There's a Lordless Power in My House! Thinking Theologically about Television

Abstract

Television feels like an inescapable part of daily life. From billboards to buses to pop-up ads strewn throughout the internet to that go-to conversation question, ‘Have you watched [insert name of TV show] lately?’, TV is our very present companion on this earthly pilgrimage. But where does it fit within the life of Christian discipleship? This article will explore this issue by providing a description of TV within the theological context of the lordless powers, specifically, as the base of operation for a lordless power. While this is not an entirely new insight, accounts that connect TV to the lordless powers tend to skim over the theological bedrock required to make such a claim. The challenge of this article is to provide a thicker account of the lordless activity operative in the everyday activity of watching TV, a task pursued through extended engagements with Karl Barth's theology of the lordless powers and Albert Borgmann's philosophy of technology.