Daytime TV's Guiding Lights

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A Christian Soap?

Daytime soaps trace their roots to serial fiction from the likes of Charles Dickens and radio serials of the 1930s and 1940s, acquiring their name from the advertisers who sold soap products. The first TV soap aired in the early 1950s and gained popularity in subsequent decades. Today, they are mainstays of daytime TV, competing with talk shows and game shows.

Soaps tend to focus on female characters, both bad and good. They reflect on societal issues and tend to clearly define good and evil. And, of course, the stories never end.

This last element allows the scripts to explore the attitudes and emotions around touchy subjects such as AIDS, premarital sex, racial prejudice, homelessness and other real-life issues, which could include Christianity.

"Why not?" Austin Peck says. "There could be a Christian character on a soap. But it would have to be an honest character [who] is allowed to struggle with his faith, stumble, fall and get up again."

He's willing to play a bad character if the role is redeeming or shows the ugliness of sin. But, he adds: "[Soaps] are a slice of life--you cannot take them too seriously."

Soap Digest managing editor Stephanie Sloane has noticed the increasing number of actors who believe in God on the programs.

"There are Christians on all of the shows, but there is a larger, more vocal contingent on Days," she says. "Soaps are not all about sex. People who say that do not watch them. They deal with poignant, ongoing stories. Yes, yes, many people have sex. But...often there are consequences."

So why be a Christian on a soap? Even some of the stars themselves wrestle with the question.

"The day I became a Christian I thought, 'Oh no, I can't work on that show anymore.' I was horrified," says Hunter Tylo, a charismatic Christian who stars as Taylor Hayes Forrester on The Bold and the Beautiful. "I was willing to walk away. I prayed about where God wanted me. I said: 'Lord, take this career. I do not want to be a stumbling block for anyone.'"

Hunter walked through the entire CBS studio anointing every room and sound stage with oil. Like Jamie-Lyn, she prayed that God would bring other Christians to the show and the network.

Resolved that God indeed wanted her to stay, Hunter has been able to bring Scripture into several episodes and has shared Christ with co-stars and crew members, even leaving notes and tracts in their mailboxes.

Many of the stars see God's hand at work in their careers and are careful not to cross the lines in their parts.

Scott Reeves, former star with The Young and the Restless, agrees that an actor's place on the soaps is a position to be taken seriously for Christ.

"How can a Christian be in a soap? I don't think it is for another person to judge. It is between God and the person. You know when you are doing something you should not be doing," he says.

Says Julianne Morris: "I am not on a soap to minister to other Christians. I am more concerned about the non-Christians. If I can reach one person for Christ, it is all worth it."