c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In a culture that trivializes everything, God is not exempt from our breezy superficiality.

Neil Postman once warned that in our embrace of electronic media we were “amusing ourselves to death.” Postman believed the problem was the medium, not just the content, agreeing with Marshall McLuhan who said, “The medium is the message.”

Since the 1960s, we’ve embarked on a bold new experiment that favors the senses (particularly sight and sound) over words and reason. MTV elevated sensory media to an art form. MTV’s founding chairman, Bob Pittman, put it this way: “What we’ve introduced is non-narrative form; we rely on mood and emotion. We make you feel a certain way as opposed to you walking away with any particular knowledge.”

The consequences for religious life are staggering, considering that popular culture has become a primary place where many Americans do their theology. In her book, “God Talk in America,” Phyllis Tickle observes: “More theology is conveyed in, and probably retained from, one hour of popular television, than from all the sermons that are also delivered on any given weekend in America’s synagogues, churches and mosques.”

Which brings us to “Evan Almighty.”

Comedy is hot in Hollywood. Time magazine recently called “funny guys … the new movie studs.” It seems we are prepared to laugh about anything. “Evan Almighty,” the comedic retelling of the Noah and the Ark story, was released the same weekend as “Knocked Up,” a comedic treatment of unwanted pregnancy.

“Evan Almighty” stars the talented Steve Carell as a congressman whose life gets turned upside-down when God (Morgan Freeman in a dapper white suit) appears and mysteriously commands him to build an ark. Freeman is a kinder, gentler God who explains that the story of Noah is about God’s love, not wrath. That would be a surprise to the writer of Genesis, but this is Hollywood after all. A new screenwriter had to be brought in to fix the original’s politically incorrect message.

Don’t get me wrong _ I am not advocating humorless religion. I laughed and felt positively uplifted by “Evan.” There is comedic content in the Bible, and the Noah story offers ample opportunity for the comic imagination. Earlier movies like “Oh God” saw George Burns in the role of God, swearing in at the courtroom on a Bible and saying, “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me Me.” It’s a funny line; and I’m sure God is secure enough to handle it.

My concern is more with the religious community than with Hollywood. As entertainment’s role as a preacher and teacher has expanded, religion’s influence has declined. The result is a severe biblical illiteracy. Watch Jay Leno’s “Jay Walking” interviews and you’ll hear young people who think Joan of Arc was married to Noah of Ark.

Which brings us to J.B. Phillips, Donald McCullough and Annie Dillard.

In “Your God Is Too Small,” Phillips urged Christians not to settle for a God made in our own image, but rather to seek the one true God. McCullough updated this theme in his superb book, “The Trivialization of God,” observing that a visit to an average church “will likely find a congregation comfortably relating to a deity who fits nicely within precise doctrinal positions, or who lends almighty support to social crusades, or who conforms to individual experiences. But you will not likely find much awe.” Dillard, meanwhile, once described today’s Christians as “cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute.”

Hollywood saw “Evan Almighty” as an ideal film for people of faith, and actively recruited pastors to view this film in hopes that they would recommend it to their flock. It is a clean film _ no sex, violence, profanity or nudity _ but is also a light, frothy commercialized retelling of a serious biblical story.

If “Evan Almighty” becomes an attention getter that motivates moviegoers to explore the biblical story of Noah and its intertwined themes of judgment and grace, that will be great news. But if it is _ as I suspect it will be _ just a fun, uplifting night out with the family, viewers will be left with an MTV view of God: feelings, but no particular knowledge.

(Dick Staub is the author of “The Culturally Savvy Christian” and the host of The Kindlings Muse (http://www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at http://www.dickstaub.com)

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