Bishop Mark Hanson on TV tonght

[RegularGuy]

You're probably aware of it already, but, just in case you're not...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and president of the Lutheran World Federation, is featured in the two-hour primetime television special "In God's Name," airing Dec. 23 at 9:00 p.m. EST on CBS.

Read the rest here:

http://www.elca.org/news/Releases.asp?a=3786

[Edial]

You're probably aware of it already, but, just in case you're not...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and president of the Lutheran World Federation, is featured in the two-hour primetime television special "In God's Name," airing Dec. 23 at 9:00 p.m. EST on CBS.

Read the rest here:

http://www.elca.org/news/Releases.asp?a=3786
I just watched it.
Unfortunately Hanson had very little time on it. He was just one of the spiritual leaders presented.
To tell you the truth, I had this very uneasy feeling throughout the program.
Seeing all these Hindu and Muslem leaders speaking of God just left me uncomfortable.

Especially that woman who was assuring her poor, destitute and desperate followers that they will be OK when death comes.
I don't know, I might not be a good judge of person's character, ... but she had this look of a liar.
Sorry for the strong words, but that's the impressions she left.

And Dalai Llama comparing religions as one would choose for oneself a certain favorite dish. And he had a great time while making this analogy.

That Moslem fellow was saying that he speaks to God as he would to a beloved. That was a weird analogy. And he sounded somehow pompous.

Pope approving Islam as another way to God.

Hanson appeared to be humbled to be counted among the world's spiritual leaders.

Man, ... if these are the cream of the crop, ... Hanson should be saying: "Get me outta here!"

CBS was successful presenting that all the spiritual leaders have no idea what is happening in the world.

Thanks for the link,
Ed

[JoeCatch]

Why on earth did they edit it the way that they did? I ended up drifting in and out of it most of the time while it was on because of the way that it skipped around from one leader to another. And, to be honest, there were some that I really couldn't have cared less about seeing (e.g., Benedict XVI and whoever the Southern Baptists' representative was), so for the most part I just kept the program in my peripheral vision until Bishop Hanson, Metropolitan Alexei II or the Archbishop of Canterbury came up on the screen. Unfortunately that means I only started paying attention to some of their segments about halfway through.

I agree with Ed that it didn't seem like Bishop Hanson got much screen time, but then again it didn't really seem like anybody got that much screen time. I wasn't keeping track of how much time each leader was given because I wasn't even paying attention when most of them were on, but let's assume that each got an equal amount of time. A two-hour program is really only going to amount to about 42 minutes per hour, so at a total running time (minus commercials) of about 84 minutes, that's seven minutes for each of the twelve leaders profiled. Seven minutes. Knock it down to about six once you subtract for the extended introduction that the producers gave themselves. So, in six minutes, each of these leaders is supposed to encapsulate his or her thoughts on terrorism, fanaticism, intolerance, war, etc.? No, because that six minutes also had to include the snippets that the producers tossed in about their personal lives. Now we're down to, what, four and a half or five minutes?

Well, in the end, that just adds up to junk. I disagree with Ed that the show demonstrated that none of these leaders have any idea what's happening in the world. After all, who knows what any of them said that was left out? They probably got hours of footage of every single subject, and at that point it was the directors' discretion to decide what four or five minutes of material to include from each of them. Some made the directors' choices easy (e.g., the Baptist talking about people's perceptions of Baptists as intolerant and generally backward-thinking people), and others probably had them tearing their hair out trying to decide which comments would make the final cut. So who knows how representative any of what was said in the broadcast was of what any of them think about anything? I think the only thing that CBS successfully presented was how to ruin a potentially interesting documentary by trying to cover way too much in way too little time. Sad, because it could have been good. But it really, really wasn't.

[RevCowboy]

You're probably aware of it already, but, just in case you're not...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and president of the Lutheran World Federation, is featured in the two-hour primetime television special "In God's Name," airing Dec. 23 at 9:00 p.m. EST on CBS.

Read the rest here:

http://www.elca.org/news/Releases.asp?a=3786

Thanks a lot! I actually wasn't aware of it.

I watched the documentary and I found it very engaging. I have tried a number of world religion courses over the years and so I understood, for the most part, what most of the non-Christians were talking about even when they used language similar to the Christians. One of the lines that stuck with me was at the end when one of the films makes said that one of the things he learned during the process was that, "simply the search for truth is a religious act in and of itself".

Anyways, I found that Mark Hanson and Rowan Williams spoke very eloquently. Frank Page was not nearly as articulate and did not show the same sensitivity. There was Hason talking about how consumed the world is with terrorism, while ignoring a host of other issues and then Frank Page talks about how significant terrorism is... The thing that set Hanson and Williams apart from the others in my mind was their exceptionally grace oriented perspective. Most of the religious leaders tended to be anthropocentric or law oriented one could say. They pointed to the power of the human spirit rather than the divine, while Hanson and Williams pointed to the weakness of humanity and the power of the divine. I wish the documentary could have been just those two.

I will have look into getting a copy of that documentary. It would be a good resource for getting into a study on world religions perhaps with an adult study. I think some study of other religions would be necessary so that the comments of the non-Christian leaders could be qualified within the context of their traditions.Never the less, it could be great jumping off point.

[RegularGuy]

Regrettably I missed it.

It sounds like it was pretty much what I expected. 12 religious leaders in a TV hour = less than 5 mins each. Television is an entertainment medium after all. Depth is rare.

But...our Church-wide Bishop was put in some pretty high-falutin' company.

[UberLutheran]

"Following the presentation of the views from the leaders of all the worldwide religions, we will have an in-depth discussion of schizophrenia between 9:19 and 9:22."