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At my home church this past Sunday morning my pastor was talking about television. In order to make a point about how pervasive television is in American life he asked us, by a show of hands, to indicate how many of us did not own a TV. I duly raised mine. In a sanctuary with approximately 150 people present only one other person raised her hand, and she then went on to sheepishly explain that, well, actually she had once went without a TV for a while but had bought one back. Then I think she blamed her husband.

That left me.

Later I went up to the altar to pray and encountered my pastor there. He told me what a great saint I was. He might have been joking, but then again he might have been dead serious. Maybe he truly considered living without television to be a sign of one of his flock’s advanced spirituality. Personally I did not know whether to laugh or say "thank you" and polish my halo. I chose to laugh.

Since I moved into my first home three years ago I have been without what we Americans sometimes refer to as "the boob tube". I had grown up, like most kids here, watching TV for hours each day. I can quote the shows of the ‘60’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s as well as any other member of my generation. From "Star Trek" to "Miami Vice" I am a veritable fount of information. I can tell you the middle name of the mythical Captain Kirk (Tiberius) or the kind of car Sonny Crockett drove during his first two seasons as a way-cool cop in the Sunshine State (Ferrari Daytona).

But from the ‘90’s on I’m fairly clueless and the reason is simple. I became a Christian in 1990. Now before you think the first thing I did upon my conversion was throw my Trinitron out a second story window I should tell you that such was not the case. In fact, even now I’m not above watching television occasionally at a friend’s house. I do not so demonize the medium as to assert that it is evil, in and of itself.

Having hopefully now established my innocence as far as being some kind of wild-eyed fundamentalist I will now try to humbly explain a couple of reasons why I do not have a TV in my house. The first one is that even network television has become so sexualized that in watching it a single Christian male such as myself is just asking for impurity problems. As far as I am concerned there are already quite enough temptations in that department living near New York City (also known as "Babylon on the Hudson") without having sexual images come into my house through the cable line, thank you very much.

The other reason has to do with not wanting to waste too much time sitting, zombie like, in front of the tube. I would much rather read or listen to music or go out and fellowship with the friends the Lord has blessed me with. None of those things will happen if a television is on in my house. Why? Because the conditioning of my youth kicks in causing me to be drawn in to watching the thing for hours on end. The TV becomes like some kind of electronic black hole, inexorably sucking me in. As the Borg on Star Trek would say, "Resistance is Futile".

So that is why I made the decision to not include a television among the furniture in my new townhouse. When I want to watch a DVD with my friends I go to one of their homes. They rarely even ask me why I do not have a TV; though I suspect they do not all think it is because of how "spiritual" I am. But how is it working you may ask? Incredibly well, actually. I don’t miss the thing a bit. Probably my biggest problem is not being able to join in group discussions about some new show everybody knows about but me. Gee, what a tragedy. I couldn’t care less.

So while, yes, I would encourage you, my fellow believers, to consider the advantages (including the spiritual ones) of "killing your TV" I am not going to get into some kind of holy huff if you don’t. You see I just might want to come over and watch yours sometime and I will not be able to see the picture too well with a large log sticking out of one of my eyes.