Why do they always pick our jerks?

So last night I was hanging out at my Mom's house and we watched the new show "Treasure Hunters." The basic premise of the show was probably pitched something like this "It's the Amazing Race and Nic Cage's National Treasure." Teams of people, on a hunt for artifacts that ends in one team winning a treasure. (It has been hyped as "From the producers of the Da Vinci Code", which is interesting because they are again creating something fictional and acting like it is real, in specifics that the treasure is a real treasure hidden by our nation's forefathers. "Puh-leez" as my middle school friends say.)

In the midst of the show, we get to know the teams. One of the team is the Fogal family, who boasts of the pastor dad, Brad, the non-piano playing mom and the daughter. As always, they make a big deal out of who they are and what they are doing, including being a Christian family. I cringed because this NEVER ends well.

And sure enough, about half-way through the first episode, we reach a place where the Fogal family really let their light shine. One of the tasks involved diving down for a box, opening the box and getting a map. So we watch as one young man helps a young woman from a different team get the box she found to the surface. As she is opening the box, in swoops Pastor Brad to swipe her map. Like some common, petty thief Brad Fogal, who is holding himself up as an ambassador of Christ swipes map from a woman half his age.

And later, he ignores his daughter when she injures her hand. Like repeatedly and with no concern whatsoever.

So with a little work on Google, I found that pastor Brad is the senior pastor at Foothills Church, a Free Evangelical congregation in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA. You can email him at brad@foothillschurchrsm.com.

And a notice to all reality show producers...please quit casting our jerks and buttheads. We know that you want to create shows that produce drama and intrigue and do it cheaply. But cast the kind of people who will love their neighbor, love God and genuinely care about the truth of who God is and who we are; we are out here and while we don't get all crazy chasing your money, we can be good competitors. It is easy to cast our idiots, doofuses and jerks who will uphold everything you think about the church. Be smarter than that; everyone deserves that.

PS- I am pulling for the Brown family, brothers who are overweight (yeah!), who can't swim (yeah!) and are hanging in there against all odds!