It's been a while since any of us blogged about House. Unfortunately, the innuendo and the occasional gratuitousness (which Dave the Swede complained about in a comment that I now can't find) continue -- but so, intriguingly, does Dr. House's uneasy dance with the God he doesn't believe in but can't stop thinking about.

Last Monday's episode concerned a priest who had lost his faith -- House's favorite kind of priest -- who checked himself into the hospital after seeing a vision of Jesus. Say what you will about a man who clings to the priesthood even when his belief is gone, he at least was astute enough to notice House's obsessive search for reasons to keep disbelieving.

But in the end, the priest wasn't able to help him out with that. When House was able to diagnose him only by eliminating the vision of Christ as a symptom -- meaning that it had to be attributed to something other than medical causes -- the priest, realizing just how many "coincidences" had led to his healing, embraced God once again. And the good doctor was left just a little flustered.

Where is all this going? Impossible to say. Maybe the show's creators don't even know. All I hope is that they're brave enough to keep following the road that they have, however hesitantly and skeptically, been taking this show down.

(Image © Fox Broadcasting Corporation)

Comments

[Mike D'Virgilio]

Gina, we are regular viewers of House in our house. I like your assessment of this episode. I saw something on this by Brent Bozell that is a good example of how many conservatives perceive antagonism everywhere they look. Here is the URL: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-bozell/2009/02/21/bozell-column-sex-single-priest. He couldn't even see that at the end the priest was indeed moving back toward his faith. I'm going to write something up contra to this to show a more effective approach to cultural engagement, and I'll be referencing your post here.

[Shannon K]

Thanks for the House update, Gina! I really wish I could watch that show, since I loved Hugh Laurie in both "Jeeves & Wooster" and "Sense & Sensibility." I tried watching a couple early episodes of House, but I tend to adopt the attitudes of funny sarcastic characters *way* too easily and so didn't allow myself to continue watching. It's too bad the other content of the show has grown coarser, even as House's spiritual journey(?) continues.

All this to say...please keep these updates coming! I'm terribly curious about where the writers take this series, even though I don't watch the show!

[LeeQuod]

To contemplate: would this show (which I watch only periodically) be *more* dramatic if House became born again, or *less* dramatic, and why? (Note that he has had major personality changes before, including becoming uncharacteristically nice. What impact did that have on the staff? How did they react?)

Further, does Christian conversion decrease, or increase, the drama in a person's life - both from their own perspective, and from the perspective of an observer like a TV viewer? Why or why not?

Finally, how would one script a screenplay of Polycarp's showdown with the proconsul - dramatically, or anticlimactically? http://thepoint.breakpoint.org/2009/02/as-bread-that-is-baked.html

[Gina Dalfonzo]

Thank you, Mike!

I've seen that approach too often among Christians and conservatives, including good, intelligent Christians and conservatives whom I like and respect. I guess maybe they're just not thinking it through.

Two examples: With "Signs," one Christian reviewer condemned the movie because the main character wouldn't pray during a crisis, even though the whole point was that he had lost his faith and was not yet ready to come back to God and pray again. And with "Shadowlands," many thought that C. S. Lewis was depicted as losing his faith, when I never saw him indicate any such thing. Perhaps there's room for disagreement on that one -- the situation could be seen as ambiguous -- but why not give it the benefit of the doubt when he's never shown as outright rejecting God?

[Mike D'Virgilio]

Gina, you are certainly right about them not thinking. It is a gut reaction many understandably have because we have been pummeled by popular culture for so many years. These perception glasses are set to negative and will interpret everything as if it's an assault on our worldview.

I happen to believe that since people are made in the image of God they will never be able to completely escape that fact in their art, regardless of their intentions. So we need to look at art, whatever it is, in a way that might help us to discover where it in fact affirms our worldview.