Britain's Christian Reality Show

On the surface, the U.K.'s latest reality show, Make Me A Christian, sounds like it could be a good thing. Christian leaders take a bunch of unlikely candidates for conversion—such as a lesbian, a lap dancer, a militant atheist and a lapsed Christian—and attempt to bring them to the faith over a period of three weeks. The show's stated premise is to find out if Christianity can repair Britain's moral decline.

In a perfect world, that kind of show could expose the Christian faith to millions who don't know much about it and, at the very least, start many good conversations. But when I first heard about it, I didn't cheer, I cringed. That's because it seems like the media can never quite get Christianity right. I don't know if it's because we don't make for good TV ratings or because the liberal media is out to get us or what, but whenever there are Christians being portrayed on TV, it's rarely accurate and its rarely good.

That's the case in Britain, as well, because many believers are crying foul at the new reality show.

"The program says little about relationship and a great deal about regulation," Melvyn Cooke, minister of Gillingham Methodist Church, said in a Christianity Today article. "While there is a slim chance it may promote conversation, by and large my view is that it is damaging to the gospel."

Joanna Jepson, a chaplain that took part in the show, told the Daily Telegraph that the program was designed to make Christians look like they were imposing their standards on everyone else. "Christian behavior is only possible after a spiritual transformation," she said.

As cynical as I'd like to be about an evil TV agenda here, I suspect the answer is a little simpler. Christianity is almost impossible to understand unless you've experienced it. There's no way to understand what it feels like to have the Holy Spirit inside of you, guiding your life. Non-Christians often look to our external behaviors to explain us, and in doing so completely miss the point of the Christian life. I guess that's why the Bible tells us that we will be aliens in this world.

(Interesting side note: last Christmas the same British channel ran a show called Make Me A Muslim, and found similar complaints from Muslim groups who said the show focused too much on the rules and not enough on faith.)