St. Maximos' Hut

As one whose television watching consists mostly of flipping between reruns of the Simpsons, EWTN and the History Channel (often hopelessly conflating them), my contact with the cable television industry largely consists of lamenting the bill. However, our friends over at the Acton Institute report that,

A battle is raging between competing evangelical groups over proposed legislation which would require cable providers to offer the choice to consumers to subscribe to cable TV on a channel by channel basis. On the one side, conservative Christian and pro-family organizations like Concerned Women for America and the Parents Television Council favor the so-called “a la carte” plan, arguing that it would allow families greater control over the type of content that is piped into their homes.
On the other side, broadcasters such as the Trinity Broadcasting Network and Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, argue that the ability for customers to individually choose the channels to which they subscribe would undermine their ability to reach non-Christians.

In an article entitled The Ties that Bind: Cabled Christianity , Associate Editor Jordan Ballor gives an excellent account of a struggle that has pitted these groups against one another on the field of consumer choice in media. In a nice bit of commentary on the situation, Mr. Ballor invites us to, "Imagine the time and financial resources that might be used in service of God’s kingdom if the Christian concern with cable TV were placed in proper perspective."

Perhaps the same can be said about the time and resources people of faith squander on merely watching the effluent that passes for most cable programming (with the exception, of course, of the Simpsons, EWTN and the History Channel).