At this editing, over seventy years have elapsed since I was launched in Christian ministry. Accumulating daily experiences have been as certainly educational as any formal schooling I completed. I am grateful for both. Formal education accomplishes much for an individual, especially if it is woven into a pattern of continuing education after the student leaves the halls of learning. There is little doubt that there are many persons with college degrees who are stalled because their conscious educations fade. On balance however, the benefits of formal education are not to be doubted. Generally, societies like to feel that the persons they call upon to provide professional views and work have experienced the discipline of higher and guided educational experience. At the period of this writing, there has never been a time when formal education was more important. All analysts seem to agree it is too expensive, but also too important to evade.
Some occupations are noted for their lack of need for educational sophistication. One of these is the film industry (even though there is a sophisticated program for students interested in the field). One wonders if some film actors, noted in the popular youthful celebrity types, seem not to demonstrate even high school education. Appearing on quiz shows they do not do well in recalling eminent events and achievements or persons from history, from literature, from science. They do not commonly recognize leading persons and movements. The tinsel town syndrome is well known. It appears shallow and holds little substance. Barbara Nicolosi, Executive Director of Act One, stated: ’Christianity’ is a political moniker in Hollywood. It means you voted for George Bush, you hate gays, and you’re fanatic about fetuses. . . . it doesn’t mean that in 95 percent of the rest of the world, but [it does] in this town. Sarah Price Brown wrote that: It’s hip to be spiritual in Hollywood . . . as long as you are not religious. The way the fashionable set see it: Scientology and Kabbalah are in. Christianity is out. Part of the distortion is lack of depth, education, morality, and sense of history and need. Beliefs as advanced by media in the new spirituality are celebrity driven. They fade. (I am editing this Page when Scientology is fading.)
Was Christianity ever in in Hollywood? Various personal experiences cause me to wonder. One of several explains part of my feelings. I was in Billy Graham’s office in the spring, 1950, shortly after he became internationally eminent as an evangelist. Graham put down the phone and asked: What is your advice on this? He had just received a call from a well-known movie star asking him to fly to Hollywood and hold a service in her mansion. She would: pay all expenses and make it worth your while. You could do so much good.” The tone of voice, the words employed, suggested that there might be limited serious thought (spiritual) at the meeting about what it meant to be a biblical Christian. Christianity had just become hot news across the nation, and Graham was the Gabriel in Gabardine. He was touted by William Randolph Hearst seeking a religious story to match the favorable response garnered by the Chicago Daily News for publishing The Greatest Story Ever Told – the life of Christ. Graham felt that Hollywood persons would try to make him a celebrity, with only small interest in the Christian gospel. I doubted that he should take the invitation, and so did he. He decided then that he would not be identified with a celebrity syndrome. (Wise decision.) Some decades later the current Hollywood, like the old, continues to play with religion. However, we know that there are Christians in that colony – trying to keep Christianity viable in the community. Common criticism of tinsel town is in the disregard for the modeling of general culture, of the loss of social insight and maturity. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020