"American Idol" Gets Religious - Sort of
"American Idol" waded into religious waters – at least partway – Wednesday night when the eight finalists on Fox’s reality TV show closed out the "Idol Gives Back" fundraiser singing "Shout to the Lord," a contemporary Christian worship song by Darlene Zschech.
As RealityTVmagazine.com pointed out, the move could be considered controversial in at least two ways:
1. Singing a Christian song might be offensive to non-Christians.
2. Singing a Christian song and changing the words “My Jesus, My Savior’’ to “My Shepherd, My Savior” might be offensive to Christians.
The singing of the Christian song followed a previous night of “American Idol” that had an "inspirational" theme that included more feel-good songs than religious ones.
posted by AMB at
9:01 AM
3 Comments:
I was personally really offended that they sang a song to the Lord during Wednesday night's performance, but then on Thursday to start the evening out with a song about Jesus made me question what is going on with both American Idol and FOX. I think if a particular contestant wants to choose a religious song to sing, then so be it, but for all eight of them to be singing songs biased towards Christianity when they are models for what "America" is (note: a country built upon religious freedom), then something is seriously wrong with our system, and the producers at FOX.
4/11/2008 03:55:00 AM
I agree 100%. My household was shocked to see a show opener that was more like a midwestern mega-church prelude.
Ridiculous! If anyone thinks that christian “rock” belongs on mainstream TV, then we better remove any talk of those “made up” dinosaurs from school classrooms!
Preposterous. And it’s hard to imagine that each contestant singing those words out to “the lord” really felt okay with the message. I'd love to hear what they really think - not what Fox wants them to say they think.
At heart, I feel that the show’s producers have decided they need a way to attract older conservative viewers to the show - one of the few markets where they’re likely lacking. What easier way to do that than to play the heartstring-tugging religious card?
Hate to say it folks, but this was not a religous declaration so much as a flubbed attempt to gain market share in an overly conservative country. Shame on you Idol - your weak strategy is see-through. And shame on anyone who thinks this is the right move for any major network show. Save it for Sunday morning - if you believe that sort of thing.
4/11/2008 09:00:00 AM
I do not understand why they would change the words from Jesus my Savior to Shepherd my savior , the way I see it is if they have to change the words do not sing it at all. I am not affraid to admit that Jesus is my Savior.
4/11/2008 05:53:00 PM
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