular. Talking with some college students later on I found out why it didn’t make the list. “That’s on HBO and we don’t want to pay for it.  We watch it when we go home!”  Well, as unfortunate as it is, many Christians are watching these shows, so we need to learn to look at them critically.