GOD AND TV

It’s about time Martha Williamson was acknowledged as a both a creative force and an individual who readily acknowledges her creator (“Putting God Back Into TV,” by Judith Michaelson, Nov. 24). Ironically, as a dramatist, Williamson herself gets to play God, creating characters, throwing them into heaps of trouble and ultimately stepping in to redeem them. Characters that exhibit too much free will don’t seem to make it into the final draft.

Williamson apparently has a good personal and working relationship with her ultimate collaborator, but I am bothered by some of the bromides she offers to explain the contradictions one can infer from her expressions of faith.

Prompted by her quote “God did not create AIDS. He is not responsible for our problems,” I ask: How come when good things happen, you know who gets the credit, but where bad happenings are concerned, God’s off the hook? Williamson could and does say that people have free will. “That’s God’s gift. But that’s also God’s gamble.”

It makes me wonder: Is that how people are written out of the script of life?

Kevin Gillogly

Van Nuys

*

It was so refreshing and encouraging to read the positive article on Williamson and her approach to TV programming. In a day when many committed Christians are stereotyped as right-wing bigots or backwoods ignoramuses, it is a pleasure to read about her faith in Christ, manifested in the real world with compassion and a sense of absolute values.

As a person relatively new in the world of theater and acting, I was encouraged to learn that there is a producer like Williamson who is not afraid to encourage viewers to consider the gifts that God has given us.

Deborah W. McFatter

Redlands

*

So Hollywood, in the person of Williamson, has finally discovered how to subtly fleece those who are gullibly generous to an even greater extent than the blatant and notorious televangelists do. Superstition, disguised as saccharine sentimentality, gives little credit to ethical atheists who “value” their families and obey all laws while offering no credit whatever to religious propagandists or their cast of imaginary deities.

Rather than admire this effort, we resent it, as well as all the other fantasy-based puerility that distorts young, growing minds.

Martin K. Zitter

Pasadena

*

Having been able to wade through only one episode of “Touched by an Angel,” I am left uncertain as to which is the more unctuous: Roma Downey’s acting style, the show itself or Michaelson’s fawning article on its producer.

Williamson’s insights into the nature of God seem to fall short of those of Harvard Divinity School. Her Disneyfied Sunday school God is an “all-around great guy”--guy?--who is loving and not recriminating, angry or vengeful. Oh, really? This is the same Old Testament God who massacred entire nations (including children and animals) in fits of jealous pique?

I have a story idea for Williamson, free of charge: A 17-year-old boy struggles to come to terms with the realization that he is gay. The two cheery angels descend and tell him that God likes him just the way he is.

“Go find a boyfriend; have a life,” counsels Monica, as Tess beams.

Hey, Miss Williamson, I’ll even write it for you.

Joe Traviano

North Hollywood

*

Williamson has definitely figured out the values thing. Her two shows accurately reflect the relationship with God that some families enjoy. There are many people who pray on a regular basis and interact with God as often as they do with family and friends.

Bless you, Martha, for bringing such inspirational and entertaining shows into our homes.

Amber Jones

Moreno Valley

*

Thank you for the beautiful article about Williamson. We need God every single moment, and we need to see and hear on TV about the good that God does.

Charlotte Walker

Walnut

*

If Williamson, as she says, believes in a personal God, she should practice that belief but at the same time allow members of the viewing audience to determine what their own beliefs are.

And as far as the use of angels goes, let’s leave the imaginary world to the cartoonists, who do a better job of it.

Bernard Mesco

Playa del Rey

*

There are many who like fantasies about angels, UFOs, ghosts, miracles, etc., and I can allow for their naivete. I find it difficult, however, to tolerate people who write or speak in a manner suggesting that their value s are somehow superior to those of the less gullible and superstitious segment of the populace.

The profile of Williamson belonged on The Times’ religion pages, rather than in the Sunday magazine. Spare us this kind of maudlin, pious and holier-than-thou article.

Louis H. Regalado

Huntington Beach

*

Michaelson’s article was the kind of religious-advocacy piece that one would expect to find in The Watchtower, not in a mainstream newspaper like The Times.

Cal Tinbergen

Los Angeles

*

Michaelson’s article has resulted in Putting Me Back Into the Family Room. I think I’ll turn on the televison and give it another chance. Thanks for spreading some good news.

Debby Laurie

Lake Forest