Microwave-Dinner Spirituality

Ding!
The microwave sounds my dinner. I unfold my little tin Autobots TV dinner tray (second hand store for 3$, a steal!) sit down on the couch and pick up the remote.*

My wife is visiting her mother.

There isn't much on here that I care to watch, I'm more of a movie man. Give me Lord of the Rings or Gladiator any day, but TV? Groucho Marx once quipped that he found TV very educational: every time someone turned it on, he went in the other room and read a book. That's me, but I have a hard time reading while trying to cut microwave steak.

So, as I flip through the bizarrely limited channels (64 on my box) here in Japan, I decide to stay focused on the 10 or so American, British and French channels I can at least somehow relate to (Japanese game shows give a new meaning to the word, 'strange.')
I see there is a show, Heroes. I think that's pretty fly if not a straight rip off of X-men. Then there is Supernatural where two brothers kinda fight the demon world. Medium pops up. That is kinda fun I guess, esp because I like the dude that plays her husband. Ghost Whisperer is on TV for two reasons that seem to be the center of every shot. Several different ghost stories on the Mystery channel (I sure do miss Jeremy Brett as Holmes...) and a number of magic, psychic and spiritual "chasers" and debunkers show up, BPRD style, on Discovery. Then again, I could go watch Angels and Demons, I always did like Ewen McGregor.

All this crud on TV - fun crud, mind you, but crud nonetheless - that plays up "spirituality" without all the heavy morality that might drive viewers away. Are we so starved for something that will pander to that hole in our soul? Hollywood's little brother apparently wants to redefine 'religion' as post-modern vague spirituality in its own terms (as though the Enlightenment wasn't enough.)

Tom Wright notes

"...there has been a resurgence of interest in our post-secular world in all kinds of vaguely "religious" or "spiritual" matters. Bookshops produce ever larger sections on "spiritual growth," with sections on reincarnation, "channeling," Feng Shui, discovering one's personal goddess and other apparently enticing topics. "Spirituality" and "divinity" have, it seems come back with a bang -- a long as they have nothing to do with anything like mainstream Christianity, which is usually represented in the same bookshops by a selection of white-bound Bibles and Prayer Books, designed to be confirmation presents and, one may safely assume in 95 percent of the cases, destined to be left to gather dust on a shelf. (Aside from that, some of the larger bookstores.... will stock lurid books of the "Jesus-was-an-Egyptian-Freemason" type but not so often the equally readable and ultimately far more satisfying books that explore the actual historical origins and contemporary meaning of genuine Christianity.)"
(N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus; Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 97)

I love his commentary remark about these topics being "apparently enticing." I want to know, who decides what goes on the shelves or on TV? TV I can understand, but bookstores stock only some books while ignoring others, as though trying to tell the public that real scholarship doesn't exist, or at least pretending that what they have to offer is the real scholarship.

Why do you think we have so many spiritual placebos floating around? Any thoughts? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

*I don't really do this, its just fun to remember the 1970's. Honest.