Would Kojak pray today?

One of the first TV columns I ever wrote, titled "Why doesn't Kojak pray?" asked why characters on primetime TV series never expressed any religious or spiritual beliefs. I also argued that if television wanted to be realistic, then it had to reflect the real-life religiosity of America.

The title of that column should give you an idea of how long I've been writing about TV. "Kojak" was a detective series of the 1970s. The title should also give you an idea that I've been banging a certain drum for a long time, a drum labeled, "Let's get religion into primetime television."

Maybe I can soften my pounding a little. Hardly a day goes by now without something religious on TV. Take a look at this checklist:

* Several regular series now do more than include religion; they are about religion. Those series include "7th Heaven," "Touched by an Angel," "Nothing Sacred," "Soul Man," "Promised Land" and "Good News."

* PBS has discovered the joys of religion through "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly," in-depth specials about such things as the religious right, and Sister Wendy Beckett's numerous programs on art. She's due back in December, by the way, in a show called "The Saints with Sister Wendy Beckett," in which she examines how holy men and women have been portrayed in paintings and illuminated manuscripts.

* PBS is also besotted with specials about ethnic groups, especially the Irish, opening the way for a great deal of talk -- and music -- related to Catholicism. Having already aired a couple of shows about Ireland, PBS is planning on showing "Faith of Our Fathers" next month. The musical program includes monks and others singing classic hymns like "Tantum Ergo" and "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name."

* CBS has put the finishing touches on a made-for-TV movie about a miraculous (or is it?) stairway in New Mexico. "The Staircase," starring Barbara Hershey as a dying nun, retells the famous story of the mysterious man who built a free-standing set of stairs in a chapel. Was he St. Joseph answering the nun's prayers or just an itinerant precursor of Buckminster Fuller? (The movie's air date has not yet been announced.)

* Meanwhile, more and more regular series are introducing religious characters into their plots. It's happened this fall on "Dellaventura" and "Early Edition," for example, two CBS series.

* As for "The Practice," the ABC series about lawyers, it is fast becoming the world's most pro-life show. In its first episode of the season, it strongly argued against physician-assisted suicide. More recently, a plot concerned a woman who, for religious reasons, refused a caesarean section. Her husband tried to talk her into it because, otherwise, their child would be born retarded or dead. When a three-judge panel said it was her right to kill her baby, her obstetrician lambasted them for their meretricious ruling and then tricked her into the operation, saving the child and her marriage.

From all of that activity, it is obvious that TV is starting to take religion seriously; it is also recognizing that far from turning audiences off, mentioning faith attracts viewers who are eager to learn more about religion, who want to know the history of their faiths, who desire to listen to discussions of ethics and morality, and who find lessons worth learning from dramas about belief.

Maybe if it were being made today, "Kojak" would include novenas.

(11-13-97)

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