If the Bible doesn’t persuade you to take the Christian view of human nature, though, try thinking about Television. I don’t mean that you will learn the truth about human nature from the content of TV programmes, but the type of programmes that get made and are successful tells you an awful lot.
The top TV producers are so successful because they know what makes us tick. They know what we’re like, how we respond, what we’re drawn to.
This is particularly true of what’s come to be known as ‘reality TV’. This sort of programme is everywhere now and it seems that people can’t get enough of them. Shows like Big Brother and wife swap. A lot of these shows, I have to say, are so successful because the people who make them understand perfectly well just how rotten human nature can be.
These shows are full of conflict and humiliation. They call them reality but they’re not reality really, they select people and edit the action in such a way to bring out the worst in people. So many of the scenarios of these reality TV programmes are designed to get people to disintegrate, to fall out, to behave really badly. They are looking for conflict, they are engineering it. They thrive on getting desperate people to embarrass themselves.
And we love it, don’t we? We lap it up. Look at these programmes and you’ll see how they exploit the very worst instincts of viewers like you and me. Just like people used to flock to watch public executions so today we can sit at home and watch real people suffering in ever more bizarre ways.
They titillate and exploit the bit inside us that gets a kick out of the suffering of others. They titillate and exploit our instincts that attract us to gratuitous and selfish lust and greed. These awful programmes are so successful because Christianity is right when it tells us that there is something unpleasant under the surface in human nature.
But there’s another type of reality TV programme that I like much more: the makeover. There’s all sorts of these, like Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in which the charismatic and famous chef goes into a failing restaurant and turns it round. Or Faking It, where someone is taught to do something that’s utterly alien to them, like conducting an orchestra or managing a football team and they then have to pass themselves off as the real thing. There’s ‘It’s me or the dog’ where Victoria Stillwell, a dog trainer, goes to families, couples and individuals who can’t control their dog. The family always think that the dog’s the problem but she always shows them that they are the problem, and she gets them to change their ways and the dog becomes a lovely pet.
There was one particularly good one called ‘Would Like to Meet’ where people whose love life is going nowhere are taken in hand by psychologists, body language experts and fashion gurus and become transformed into someone that people want to go out with.
These sorts of shows are the opposite of Big Brother and Wife Swap. In Big Brother and Wife Swap everything starts off all nice and pleasant with everyone on their best behaviour and the deteriorate to despair. With makeover programmes it’s usually the other way round: an unhappy situation is turned into a happy one. People who are struggling are helped to overcome themselves and their problems.
Like the more negative programmes they’re successful because they tap into something deep within our nature. Although we are fallen, we are irresistibly drawn to the idea of changing things for the better. We have it in our nature to be fascinated by the suffering and humiliation of others but we also have it within ourselves to be inspired and enthralled by positive transformation.
These programmes are so popular because Christianity is right when it says that we have within us a deep need, a deep yearning to change, to transform the negative into the positive.
So we see in TV programmes the two sides of human nature as diagnosed by Christianity.
But it’s not enough for us to enjoy watching makeovers on television. Jesus expects us to be made over ourselves, in our day to day lives.
Lets remember what Paul says: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
How does this renewing work? For us Christians it works in the same way that it works in makeover reality shows.
The first thing Gordon Ramsay does is have a good hard look at the people working in the restaurant. Then he tells them about it, in a brutally honest way. Their transformation starts with a good hard look at themselves. With a reality check. They must be able to see themselves not as they would like to be seen but the cold, harsh reality that other people see.
Jesus knows what we do. We can’t lie to Jesus. We can’t believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and still think that we can hide anything in our lives. We can’t pretend that our faults and failings aren’t there. Christian belief and Christian transformation must start with a reality check. We are sinners. If we think we’re not then there’s no hope for us. If we can see where we’re going wrong then we’ve made the first step to putting it right. Being a Christian shouldn’t just make it unavoidable to look at ourselves like this. It should make it easier too.
In ‘would like to meet’ the people who aren’t getting anywhere in their love life get told some pretty tough home truths. How their behaviour, is driving people away, how their appearance is making themselves unattractive to others. It must be very hard to hear these things and to accept them. But there’s no other way of changing the situation and they are prepared to go through it because they trust the person who is telling them these home truths. They trust that what they’re saying is true, and that they will be able to help them change.
Before Jesus gets to talking about forgiveness he spells out what perfect behaviour is, what it really means to keep the law. It’s not enough not to hit people, we mustn’t even get angry with them. It’s not enough to be faithful to your wife or husband – you mustn’t cheat on them in your secret thoughts. It’s the cold, hard, reality check that he delivers in the Gospel. He tells us ‘this is what’s expected of you, and this is what you are failing to do’
This would be a pretty unpalatable message if it weren’t for the next bit. It’s ok to fail, as long we know that we’re failing. It’s ok not to be perfect as long as we don’t think that we’re perfect. Not only is it ok. Once we admit that we can’t be perfect, and that we need to change, and we can’t make that change happen on our own, then and only then he steps in and he helps us. Always. Guaranteed.
Christianity is a makeover programme, day in day out, 24/7 and for your whole life. It’s not acceptable for a Christian to say ‘I’m a bad person in this regard and I’ll never get better’. It’s not acceptable to be so stuck in your ways that you’re not always taking part in some sort of makeover process.
It’s not acceptable to say that all the relationships in your life are never going to get any better and there’s nothing you can do to improve them.
It’s not acceptable to say that you are never going to change. If you think that then either you think that you’re perfect, a wicked and terrible heresy, or you think that Jesus has no right to expect anything better from you, an equally appalling idea.
Life’s full of makeovers. Opportunities to change things. To get more justice. To become better people. To be more like Christ. And Jesus is the makeover king. He doesn’t just tell us to change, he shows us how and he makes it possible.
I’d like to close by reading again Paul’s words about the old and the new human nature that Christ is all about. It’s the ultimate makeover.Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved
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