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Breakpoint columnist Roberto Rivera has recently begun a series of columns to highlight what he calls pop-culture's "flowers in the vast wasteland." His first two finds have been television shows. One, he says, proves that even the most unlikely soil can bear fruit.

The WB's Angel is a spin off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show Rivera says used to be a flower but has now gone to seed with sexual themes and youth-oriented plot lines that are not particularly interesting to adults. But Angel, though centered on the crime-fighting adventures of a vampire, offers valuable insights on redemption, evil, and sacrifice. In fact, Rivera says the show may be television's "most graceful hour."

"[Creator Joss Whedon] and company aren't telling a Christian story or even a religious one," Rivera writes. "But they've acknowledged, albeit unintentionally, that a story about atonement and sacrifice is impossible to tell without incorporating elements from the story that taught us what those words mean."

For the better part of 250 years, Angel was an infamous killer who preyed on the weak. As revenge, a victim's family placed a curse on Angel. He was given a soul. Now, this vampire has to live with his past.

"The show is the story of Angel's struggle to atone for the evil he has done—a struggle made all the harder by the fact that, just as with us, being remorseful doesn't mean that Angel has lost his capacity for evil," Rivera writes. "And resisting evil is just the start. Physical danger and loneliness are only part of the sacrifices entailed in Angel's quest for redemption."

Though now cancelled, Babylon 5 was a rare find on television, Rivera wrote in the second column of his series. Unlike most programs, the syndicated sci-fi series had a definite story to tell from the beginning and clearly depicted Christianity.

The series, which lasted for five years, is comparable to Star Trek in many ways: both are set in the middle-to-late 23rd century, involve space exploration, and chronicle man's "first contacts" with alien species.

However, the universes in which the two shows' characters live are strikingly different. Disease, war, and poverty do not exist in Star Trek, but these realities—in addition to human sin—are very much alive in Babylon 5.

Rivera writes that on Captain Kirk's Enterprise, "the trouble lies definitely in the stars and not in ourselves. In contrast, B5's universe is one in which, as Chesterton might have put it, we have plenty of empirical evidence for original sin."

Because Babylon 5 depicts a much different world, the role of religion is also different.

"Despite [the show's creator, Michael Straczynski] being a professed atheist, as was Gene Roddenberry, religion gets far better treatment on B5," Rivera writes, "People haven't outgrown their need for faith. On the contrary, religion is usually a positive force in B5's universe. People's beliefs define who they are and how they live."

In one episode, "Passing Through Gethsemane," a Christian monk gives his testimony. He explains that Jesus' actions are the standard against which he measures his life.

"If there's ever been a better summation of the Gospel in American popular culture, I haven't come across it," Rivera wrote.

This episode was not a rare occurrence. Rivera mentions a fan who counted 130 references to Scripture in the series. More important than how often the show brought up religion, he says, is that Babylon 5 discussed Christianity in specific and accurate terms.

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January (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46