SOUND OFF: Does TV Make Christians Look Crazy?

When I turn on the TV, it's clear that we live in a very non-religious society. Horatio Cain in CSI: Miami doesn't say a quick prayer before he makes a supposedly clever comment about a crime scene, and you don't see Blair Waldorf or Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Girl showing off their trendy hijabs to each other.

When we do see characters who identify themselves as religious (think Booth on Bones or Rachel and Puck on Glee) it's not like it really matters much; it's more to create some kind of diversity in characters to satisfy the viewers' and station's standards.

What I do see a lot of in the media is hypocritical (and usually ridiculous) characters identified as Christians – characters who make a random appearance simply to be laughed at or to screw something up for a character that everyone loves. Whereas it seems like in real life most Christians are just trying to get along like everyone else, in TV land, there's no higher calling than to ruin lives.

Often, crime shows like Law and Order feature characters that supposedly see angels and demons, which in turn tell them to kill people in the name of God. They're usually portrayed as weak and single-minded and they usually get sent back to the asylum by the end of the episode. Does that only sound sad and far-fetched to me?

Glee, as I mentioned before, though generally quirky and funny, fails to create Christian characters that aren’t like all the other stereotypical ones on TV. For example, although Quinn wears a cross necklace and was president of the celibacy club, she is really just a, well, female dog. She bullies other characters, cheated on her boyfriend and – while she is occasionally kind – spends a lot of time scheming and ruining the lives of the other characters. Would it make sense for a religion focused on love to be so hateful?

Do the writers of these shows really think Christians are extremely rude and hypocritical, or just extremely crazy? And do we let that cloud our view when we look around at the kids at school who talk about church and wear Hawk Nelson shirts? It isn't fair to lump all Christians into boxes like these, just as it is unfair and untrue to say all Muslims are terrorists.

Not every Christian is one of these extreme caricatures that we see everyday in the media – quite the opposite in fact. Some are activists like Martin Luther King. Some are famous, like Carrie Underwood, Kristin Chenoweth, and the Jonas Brothers; but most are just ordinary people, not at all looking for demons to defeat or more booze to drink.

Since pop culture seems to be pointing fingers at hypocrites and sensationalizing a few stories of some believers gone mad, make sure to look a little further into these stereotypes. It’s clear that not everything or everyone has “As Seen on TV” stamped on it.