What do you get when you take a Southern Pentecostal minister, a polyandrous young woman, a homeless ex-con, along with a dozen assorted other characters and put them on a small plot of land to live together in harmony? If your answer is utopia, then you would be wrong. But if your answer is Utopia, then you must follow the machinations of broadcast networks as they churn out the latest iterations of reality television.
Utopia comes to us courtesy of Fox, one of a slate of new fall shows. It takes tried-and-true reality show tropes found on Survivor, Big Brother, and even aspects of The Bachelor, and ratchets everything up several notches by creating what the producers tout as a new kind of social experiment. Take 15 willing participants, give them a property stocked with the basics: a pond, land for growing food, cows, chickens, and a large shed for shelter, and expect these people to build a society with only these tools. Theoretically, these tools include life skills and a sense of shared humanity and hard work.
In actuality, the cast members of Utopia represent a down-market version of America’s fabled melting pot. This particular melting pot includes a lot of melting down, albeit of the mental variety. Along with threats of violence over, say, the matter of one faction of this society (yes, there are already factions) eating another faction’s bananas.
This incident took place on the show just five days into the year-long project. Apparently, bananas were borrowed with the promise that they would be replaced the next day, only it didn’t quite work out that way. Then, of course, it became a matter of integrity as well as sustenance, since food is hard to come by in Utopia. If only the members of this utopia had managed to set up a judicial system before the banana kerfuffle, litigation would have ensued. As it was, threats of violence had to suffice. Like all nascent, primitive societies, shouting and throwing things trumps a sense of order (just ask any mother), and Utopia has a long way to go before a claim to civilization can be made.
Real World and Reality TV
Speaking of bananas, if this particular state of utopia chose a representative fruit the way actual states do, bananas would definitely be the right choice. But the bananas-quality of the enterprise hasn’t stood in the way of the show’s producers in their quest to find willing cast members. In fact, every so often throughout the year that this society exists, a new citizen of Utopia will be introduced. Preferably one who knows how to chop firewood and is willing to take off nearly all his clothes in order to do so. Of course such willingness has nothing to do with helping with the society’s fuel supply and everything to do with performing for the ubiquitous cameras, all-seeing eyes that cover every inch of the property.
Utopia
And this is the real problem with this utopia—not the inability of its members to keep their clothes on, though this does stand in the way of progress. No, the real problem is that none of the people involved has a shared sense of anything greater than themselves. Historically, utopian societies emerge when a group of people with a shared value system break away from the larger society. The Puritans and Shakers come to mind. While the cast members of this Fox-generated version desire to remake the world, they are stymied by the fact that each one wants to remake it in his or her own image, creating society one selfie at a time.
During the show’s first three episodes, Pastor Jonathan—the Pentecostal minister brought on Utopia as a counterpoint to the other assorted flavors of belief—provides a gentle, if beleaguered presence. Or maybe his demeanor could be attributed more to a state of shock at the hedonistic hijinks taking place throughout the compound.
Missionary to Utopia
Pastor Jonathan, a man who left his family and church on a missionary journey to the hinterlands of reality TV, seemed to move through Utopia disoriented, as though he wasn’t quite sure just what he got himself into, often muttering prayers in distress as viewers listened in, the cameras recording every plea for divine help. And apparently God answered, as Pastor Jonathan suffered an injury to his hand and had to leave Utopia less than two weeks into the project. Still, in this short time he impressed his cast mates with his decency. They were sorry to see him leave, as it was clear even to Utopia’s token atheist that Pastor Jonathan provided much-needed moral ballast to this sinking enterprise.
In spite of this appreciation, the presence of a committed Christian on a bottom-dredging TV show like Utopia raises the question: how far should we go in attempting to reach our neighbors caught up in this culture? Just how frayed does the fray have to be before we refuse to participate? For some Christians, there is no context too dicey when souls are at stake. If Utopia were a burning building, so to speak, wouldn’t Pastor Jonathan abandon everything to rush in and save as many as he possibly could?
Well, yes. But Utopia isn’t a burning building, at least not more than anywhere else. The whole world is on fire, and in every single corner, people need saving. The tiny infernos we face in our daily lives with our real-world neighbors, out of sight of the television cameras, offer no shortage of mixed-up people attempting to remake the world. Our own neighborhoods, wherever they may be, are rife with regular sinners, fumbling through the day-to-day pains of making society.
Which brings us to the most salient point: the church is already engaged in creating a utopia of sorts. Or to put it another way: what do you get when you take Southern Pentecostal minister, a polyandrous young woman, a homeless ex-con, and assorted other characters, and ask them to live together in community? You get the church. The belief that we are all sinners in need of a Savior brings a whole host of disparate and desperate types together, transcending our differences through faith in Christ.
If there is hope for an echo of utopia on earth, it is found in the culture of the church, not in the culture of an artificial world concocted by an entertainment conglomerate. To enter into the sort of artifice demanded by a reality show like Utopia is to risk losing a sense of . . . well, reality.
Pastor Jonathan’s work, our work, is to welcome everyone—including reality show producers and all those people straining toward utopia but finding only brokenness—and invite them to taste and see that the Lord is good. Take refuge in Christ, in the one who takes our fractured images of utopia and remakes us in his own image, together.
