“If we could only spread the Gospel like we’ve spread Alias.”  One of my good friends said this to me only after a few weeks of listening to me trying to tell others about my Sunday-night-at-9pm-wind-down-from-church activity.  He too began to watch and told someone else.  In fact, the group of friends who watched Alias finally topped out at around twenty people.  Lunches, dinners, and e-mail, telephone, and hallway conversations often revolved around Alias.  Sometimes we even coded our conversations with insider Alias language.  Eventually the show Lost came to consume us just like Alias did.  The same habits overtook our interactions with each other, only this time with Lost at the forefront of the conversation.  Another friend introduced me to the show Family Guy, which seemed to capture his attention more than any other show.  Thinking about the role these shows played in my life and in the lives of those around me pushed me to think about the intersection of television watching practices and specifically Christian practices.  How did my “Christian” practices of reading Scripture match up to my television watching practices?

This essay investigates what television viewers are doing with the programs they watch.  Moreover, I hope to show that American television viewers often are doing much more in their watching practices than is commonly thought.  I also posit that these television watching practices have the potential to aid contemporary American readers of the Christian Scriptures, keeping in mind that many television watchers are also readers of Scripture.  I believe that there is much that readers of the Christian Scriptures can learn from television watching practices that can enrich their reading and interpretation of the Christian Scriptures.

Reading Scripture and Watching Television?

To begin, we should consider how readers practice interpreting the Christian Scriptures.  Stanley Hauerwas contends that faithful interpretation of the Christian Scriptures must, first of all be performed by Christians, and second, learn from the authoritative interpretive traditions of Christian history.  He indicts American interpreters as being too individualistic, making meaning of the Bible using their own “common sense.”(1)  The valuing of individual, democratic interpretation, he suggests, leads to a proliferation of interpretations which are not accountable to other interpreters or to a larger, truer tradition.  Hauerwas stands firm in saying that he does “not believe, in the Church’s current circumstance, that each person in the Church thereby is given the right to interpret Scripture.”(2)   

Multiple interpretations of Scripture, according to Hauerwas, are not necessarily true ones, no matter how well thought.  In this “current circumstance,” each interpreter’s work is only valid in the private sphere, belonging to no one but the individual.  Since there is no utility or ability for collective interpretation, the memory of interpretive traditions is not valued and its interpretive practices are lost.  In Hauerwas’ eyes, the American church has forsaken its global history of interpretation.  Hauerwas combats this, suggesting that Christian interpretive practices can only be learned within the Christian community and that those reading devices are the only ones that lead to appropriate reading(s).  Clearly Hauerwas is reaching for the devices and interpretations of the dominant traditions of church history.

Television watching is a practice that, according to Hauerwas’ principles, may lead readers down the path of unfaithful reading practices.  Contemporary cultural critics locate television as the chief among sinners in passive American activities.  Viewers are indicted for letting “garbage in” without intellectual interaction or use of restraint.  These claims, however, do not seem to be rooted in any observation of actual viewing practices.  They are made, rather, simply based on the mass quantity of “low brow” content that contemporary Americans consume at amazing rates.  Indeed, Americans do spend an inordinate amount of time in front of their household shrines.  They watch reality shows and are labeled voyeurs, sports and are labeled lazy, and violent crime dramas and are labeled sensational.  But again, this analysis neglects what television viewers are actually doing with what they watch.

 “Did you watch Alias last night?”  “I’ll record it for you.”

Conversation among those of us who watched Alias and Lost usually began with the question “Did you watch [name of show] last night?”  This question implied that the activity was important enough that the other person should have performed it as well. There was something at stake for the relationship in watching the program. 

It also meant that if the person said no, there was a breach in an unspoken agreement.  If the other person had not watched the program, meaningful conversation about the show could not take place.  As the question weaved its way into regular conversation events, a mutual accountability regularly occurred in my community of watchers.  Members of our little group were expected to watch, not just for private entertainment, but also so that they could engage in conversation about the shows.  These conversations became so interesting and so much a part of our life together that friends wanted to discipline themselves to watch, not because they feared being shunned, but because those conversations were so enjoyable.

If others were not able to watch at the particular time when the show aired, other members of the group who did have the ability to watch would record the show and deliver it to them.  The mutual accountability extended to acts of charity for group members.  There were no strings attached, no expectations for returned favors.  This accountability and charity was not restricted to my community.  As I moved to a new location, my new boss, whom I discovered to be an avid Lost fan, attempted to alter my Wednesday night work schedule so I could watch on Wednesday nights.  Accountability led to acts of charity and a way of maintaining the group’s ability to carry on conversation.  Each watcher was interested in maintaining the practice within the community and engaged in charitable acts to ensure that possibility.  It seems rather strange that this came from simply watching television and not from something much grander and even from what might be called a Christian practice.

“Here’s my theory about Locke…”

The content of the conversations was quite simple.  Alias and Lost are shows with complex on-going plots where each episode usually ends in a type of “cliffhanger.”  After watching Alias and Lost and making sure each other had watched, it was necessary to bring theories to one another.  Each person who watched was connected with characters and plots and became responsible for developing theories about the show.  One of the most interesting characters on Lost is a character named John Locke.  Everyone seemed to gravitate towards theorizing about Locke and those theories were never private.  If they were only private theories, they were of no value to the group and, in fact violated the accountability that had developed.

Theories could not develop out of thin air.  Members always eschewed consulting internet “spoilers” for acquiring theories.  There were two standards for theories that were ultimately validated or invalidated by the community of watchers.  First, theories had to answer to the question of history: “Where have we been in this show and where are we going?”  Theories about developing plot lines and characters were subject to the limits of the story’s own history.  Far-fetched theories were immediately deemed improbable according to the show’s own criteria.  Second, theories were authorized by how they corresponded to other theories presented by the community.  Each watcher brought his or her logically deduced and arguable proposition before other watchers for either a vote of confidence or implausibility.  Often an equally creative theory was excused in favor of a theory that made more sense because of the conversation illuminating clues others had not observed.  Of course theories were always subject to the next episode which proved us right or wrong.  Developing theories was a major interpretive device for watching Lost or Alias and each person was responsible for contributing to the larger interpretive conversation.

“This reminds me of an episode of Family Guy.”

When riding in a car with one of my best friends, we could often hear him say “this reminds me of an episode of Family Guy.”  Admittedly this is not the most “Christian” of television shows, but most important is that this friend was making connections between real life and the story lines which were embedded in his memory.  Regardless of the real life situation, be it funny, sad, or ordinary, my friend would often display the ability to connect a real life situation with a portion of the show.  How it connected was up to my friend.  His own ability to take his memories of the show and interpret real life situations with those memories exercised a great deal of individual agency that no television executive could plan.  In other words, he was not as passive as cultural critics make viewers out to be.  Of course the writers and producers of shows write and produce to make the show memorable, but they do not dictate how viewers will remember the shows and use those memories. 

Those of us who did not watch Family Guy had little to no context for understanding my friend’s connections.  As he developed this genre of memory for us, however, we eventually began to find ourselves able to rehearse episodes we had not watched.  “The time when Peter…” became our own memory, passed onto us secondhand, even though we may not have watched.  My friend’s commentary on life became ours as well.  At this point, not only were we able to reproduce his memory and interpretation, we were also aware that this was a device we could use with television shows we watched that others did not.  Although it is rather simple, collective memory was an interpretive device that readily emerged from the community of television watchers.

Watching Television and Reading Scripture

Can the readers of the Christian Scriptures learn from the practices of my community of television watchers?  In contrast to what Hauerwas says, I believe the answer is a resounding yes.  Although the viewers in my community were confessing Christians, none of them, I believe, would answer that they learned how to watch television, as we practiced it, from the church.  Those practices should not be labeled useless simply because they did not emerge from the church.  Rather watching television formed interpretive practices that can and should be performed when reading Scripture.  Television watching practices and television watching communities can inform the interpretive traditions of those who read Scripture.

Readers can see a pattern of mutual accountability and charity in viewers.  This is precisely what Hauerwas claims is missing from American biblical interpretation and something he only finds can be learned from ancient reading practices .  In my community, there was little to no anxiety in asking someone, “Did you watch Alias last night?”  In fact, it was an obligation.  Here we can learn from viewers because readers of the Christian Scripture infrequently function like this.  It is rare to see Christians holding each other accountable for reading the Christian Scriptures or to practice charitable acts in order to foster reading, but it does happen.  Perhaps reading Scripture like we watched Alias would help encourage that accountability more.

Readers of the Christian Scriptures should be responsible for bringing theories and interpretations to the community, just as viewers are.  The popular Bibles sold in America do not allow an individual to engage the text without study notes or devotional thoughts.  Critical engagement with the biblical text is often thrown out in favor of the opinion of the detached scholar or spiritual director on the page.  Contrary to what Hauerwas believes about individual readings of Scripture, those readings can be worked out in community and often are.  Readers acknowledge that their theories about a text might be askew, but they also work within the history of the Christian tradition for guidance.  Humility, creativity, and mutuality are key devices both for viewing and reading Scripture.

Finally, we should find ourselves so deeply connected to Scripture, like my friend’s memories of Family Guy, that Scripture takes over our deep memories.  We should be able to encounter the situations of our lives with the texts of Scripture embedded in our minds, resonating with how we experience the world.  Simply learning the interpretations of the “spiritual masters” Hauerwas champions does not ensure that readers will allow those readings to take over their imaginations and memories.(3) We should learn to imitate those in our community who carry the texts of Scripture with them and learn from their interpretive devices, using them as we find them helpful.

Of course there are instances where reading Scripture in this way can go wrong.  Television watching practices do not ensure foolproof, faithful interpretive practices.  There are individuals who do sit alone in their homes, never talking about what they watch with others.  There is a tendency within American culture to worship television stars and shows, much like there is a dangerous tendency for American Christians to worship the Bible rather than the God of the Bible.  Obviously a collective memory of Family Guy may not lead to “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure”(4) as daily meditation on the Psalms may.  It is not an easy process to appropriate these devices for reading Scripture and certainly it must be done with care.  There are dangers to using practices outside the Christian tradition with such an important task as reading Scripture.  Hauerwas is right to be concerned with how people read the Bible, but we should be more open to places and practices that may lead to faithfully interpretation, even if they are outside traditional church boundaries.

An interesting question for those of us who care deeply about the church’s practice of reading Scripture is how or if these practices can be taught to others.  Reading Scripture in this way is practiced by some, while for others it may need to be taught.  I find it helpful to think of these practices like a natural resource.  Natural resources have to be uncovered and used appropriately.  Some may find the resource in their backyard; others may have to go searching for the resource.  And while some may have the resource, they may need someone to point out its presence and usefulness.  To make this illustration plain: there are some who are reading Scripture using these principles without their knowledge or without thinking about how they watch television.  There are others who may need to learn from television watching communities about better ways to read Scripture.  However these skills are discovered, they are vital for biblical interpretation.

May those with eyes to see, view and read with one another, develop theories together, and share memories that inform life.

1. Stanley Hauerwas, Unleashing the Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America, (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 15.

2. Ibid., 16. 

3. Ibid., 16.

4. Philippians 4.8