A student in Literary Journalism and American Belief sent me an email this week with a link to a story in the New York Times that wondered “Where is God on the Small Screen?.” The framing for conversation that the article contains suggests that television has had a tentative relationship with religion, despite the significance of religion in the lives of so many American television viewers. This relationship might be changing. The lede highlights the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Greenleaf (which I have not seen), noting:

It’s rare to see the kind of immersive depiction that a series like ‘Greenleaf’ makes possible: religion as a way of life, a means for good and bad and struggling people to engage with existence.

I’d encourage everyone to go in and read this article—itself NOT a piece of literary journalism—and perhaps continue the conversation the Times critics have begun.

The image above is a still from a show I did love, Friday Night Lights, where, as you can see, they did pray.