wfn.org | Hollywood Producer Urges Presbyterians to Support Media Literacy

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14-June-1998 
GA98023 
 
 
    Hollywood Producer Urges Presbyterians to Support Media Literacy 
            Efforts Presbyterian Media Mission Luncheon 
 
                          by Bill Lancaster 
 
CHARLOTTE, N.C.-Hollywood's doors are open, her people are spiritually 
hungry, and Presbyterians need to step in and share the treasure they have 
nurtured through the years.  The treasure the speaker was referring to is 
centered prayer and meditation. 
    Hollywood TV/film producer Michael Rhodes, a member of the Brentwood 
Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, told a large crowd at the Presbyterian 
Media Mission (PMM) luncheon Sunday, "Out there in Hollywood, we put our 
pants on the same way you do, and we have the same concerns that you do. 
As a fellow Presbyterian Christian, I want you to know there is a great 
spiritual hunger which exists in Hollywood just as it does throughout the 
rest of the country."  He called on Presbyterians to help.  He said 
centered prayer and meditation is "powerful" when people take time to 
practice it. 
    He said the TV/film industry is show business, and is often driven by 
the bottom line.  But Hollywood's people have deep spiritual hungers and 
want to produce meaningful films and programs. 
    Rhodes, who has produced episodes of "China Beach," "Christy," 
"Promised Land," and "Beverly Hills 90210," cited "Christy," "Touched by an 
Angel," and "Nothing Sacred" as evidence of Hollywood's new openness to 
spiritual themes.  He also listed a number of Hollywood's influential 
figures who are deeply spiritual. 
    He said in spite of Hollywood's violence and sex, "by and large, the 
movies that are most successful are those that express values similar to 
your own." 
    He said, "CBS received more cards and letters supporting `Christy' than 
in the entire history of any other show that was being threatened with 
cancellation." 
    "How should we as leaders of the Christian church respond to this new 
interest and spiritual hunger in our world?" he asked.  "You guys are way 
ahead of me," he said.  "Media literacy, that's a big thing.  And as I 
looked into this, you folks are pioneering in this area.  And the National 
Council has declared this Media Awareness Year." 
    In addition, he pointed to the cooperative venture between the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s Office of Communication and PMM to develop a 
network of media literacy trainers to work with synods, presbyteries and 
congregations to create a grass roots media literacy program.  People 
involved with this at the denominational level are Associate Director of 
Communication Gary Luhr, PMM Executive Director Gregg Hartung and staffer 
John Silbert, Media Services Coordinator Ann Gillies, and Presbyterian 
media consultant Rich Thompson. 
    "All I ask is that you support them.  It is terribly, terribly 
important," he said.  "The doors of Hollywood are open to you.  And it is 
terribly important that you help your parishioners understand, as we race 
toward the millennium, this phenomenon we call media, in a world where 
there are more televisions than toilets, where children by the time they 
are six years old will have spent more time with television than [they 
will] with their fathers in a lifetime.  And when the average student 
spends twice as much time in front of the TV than he does in school, your 
ability to understand and respond in faith to this phenomenon we call the 
entertainment world is critical." 
    He said he got into the movie business by an unusual route.  He went to 
Yale, then responded to the Rockefeller Foundation who said they were 
looking for folks who "wouldn't otherwise go to seminary."  "I convinced 
them I wouldn't otherwise go," he said, and went to the Pacific School of 
Religion in Berkeley for one year in 1967.  There, he asked the big 
questions, including "where is God at work in the world?" 
    He and his wife went to work with a youth group at a small Methodist 
church in Oakland with only five young people.  The young people wanted to 
make a movie, but Rhodes had never done this, and with only five young 
people he felt they needed to join with another small group, a black 
Methodist group whose young people "had learned their lessons well from 
some great teachers--Eldridge Cleaver and Bobby Seals." 
    He said, "what happened was that the walls of prejudice and fear 
evaporated in doing the movie."  He said "God was clearly at work here! 
Bingo!  I got it.  I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life." 

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