Has History Channel Gone Pop?
Has History Channel Gone Pop?
by Jake MacAulay
Starting my commentary this week has been tremendously difficult. I am torn because in just one week ABC reporter George Stephanopoulos stated he was “struck by the final line” of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s speech in which he proclaimed, “our God wins,” followed by the History Channel airing its Sons of Liberty program which even film critic Thomas Verenna concludes is merely “…highly-entertaining historical fiction.”
Over the past month I have had the privilege of sharing The American View with many 21st Century Patriots on both coasts. I even shared the stage with Dr. Ben Carson and Senator Ted Cruz in South Carolina. I enjoyed hearing their presentations, which were filled with such an appreciation for the historical context they operated from when they expounded on the need to look to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for the change this country desperately needs. Then in just two short days and one very long plane ride, I arrived in sunny Los Angeles, California.
I will come back to ABC while I discuss what I like to call “pop-culturized” history.
I am grateful that the History Channel is bringing up the topic of our Founders, but I wonder - how accurate is it? For instance, the show inaccurately portrays Samuel Adams as a poor, bar-hopping, 30-year-old on probation. When in truth he inherited money and a business from his father, had a wife and children, was a political leader in Boston, had an abiding Christian faith, and was 43 years old when the events occurred. There is no evidence to support the “dramatic” depiction of Samuel Adams as a bar crawling, womanizing, street thug on probation.
In Hollywood I saw the commercialization of our prosperous Judeo-Christian nation with literally no account for the true God or history that created the bedrock for such prosperity and entertainment. I am reminded of the statement John Adams, the son of a preacher and devout Christian, made in reference to France’s culture of the arts:
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy…in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture…”
What are we actually doing by misleading the current and future generations in the name of “entertainment”?
I love the analogy by my friend Michael Peroutka,
“As an American, you might think of history as a mall map that gives contextual meaning to the little red arrow that says, ‘you are here’. But…imagine walking into a big shopping mall and the big mall directory map in front of you is totally blank — nothing on it but the red arrow and the red dot.”
This is precisely what the “pop-culturized” study of our American history has become.
Knowing about the deeds of those who have gone before us tells us where we are on the map of history.
But what’s most important about studying history is knowing what they shared - their beliefs, their faith, their motives. This knowledge gives us an understanding as to WHO we are – just like the red dot on mall map.
Back to ABC… Mr. Stephanopoulos feels we are
“a country of 320 million people, of many different kinds of spirituality, many different kinds of faith, many who believe in no god at all.” He ponders whether it is the “job of the president to lead a spiritual revival?”
Well, our country’s history has had two spiritual revivals, both of which were concerned with the political and cultural depreciation of standards in society.
As Americans, history is far too valuable to let accuracy be re-written by Hollywood and revised by media as a form of “entertainment”! Don’t let anybody - in the name of multiculturalism or globalism, ABCism or anything else - steal your American history from you, or talk you out of caring about it.
This is Jake MacAulay…. and to Mr. Stephanopoulos, the victorious God Governor Bobby Jindal was referring to was the same God our Founders referred to…the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that brought us ….The American View. And we are ever indebted to tell “His-story.”