The Devil's Favorite Reality Show
It occurred to me, while mindlessly scrolling through channels one evening, that reality television presents us with a peculiar paradox. We tune in eagerly to watch perfect strangers tear each other apart, not with swords or spears, but with whispered conspiracies and theatrical betrayals. The modern gladiatorial arena requires no blood, only the symbolic execution of reputations. And we, the enlightened audience, sit comfortably removed from the spectacle, deriving a strange pleasure from this choreographed combat of souls.
This curious entertainment led me to consider an even more unsettling thought: if we, mere mortals, can find such fascination in the manufactured conflicts of reality TV, imagine the infinitely more compelling drama Satan must witness in the real reality show of Christian discord. For here is a spectacle far more delicious to the infernal palette – the sight of brothers and sisters in Christ, who proclaim the same Lord and profess the same salvation, engaging in magnificent battles over the precise shade of theological wallpaper that should adorn their corner of God's house.
The devil, I imagine, must be a far more sophisticated consumer of entertainment than we are. He has no need for network executives or editing rooms to manufacture his drama. He merely sits back, like a theatre critic at a particularly promising tragedy, and watches the extraordinary performance unfold. Here are God's own children, marked with the same baptismal waters, nourished by the same spiritual bread, yet circling each other with the wary hostility of Cain eyeing Abel across that fateful field.
But our modern Cains have evolved beyond the crude implements of their predecessor. They have discovered that a carefully wielded Bible verse can draw blood as efficiently as any stone, and that a well-placed rumor about someone's doctrinal purity can assassinate a ministry as effectively as any physical weapon. The murder weapon has become more refined, but the fratricidal impulse remains unchanged.
What makes this cosmic drama particularly compelling to its infernal audience is its exquisite irony. For these warriors, these zealous defenders of their particular theological territories, are all technically correct in asserting that doctrine matters, that truth is important, that error must be confronted. They are absolutely right, just as Cain was absolutely right that his sacrifice was legitimate, that his labor in the fields was worthy, that his grievance had merit. But like Cain, they have missed the rather crucial point that being right about the details can make you catastrophically wrong about the whole.
I imagine Satan must particularly relish the moments when these spiritual gladiators pause in their combat to quote Jesus' prayer "that they may be one, as we are one." The prayer is invariably followed by an unspoken "but" – but surely Jesus didn't mean unity with those people, those compromisers, those legalists, those liberals, those fundamentalists, those others who clearly don't understand the faith as well as we do. The devil's enjoyment of this irony must be nearly perfect.
And while this grand performance continues, while the body of Christ busily engages in what amounts to spiritual autoimmune disease – attacking its own members in the name of health – our infernal critic goes about his business largely unopposed. Why should he waste energy attacking the church when the church is doing such an excellent job of attacking itself? Why should he bother trying to discredit Christianity when Christians are so enthusiastically discrediting each other?
The truly remarkable thing about this situation is not that Satan enjoys it – that is only to be expected – but that we, the performers in this divine comedy of errors, seem to enjoy it almost as much as he does. Like reality TV contestants, we have become so engrossed in the drama of our conflicts that we have forgotten we are supposed to be putting on a rather different sort of show altogether. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another," said Jesus, apparently forgetting to add "except when they're wrong about predestination."
The parallel with reality television becomes even more striking when we consider that both genres share the same fatal flaw: they make us forget what is real. Reality TV presents us with a carefully curated version of reality, edited for maximum conflict and minimal reconciliation. And our theological wars present us with a carefully curated version of Christianity, edited to emphasize our differences and minimize our fundamental unity in Christ.
But here is where the parallel breaks down, and where hope breaks in. For unlike reality TV, which is designed never to reach a satisfying resolution (lest the audience stop watching), our story has already been given its ending. Christ has already prayed for our unity, has already died to make us one, has already promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church. The final episode has been written, and it ends not with division but with a wedding feast, where former enemies sit down together at the same table.
The real question, then, is not whether this unity will happen, but whether we will choose to be part of its advance guard or remain part of its rear guard. Will we continue to provide Satan with his favorite form of entertainment, or will we dare to change the channel? Will we persist in proving that we are right, or will we take the far more difficult path of proving that we are Christ's?
Perhaps it's time we realized that while we've been starring in Satan's favorite reality show, we've been missing our actual calling – to be part of the greatest love story ever told. And unlike our petty conflicts, that's a show worth watching.
And yet, in a final paradox, even our divisions and squabbles may serve, in God's mysterious economy, to reveal something of his truth. For if Christianity can survive our best efforts to tear it apart, if the church can remain standing despite our determined attempts to knock it down, if love can persist even in the midst of our lovelessness – well, that might just be the greatest proof of all that this thing is not merely human, but divine.
Satan may enjoy the show, but the last laugh belongs to someone else entirely.
-The Seeker's Quill
