Contains mild spoilers for Scandal season 3 episode 10
Its is no mystery that in television and generally across most media platforms, accurate religious representation is lacking. From Muslim’s being portrayed as terrorists, to Christians only telling people they are going straight to hell, portrayals depicts a false stereotype cultivated through a one sided, misinformed society. While Muslim’s are often thought to be misrepresented in television, far few people consider the inaccurate representations of Christians as well. According to page 5 of the Byrd article, “it is certainly clear that the TV dramatic landscape is littered with failed attempts to present religious landscapes in TV drama.” This post will discuss specifically the lack of understanding when it comes to Christianity and even specifically the notion of evangelism in television through the lens of ABC’s Scandal.
While a body on the floor is hardly unusual for a mid-season finale, how characters in television react can have enormous impacts on the audiences perception of morality altogether. The December 12 episode of ABC’s drama Scandal played out Sally Langston’s faith crisis with an heavy soliloquy of bible verses. For nearly five minutes of the episode, Sally (Kate Burton) recited parts of numerous bible verses found in the books of Genesis, Revelation, etc. one after another: “promised land,” “poison fruit,” “sullied my soul,” “sold my soul,” “cross to bear,” “original sin,” and many more. This is one of the first indicators that we can see her identify as a Christian. Following the scene of the body glares Sally’s religious hypocrisy in guilt and self-justification.
The one thing Scandal does an excellent job of in the representation of Christianity is demonstrating that faking religion is exhausting. Not only that, but faking religion lead to mixing up salvation and achieving selfish endeavors.
It is incredibly rare that Christian’s in TV are given such ambitious roles, so it’s such s shame to see her faith is twisted into a motivation that lead to murder rather than a motivation for good work, and evidence of a true transformation. How can one inspire real life Christians when undergoing such a misunderstanding of systematic theology?
While Christians are defined by the transformation and grace given to them by Jesus Christ, it is peculiar to see Sally identify a Christian. The book of James in the Bible is a call to action claiming that faith is dead without good works. James claims that we are no different from demons if we refuse to let the grace of God transform us into acting on faith. Demons believe in God, but don’t accept a transformation. In terms of scripture, Sally is no different than a demon. That is not to say she is one, but while she believes in God, demons also believe in God. Her inability to let God’s grace transform her and her actions is an inaccurate representation of Christians and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Things would be different if in the series we could see her internal conflict with the Devil and God raging inside her. All we see is this confident individual who acts like as if she has everything figured out, but in reality she can’t even gauge the difference between right and wrong though clearly stated throughout the Bible.
The focus on Sally’s ability to reason herself back intro righteousness reveals to us a popular but flawed portrayal of religion on television: faith as a cloak of justification, not one of grace.
As the Byrd article states, “Contrary to critical commentary, the failure of overtly religious drama is not because TV is inherently anti-religion.” To my understanding, though all too often television portrays Christians in an inaccurate light, it is not because cast and crew are necessarily anti-religion. Rather, it is likely that the creators of the shows misunderstand or are under informed on scripture, and on Christianity as a whole. They portray either misinterpretations of scripture, or heavily legalistic Christians and that does have an impact on how the world sees Christianity and even how Christians see themselves. 
Perhaps the best way to improve these misrepresentations is to become informed. Going to scripture and reading what the Bible has to say about topics and how individuals should act in certain situations, or even showing actual internal conflict in characters can go miles in television representation. Showing characters wrestle with existential questions, or interpretations of the Bible on screen can change how the world perceives the christian character.
Criticizing Culture 