Sell Me Something Juicy!

sensationalism |senˈsāSHənlˌizəm|

-noun (esp. in journalism) the use of exciting or shocking stories or language at the expense of accuracy, in order to provoke public interest or excitement: media sensationalism.

You are walking through the grocery store line, getting ready to check out--suddenly you look to your left and you see this: "Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby."  I know, that sounds ridiculous, but the fact is they are in every single line at that grocery store and all the other grocery stores across America.  This means that they are selling a boatload of these crazy magazines because it costs a lot of money in order to print and place that many.  People are buying this!!!!  It is shocking, it provokes rational thinking, creates a weird sense of fantasy and excitement--it allows you to escape your present moment to "somewhere else"...that just might be real.  If gives the reader that "what if" feeling.  It may be out there in left field, it is probably not real, but deep down inside your emotions are saying, "but, what if it is..."  At the core of this article is its ability to reach in and grab your emotions/senses.  It is called "sensationalism." 

Check out this jewel:
"Abraham Lincoln was a woman!"  Below that it says, "Shocking pix found in White House basement."  Somebody out there is saying, "Man, I knew it...I just had this weird feeling about him." 

No matter how bad we hate to admit it, good news doesn't sell.  It doesn't put dollars into the pockets of people.  Somebody learned a long time ago in media that if you say something shocking, with partial truth, slightly twisted, and mixed with some fantasy, it will sell like crazy!!  A movie that I thought was just awesome here in the last couple of years was; "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter."  Wow...did they pull me into a land of illusion with a great story, a little bit of truth, and a whole lot of conspiracy theories.  It hooked me to pay the $5.99  HD VuDu download rental price. People could care less about an elderly couple who just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.  People care less about about a small group of people that got together, spent their own money, to help out a local farmer who lost his crops because of a bad year and is now broke.  Not juicy enough...throw in a cheating wife, ufo abduction, attempted murder, and now he is facing 25 to life--you got a story! 

Tabloids pride themselves in sensationalism.  The juicier the article, the more it will sell--but the trick is making it believable.  How can you take an idea as crazy as Abraham Lincoln was a woman and make people believe it enough to want to buy it?  Give some credibility to the article by saying that pictures have been discovered in the White House basement.  How can they get away with that?  Well, it isn't directly connected to the headlines but in another text box below...but close enough to where it looks connected.  On the article above, they add credibility to the ridiculousness by saying there is a nursery in the secret service building located in the White House.  BINGO!!  A little bit of credibility to a whole lot of fantasy. Now you got a story that will $ell.  Our senses have become so dull and complacent to the beauty of the reality that we no longer see the sublime in the ordinary.  Reality has become relevant to our sense of excitement and emotional response. 

Switch gears here for a moment, but stay in the same vein of thought with me.  We know, and have known for a long, long time that sensationalism sells--reality doesn't.  Therefore, why not throw that into the religious mix.  The Bible, in context and the language it was written in (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) is one of the most practical books I've ever studied.  It speaks of internal struggles, love, depression, mental illness, joy, family, being surprised, mistakes, death, life, hurt, search for God, mid-life crisis, and everything else that deals with the human experience.  Yet, in order to deal with all of these things, humans tend to reach out to something beyond them in order to explain "why they do the things they do."  For instance, I had a man one time that I knew that really struggled with lust.  Typical man, most men do whether they will admit it or not.  In order to justify his lust, rather than just saying, "Man, I really struggle with this and I just had to get it off my chest because it is causing problems in my marriage," he responded this way to me:

"Nate, the devil is after my family." 

"Why...how is the devil after your family," I responded.

"My work fired me today and I'm in big trouble...possibly," he said.

"Huh, how did the devil get you fired from work," I questioned.

"Well, it's not that simple.  I was over at a family's house giving them a bid on some construction work we could do for them.  His wife was very attractive, the husband wasn't home, and the devil caused me to touch her inappropriately," he hesitantly whispered.

"Really...the devil took your hand, and placed it on her breast.  You're telling me that some unseen entity with power entered your body, took control, and he forced your hand on her," I said in very frustrated tone.  That wasn't the answer or response he was looking for.  What he wanted was for me to say some magical prayer, cast out some "devil", to make him feel better for what he had done--and so his family could see that he was going to a "pastor" for some spiritual guidance.  It looked good. Bottom line is that he sensationalized his actions and used a scapegoat--the devil.  Later on, I found out he not only touched the lady inappropriately, but she found him in their pool swimming naked--seriously!!  As a matter of fact, this guy had been fired from multiple jobs because of similar issues.  It was all based upon an issue not of unbridled lust, but of "demon possession." 

When it comes to much of Christianity today, hell, heaven, demons,  the devil, salvation, possession, end of the world conspiricies, angels, spiritual warfare, and countless other staples have become foundational in this religion.  Not only Christianity, but others as well--I don't want to sound like I'm just picking on Christianity, I just know the most about it.  What if these were all ways an ancient people tried to explain; sadness, joy, idols, internal struggles, faith, mental illness, war, messengers of hope, and internal conflict.  An issue I always had when I pastored was trying to explain to people that God has always been the same.  They would respond and say, "then why does God not talk to us like he talked to them back in the Bible days...what changed?" 

I would answer this by saying, "nothing changed, but the way we communicate is always changing."  I communicate differently today in 2013 than when I did in 1984.  I don't call things the same thing, but it is still the same thing.  Nothing changed about the thing itself, but the way I talk about "the thing" changed probably three or four times.  Ancient Hebrew people called any foreign god or idol made by hands a "demon."  We call a demon today a spirit or devil that is thought to possess a person's being or act as a tormentor in hell.  Hell in Jesus' day was an actual place (The Valley of Hinnom) with a lot of history behind it.  It was the city dump.  Hell today is a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death.  Something simple and ordinary has been sensationalized to make it "more marketable."  Possession in the world of the Bible is the way they attempted to explain epilepsy or mental illness.  Possession today is the state of being controlled by a demon or spirit.  This is just a few of many in the Bible.  Do you see how far we are getting from the reality of what life was really like?  The burning bush story is a perfect example.  Do you know how many times Moses saw bushes on fire living out in the desert?  Probably everyday for 40 years!  The beauty of the story is not in the bush not burning, but Moses stopping and paying attention to the ordinary.  He never lost sight of the miracle in everyday.  God spoke to him out of the ordinary. 

The problem with this is that it doesn't put butts in the pews and doesn't put money in the plates.  God speaks to people in the ordinary...c'mon man...I need some lights, spirits, a big devil with a pitch fork trying to get me, and angel dust falling from the rafters.  I'll go if I can see some of that!  It has become a false sense of reality--sensationalism.  What if all this "spiritual language" (that is what we call it, but it was ordinary language to them) in the Bible that is used was a way they communicated back then about the ordinary issues of life...would you still buy into that?  What if their isn't some horned, red, guy yielding a pitch fork and split hoofs for feet after you...because he doesn't exist?  Would that destroy your faith?  If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever then explain all this stuff written to us thousands of years ago.  I would argue that media has influenced Christianity's interpretation on the Bible more than the language it was written in.  MEDIA SELLS--it sells books, it sells church services, it helps buy big buildings, and pays salaries.  Why is gossip so bad in church?  People are bored and want to add some sensationalism to the mix the arouse the emotions, to engage their audience, and to get a crowd to listen.  Their senses are dull and they need some Hollywood drama because their reality is not as it is, but as they are and what they've become. 

"We do not see things as they are.
We see them as we are."
~~The Talmud

Languages change, communication styles change, idiomatic phrases change, slang changes, even Biblical interpretations change--God doesn't.  What are you looking for in God?  What are you looking for in religion?  What are you looking for in church?  What are you looking for in life?  Don't look far--it is all found in the ordinary events of life.