Near the beginning of last class, we started talking about metaphors for television. It was incredibly interesting to see how many people in the class had such different views and ideas of what television was to them. In Detweiller and Taylor’s writings on television, it is explained that television has evolved from one metaphor to another. However, looking at the class’s responses to what their favourite metaphors were for television, there was a huge variance in what television currently represented as. Detweiller and Taylor speak about the human condition and the nature of God being revealed through the history of television. One of the metaphors, developed throughout the history of television, which caught my attention, was television being a comfort. This is perhaps because I commonly see television being a comfort to my family and many friends. In this section, Detweiller and Taylor writes the following two statements in regards to weekly church services performing a similar function to television acting as a comfort.
“Comfort comes from familiarity, from repetition, from ritual.”
“We check in with the same people at the same time and follow the same formula each week.”
This quick interesting video that is an example showing a church service that follows a common prototype.
Going back to an insider’s approach, I can see a clear example of the missiological approach explained in Lynch’s article “Why Should Theologians and Scholars of Religion Study Popular Culture?” It is definitely interesting to see how this trend of television being a comfort is reflected through the church’s method of engaging current audiences and members.
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