The Sacred Sandwich

November17th

10 Comments

Let’s face it. When walking through the grazing land of television programming to search for decent entertainment, you gotta tiptoe around a whole lot of cowpies. And if the TV shows themselves don’t assault you with provocative images and unbiblical messages, then the commercials will. I mean, do we really need Victoria to show us all her secrets? That’s why many Christians today have opted to turn exclusively to Christian networks or just turn off their TVs.

Recently, however, the major television networks have been trying to woo back the substantial Christian market with more faith-friendly content. Unfortunately, because of a complete lack of originality and a rampant misunderstanding of their target audience, not many of the networks’ ideas for Christian programming have made it to the small screen as of yet.

After a thorough investigation by your wayfaring correspondent, I have uncovered a short list of some of the TV pilots for the Christian market that were recently rejected by ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX. Here are the top 15 titles in no particular order that did not make it onto the networks’ Fall lineups this year:

The Amazing Grace

CSI: Willow Creek

Extreme Makeover: Church Edition

SpongeBob SquareJones

Found

Desperate Deacon’s Wives

How I Met Your Mother Superior

Home School Musical

America’s Funniest Nooma Videos

The O’Reilly Rector

Law & Order: Covenantal Intent

Potluck Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey

Arminian Idol

Warren & Osteen’s Laugh-In

Dancing with the Baptists

Let’s just hope that next year the television industry can gain the invaluable assistance of prominent Hollywood Christians to help them create a new frontier in Christian programming before TBN corners the whole flippin’ market.

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10 Comments

  • Comment by Linda George — November 17, 2008 @ 4:56 pm

    What about Ever Decreasing Circles? Or was it the other way around? It’s about a man who asks his wife to walk slower as the labyrinth shrinks so her day is really full… And other fun stuff.

  • Comment by Eddie Eddings — November 17, 2008 @ 7:59 pm

    “Arminian Idol”…HA HA! that almost made me spew coffee out of my nose!…and I was drinking tea!

  • Comment by Carol — November 20, 2008 @ 9:52 pm

    Not to mention “The Biggest Loser Church Edition”…after all of those potluck dinners, they needed some serious dieting….

  • Pingback by Good Reads {21 November, 2008} :: Word And Verse — November 21, 2008 @ 8:06 am

    [...] # Why stop at just adapting secular songs as Christian ones for worship? “Great” ideas like that should be extended to Christian programming on TV! [...]

  • Comment by Brian — November 21, 2008 @ 12:30 pm

    Loved it. I’m a big fan of CSI and L&O, so those were especially funny to me!

  • Pingback by From The Sacred Sandwich « 1.21 blog — November 21, 2008 @ 12:48 pm

    [...] how Christians have a tendency to ghettoize themselves by creating their own subculture. I saw this posted at the Sacred Sandwich, and thought I’d share it with you. The sad thing is, it’s not [...]

  • Comment by Steve — November 25, 2008 @ 8:35 am

    Hilarious!

    Here’s the ones I thought of getting ready for work this morning…

    - “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Televangelist Edition”

    - “CCMTV’s Cribs”: Contemporary Christian Music Television presents exclusive tours through the domestic sanctuaries that some of today’s most biggest stars call home. Upcoming editions feature the Osteen estate and Joyce Meyer’s compound.

    - “Judge Deborah”

    - “The Best #$%! Church Show Period”: Your host Mark Driscoll takes you through the weekly highlights and blooper reels of pulpits around the country.

    - “The NC”: Christian follow up to ‘The OC’, but soon canceled from the PBC (Presbyterian Broadcasting Network) since it was viewed to be nothing more than a new administration of the old show.

    - “Prison Break – Greenville”: A group of Calvinists try to escape from Bob Jones University.

    - “D3uteronomy”

    - “Heaven’s Kitchen”

    - “Married, with 27 Children”: On the family-integrated network.

    - “Rock Star: Petra”

    - “Last Pastor Standing”

    - “The Pastoral Apprentice”: Donald trump fires one Pastoral Candidate each week for not increasing church profits.

    - “Denominational Gladiators”

    - “Battlestar Galatia”

    - “So You Think You Can Preach”

  • Comment by Angus — November 25, 2008 @ 10:03 am

    Steve:

    You’ve dug up some comedy gold. “So You Think You Can Preach” Ow, stop it. My sides are splitting.

  • Comment by Drew — December 9, 2008 @ 10:31 am

    I’m not so sure that “Desperate Deacon’s Wives” would be a family friendly show!

  • Comment by Elizabeth — October 9, 2009 @ 9:03 pm

    They came pretty close to Home School Musical – Sunday School Musical.

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