I was sitting in a waiting room recently and the TV was stuck on one of those Christian TV networks. There was no remote control and the volume was just loud enough that you could not easily ignore it.
My choice is to stand in the driving rain with no internet access or sit in the room with the loud televangelist and be able to read e-mail. I reluctantly chose to sit in the TV area.
And I was glad I did because sometimes Christian TV networks can be full of unintentional humor. This program was no exception.
It was a Christian talk show of some sort and the host was talking about a new statistic he had run across on divorce rates among christians. It seems that the divorce rate among Christians is 24%. That seems like a great statistic until he mentions that the divorce rate among non-Christians is only 20%.
In the non-Christian TV world, one expects that when a statistic like that is thrown out, it's either as just a one-off, or if it is a deeper story, the person presenting the information will then go on and discuss the story in depth by talking to experts in this field. In Christian TV, they go another way.
They go into a marketing pitch.
The reason the host explained for this statistic was, "...a famine for gods word." Then the host explained what he meant by the term, famine of god and then offered some bible quotes from the book, Acts. Then the host started pushing a new bible written by some guy that will better help you retain the word of god. This was followed by an ad for the same product available for only $49.95. You'll have to excuse me for not mentioning it, this is not an ad for god or the bible.
The program I was watching was a blatant infomercial disguised as a serious talk show. Imagine if each Oprah segment was followed by an infomercial for a related product.
After the pitch was over and the host moved onto a new product, I realized that there were no statistics on the success rate of Christian marriages after purchasing this product. You would think that if such statistics existed, they would be used in the promotion of the product. I was left with the conclusion if I bought the product, I would spend $49.95, plus shipping and handling with no guarantee the product would help my marriage at all.
In fact, the best way to help my marriage would be to turn my back on Christianity. According to the TV program, this would give me a 4% better success rate, plus I save money.
Best of all, I would have no reason to watch Christian TV, which seems to be a long series of pledge drives and infomercials anyway, freeing up more time for enjoyable activities I could plan with my spouse.
I am so excited by this revelation that I am thinking about getting married so I can somehow test this theory.
