- Academic Calendar
- _
- Access and Equity
- _
- Administration
- _
- Calendars
- _
- Campus Life
- _
- Controller's Office
- _
- Email Search
- _
- Emergency Preparedness
- _
- Employers
- _
- Employment
- _
- Financial Aid
- _
- Human Resources
- _
- Human Rights
- _
- Information Technology
- _
- Libraries
- _
- Maps
- _
- Meadows Museum
- _
- News
- _
- Public Affairs
- _
- Registrar
- _
- Saving for College
- _
- Site Index
- _
- Student Accounts
- _
- Substance Abuse Prevention
- _
- Visit SMU
- _
- Webmail
- _
- Academic Calendar
- _
- _
- _
- Career Center
- _
- Health Center
- _
- Leadership & Community Involvement
- _
- New Student Programs
- _
- Parent & Family Programs
- _
- Recreational Sports
- _
- Residence Life & Student Housing
- _
- Services for Students with Disabilities
- _
- Student Activities & Multicultural Student Affairs
- _
- Student Center
- _
- Student Conduct and Community Standards Office
- _
- Student Life
- _
- University Chaplain
- _
- Women’s Center
- _
- Vice President of Student Affairs
- _
- _
Revelation - Hope not fear
New TV show pushes panic button
With the airing of NBC's Revelations comes television's latest attempt to attract audiences - and turn a profit - through a twist of the truth. The last presidential election showed there was a deeply religious public that might be receptive to television series with a religious theme and what better choice than the last book of the Bible, with its elusive meanings and hints at future doom.
However, the Bible's book of Revelation is neither as scary nor as fatalistic as the producers of Revelations would have you believe, says theologian Fred Schmidt of Southern Methodist University. Recent published comments by Schmidt include:
- "There's an increasing tendency to blur the line
between fiction and biblical interpretation, and
Revelations will undoubtedly fuel some misinformation.
The biggest problem is that Revelation is a complex book
and (this series) is playing to the literal, or more
specifically the Left Behind reading of Revelation,
because it offers a much more scintillating approach.
It misrepresents the New Testament and Catholicism." TV
Guide
- "Revelations" (is) the latest pop-culture
agent of "speculation that veers away from theory into
superstition." — The Associated Press
- The series offers a "minority view" that treats cataclysmic
present-day events as evidence of the coming apocalypse
foretold in Revelation. … viewers "will take what they see on a
fictionalized TV show and see that as the truth about the
book." — The Los Angeles Times
- "The unfortunate thing
about this is that the lines between fact, fiction,
theology and superstition are well and truly blurred
now. In the process [NBC] will deepen mistaken
impressions about the book [of Revelation] and about
Christianity." — The New York Post
- Many fundamentalist Christians will be offended by the
show -- which (Schmidt) says presents a "minority view" that current
events portend the coming Apocalypse. — United Press
International
- "The Book of
Revelation is difficult to read and filled with opaque
symbols that are 2,000 years old," Schmidt says. "Viewers
will be told those symbols have to do with modern American
life, and they don't. The Book of Revelation was written
by a first-century Christian to a first-century audience
dealing with first-century issues." — The
Orlando Sentinel
- "NBC's new show 'Revelations' is not a family-friendly show," Schmidt said in a public statement last month. "It's designed only to scare and to shape a way of thinking about scripture that is a zero-sum game of Christianity: In other words, 'I can only go to heaven if you go to hell." — The North Jersey Record
Schmidt is the author of a recently published
Conversations with Scripture: Revelation and
a forthcoming book to be
published by
HarperSanFrancisco in June, titled, What God
Wants for Your Life, Finding Answers to the Deepest Questions.
To interview Schmidt, contact SMU News and Communications by
e-mail at
newsinfo@mail.smu.edu or by telephone at 214-768-7650.
