Page 174 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Born-agains and mainstream believers 163

commonplace experience of secular American culture, rife with the kinds
of secular humanist values that the Callahans otherwise criticize. There is a
sense in which the Callahans’ most precious television experience embeds
them in secular culture more readily than it does in sectarian or religious
culture. They do not engage in a religiously based values critique of ER.
Instead, they view it, and could be argued to therefore participate in a
generalized American cultural experience of a rather fundamental kind. In
that way they are not that different from the Millikens, and do experience
the pull to participate in the cultural experience of television viewing much
as their non-born-again neighbors do.

The Alberts
A third family, the Alberts, present an interesting contrast and compar-
11
ison with the Millikens and the Callahans. Describing themselves in a way
that seems much more restrictive of their children’s viewing than the
12
others, the Alberts nonetheless agree that their role is not to dictate what
their children’s moral choices should be, but to give them tools to make
those choices on their own. Like others, Rachel Albert, the mother, sees a
fundamental conflict between “the media” and “Christian values.” Like
the Callahans, she and Terry, her husband, illustrate this point primarily
by means of references to politically charged “moral values” like diversity
and environmental awareness. Like the others, they identify as “accept-
able” programs that are sentimental or inoffensive like the Callahans but,
unlike the Millikens, find The Simpsons to be an unacceptable program.
Among the sentimental and inoffensive programming they find acceptable,
they regularly view Home Improvement and Seventh Heaven as a family.
Also like the others, the Alberts express a view that is critical of received,
traditional “religion,” even denying that they are in any way “religious.”
And yet they are clearly and proudly “born-again Christians.”
For the Alberts as with others, the focus on the perfection of the reli-
gious self separates them from institutional authority, and makes them
critical or suspicious of it. To Terry, this means that it is up to him to exer-
cise his own moral choices, “to make my own walk.”

[T]he longer I go . . . the longer that I walk with Christ, the more I
realize that religion . . . well, it just stymies the growth of the human
being, and I think there’s a lot of taboos that the Christian church –
quote, unquote – would say permeates our society, but I don’t know
that they’re all as important or as radically harmful to us as it would
be portrayed or be thought of within the Christian realm. Meaning, by
watching Dawson’s Creek with my children. I can say, “See, they’re
havin’ sex. Sex is good. But sex with 18-year-olds, not married, having
no idea what they’re doing, is not good.” So basically using things