Response to The Revealer

I wrote this to post about three weeks ago, but never got around to it. It was supposed to be sent as a letter to the editor of the always intriguing website "The Revealer" in response to their commentary about the pieve on Act One that appeared in the Washington Post. I am running here so can't find the place to link to. But basically, the writer - was that you Jeff? - was challenging my assertion that Hollywood is not a town in which there are "people of faith." Here's my response...

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Thanks so much for linking to COTM. I would love to respond to all of the questions you raise -- But for now, let me respond to the "people of faith" question.

You said that "it isn't true that people of faith haven't been a big part of Hollywood. I guess you are thinking of Jewish people as being left out of my distinction.

But no, there aren't a lot of Temple-frequenting folks in this business either.

This industry is one which delivers to people God-like stuff: Everything good the world has to give. Tremendous power. Undue influence. The adulation of the masses. Exactly why should people who have all these things worship Someone else?

When people can buy their way out of most of life's exigencies, they start missing the spiritual sources of their problems, and see instead material sources. There is no incentive to worship God in this.

Finally, is the source of most of the frenzied rage against institutional religions in Hollywood. The institutional religions dare to dictate which behaviors are healthy for humans, and which will lead to misery. The implication is that the folks here are not divine - not beings who live without limits ("you shall be like gods knowing what is good and evil for yourselves..." Genesis). This makes people gnash and grind their teeth.

So, I stand by my contention that people of faith (ie. people who worship something other than themselves), are not well-represented in Hollywood. This is not a town where embracing your creature-like dependency on an Almighty Other makes sense to people.