from the November 2009 issue of KC Stage
The Steve and Kathy Show is a ground-breaking show in the realm of faith-based programming because it uses “humor and satire to get a message of truth across,” according to Steve Gray, writer and co-host. In producing the show, Steve has found that some religious people were taken aback by it and don’t really know what to think about it. “People that are deeply rooted in religion don’t necessarily like it,” says Steve, “but people that weren’t religious were refreshed by it. It’s not a ‘talking head’ show, where a person will just sit and talk about religion. We want to keep it entertaining and humorous and have a message. It’s different, but it works.”
In his book My Absurd Religion, Steve Gray follows the model of Jesus and John the Baptist, who Steve says didn’t preach to the pagan Romans but to the religious people of the day, and calls “the religious in America to make some big changes quickly before God removes his presence completely.” Steve recognizes that because of using humor in the show, many feel that he would have a looser interpretation of the Bible. Quite the opposite – Steve says that he is more fundamental in his belief of the Bible and that the “premise of the show is to expose how religion has gotten away from the Bible.” In addition to the general mission to preach towards the religious people of our day, Steve says that the show is reaching out to people that have been turned off by religion. “We try to pull people back in and make them know that we understand why they left in the first place.”
Although many people that have been disgruntled or discouraged with religion find the show refreshing, this appreciation is not shared by some people that are religious. One day while meeting with the show’s producer, a call came in informing them that the show was banned from GodTube, a Christian video sharing website (which has since been renamed “Tangle”). When asked why he thought the show might have been banned, Steve says that it’s likely “they probably didn’t get the joke. They may be so deeply rooted in religion that they didn’t know if that’s what they wanted on their site.” Although they were not informed by GodTube as to the reasons for the ban, Steve thinks “the straw that broke the camel’s back” may have been the skit “Sexy God” which was a spoof of a book entitled Sex God where author Rob Bell makes this claim about God, sex, and heaven: “. . . they’re connected. And they can’t be separated. Where the one is you will always find the other.” While the skit was simply a tongue in cheek attempt to point out the dubious nature of this concept, Steve feels in retrospect that on sites such as GodTube “there is probably an unwritten law that you should not criticize religion or expose what you think is not righy that you should leave everyone alone to do what they want. That’s not what we do.”
After producing 100 episodes and being recognized with several awards, how has the show changed over time and where does he think it will go from here? Steve said the process has been very much a learning experience and that they have improved so much over time with writing, presentation, and technology upgrades, that it is hard for him to even watch some of the earlier shows. He says that when they began they did more talking and over time have added more entertainment, which he feels is a good outreach tool and also sets them apart from other faith-based programming. While the show is now shown weekly on over twenty channels throughout the country including stations on Direct TV and Dish TV, the show is currently in negotiations to be picked up by a national network. Since the show is “not preaching and not straight entertainment,” as Steve puts it, the production team has a challenge in convincing networks that the show will succeed on a national level, but Steve is very optimistic about its reception by network executives and acknowledges that “it’s a new thing for them, too.”
www.steveandkathygray.com
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