Tuning Out Religion

MEET Father Ray. The lead character on the new ABC series Nothing Sacred, he is, according to ABC, a brash iconoclast, who regularly runs afoul of the Church hierarchy.

Actually, Father Ray is like most small-screen clerics: he adheres to the liberal holy trinity of diversity, sensitivity, and tolerance, and is mighty selective about just which icons he’ll smash. In fact, his iconoclasm so far seems to be limited to sexual morality. In the opening episode, Father Ray puts his urban congregation on notice that he won’t be a “sexual traffic cop.” The Bible, he explains, has little to say, or what it says is outdated, about abortion and homosexuality. True to his word, Father Ray advises a pregnant teenager to follow her own conscience about whether to have an abortion. (Would television glorify a priest who told a teenaged girl to follow her own conscience about whether to smoke cigarettes? Probably not.)

EG

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Evan Gahr

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MEET Father Ray. The lead character on the new ABC series Nothing Sacred, he is, according to ABC, a brash iconoclast, who regularly runs afoul of the Church hierarchy.

Actually, Father Ray is like most small-screen clerics: he adheres to the liberal holy trinity of diversity, sensitivity, and tolerance, and is mighty selective about just which icons he’ll smash. In fact, his iconoclasm so far seems to be limited to sexual morality. In the opening episode, Father Ray puts his urban congregation on notice that he won’t be a “sexual traffic cop.” The Bible, he explains, has little to say, or what it says is outdated, about abortion and homosexuality. True to his word, Father Ray advises a pregnant teenager to follow her own conscience about whether to have an abortion. (Would television glorify a priest who told a teenaged girl to follow her own conscience about whether to smoke cigarettes? Probably not.)