Restoring Faith in the New TV Pulpit : Television: Mainstream religions haven’t used the airwaves to maximum effect to deliver their messages.

I was thinking of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen the other day.

He was something.

In the 1950s, he was probably the best-known clergyman in the country.

TV did it.

He had a series called “Life Is Worth Living” that ran in prime time --competing with Milton Berle and Red Skelton--on the old Dumont network, then switched to ABC.

The little lessons delivered by the Catholic bishop and his sign-off--”God love you”--were mesmerizing. This was a star. And even if you sometimes questioned his views, you had to hand it to him: When he made his criticisms, he didn’t just curse the dark--he lit a few candles.

Sheen knew that television was the new pulpit. But mainstream religion now has fallen on hard times in TV.

For the past few decades, flamboyant evangelists have been the dominant TV face of religion to a new generation. Miracle healers and money-seeking preachers--even those who have been discredited--represent a lasting image of religion to many TV viewers who may not attend a church or synagogue or remember when things were different.

Easy to get cynical.

Oh yes, there are some religious cable channels, such as VISN--the Vision Interfaith Satellite Network. And you can pick up a few, non-evangelistic weekend religious shows on the traditional local TV stations.

The Big Three networks abandoned such weekly religious series as “The Eternal Light,” “Lamp Unto My Feet” and “Look Up and Live” years ago.

I’m not a particularly religious person. But what made me think about this state of affairs the other day was the proposed new code by the Atlanta-based Christian Film and Television Commission, supported by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony.

Now, no one can deny the frequent excesses of current TV and films, or the right to cry foul or the suggestion by commission Chairman Ted Baehr that the entertainment industry is out of touch with much of America.

The entertainment industry may well be out of touch with everything east of La Cienega Boulevard.

At any rate, the proposed code set me to thinking. Not so much about the clean-as-a-whistle revisions it wants in film and TV content, because most of the recommendations don’t stand a practical chance in the tough-as-nails 1990s. Pressure groups protesting the new sleaze and liberties of Hollywood entertainment are already on record--from studios to TV’s ad agencies.

No, what really set me to thinking was how reactive religious groups and spokesmen have become to entertainment--trying to change, and sometimes censor, what others have wrought rather than seizing the mantle of creativity and presenting major alternatives.

Yes, there have been films made by producers with traditional religious messages. But the pattern generally has been to curse the darkness rather than light candles.

One Bishop Sheen was worth a thousand protests.

Yet today, the Rev. Donald Wildmon and his threatened advertising boycotts probably have more real impact on show business than all the best-intended homilies of the Pope or any other religious leader.

In a nutshell, the great traditional religions of America have really failed to get a handle on commercial TV and use it to maximum effect to deliver their messages of real faith.

It’s difficult to imagine a more worthwhile cause. And in one sense, the time is genuinely ripe because of the disrepute into which such high-profile TV evangelists as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart have fallen.

There is, I suspect, a real yearning out there in the public to return to uplifting and lasting values after the sickening materialism of the 1980s and the state in which it has left us.

A number of effective TV personalities--Billy Graham, Pat Robertson and Robert Schuller, to name a few--are well-known to the viewing audience as individuals. But what is remarkable is that we rarely think of the major religions themselves as using the tube effectively.

The separation of church and state is one thing, but the separation of church and television is foolish--and perhaps fatal to breeding congregations of the future.

Thus far, cable TV, with such outlets as VISN, the Eternal Word Television Network and the Jewish Television Network, has helped pave the way for mainstream congregations on the home medium. Yet not all such outlets are easily available. Some are probably not even known to many TV viewers.

What to do?

In both cable and on traditional TV, the hard fact is that attractive personalities, well-promoted and presented in formats that are compelling, are the simple solution to opening the door. Technology imposes its own morality, and you just have to deal with it.

To allow evangelists to monopolize mainstream TV religious programs is not only wrongheaded thinking by the major churches and synagogues, it is also an abdication of an arena that helps set the patterns of modern life and thinking.

Is there room for religious programs on mainstream television in the era of “Studs” and “A Current Affair”? Can you think of a better time?

There is no doubt in my mind that Bishop Sheen could have blown away both shows. He handled Milton Berle, who said that, after all, the bishop had better writers.

Ironically, the current era of reality shows seems a particularly advantageous time for mainstream religious organizations to float some series with clergy who have no political or evangelical axes to grind.

I may not be very religious, but I have admired the good, civilized feel of such religious series as “Frontiers of Faith,” “American Religious Town Hall,” “The Christophers,” “Faith for Today” and “This Is the Life”--not to mention the tales of “Insight” from the forward-looking Paulist Productions.

Would you believe there once was an Emmy award for “best cultural, religious or educational program”? Is it so crazy to believe that a program like “Life Is Worth Living” could startle the network wizards again?

Creating something worth viewing is a better path than reactive criticism and boycotts. It’s a better path than censorship.

All you need is faith.