Defiled or Irrelevant?

I thought it would be great to post a question from our message board regarding an issue that many people wonder about. I'll leave the name of the person anonymous.

"...I have been asked by a few people, and Christians at that, if by limiting my kids exposure to media, I am keeping them from knowing culture and being able to minister those who are lost and submerged in that culture."

This was my response to it.


"...that is an absolute wonderful point. Let's look into it a little more. The dilemma looks a little like this: Either let my child watch BET, or MTV, or whatever movie or what not so they can stay in touch with the culture (yet they get defiled) or take it away from them (but then they are irrelevant).

What if I told you that was a lie the enemy put out there. Culture does not live in T.V., or magazines, or the Internet, or movies. Culture is real it's around us.

Point #1- we do not learn about real culture watching these shows.

The lie is that we learn about the culture through these forms of media. The truth is we don't because the media has a different agenda. The media is in business to make business, it exist to keep itself existing-- in other words MAKE A PROFIT- at our expense and our kids expense. The media does not reflect the culture we live in. They go into small pockets of areas where extreme attitudes of rebellion, sexual immorality, violence, lust & passion, materialism, hedonism and like natures exist. Then they choose to package that and display it on T.V. as being cool. Though these small pockets of extremities represent less than 5% of real cultures they saturate over 95% of the air time, thus giving a false image about what the real culture around us is. Then our kids start mimicking what they see on T.V. and spend what they have and do what they can to look like it, including rebelling against parents and other authorities.



Recap- 1) media reflects small pockets of extremities, 2) They package it to cover nearly all of air time 3) the majority of people see it and think it's normal 4) The companies that own these broadcasting stations and magazines make a lot of money because they are partnered or associated with the makers of the products that can make the general public look like what they saw on T.V.


Point #2 We do not need media to stay in touch with culture.

How long has culture existed and how long has the media existed? Whoever needed media to understand the culture that THEY THEMSELVES live in.



Culture is not found in media. Culture is in flesh. The only way you will get out of touch with culture is when you get out of touch with people.

Here is the fact: if you want to understand people you have to listen, ask questions, and build relationships.

If you think about it, the best that watching most of these shows will do for you is build stereotypes, and who likes to be stereotyped? People want you to know them for who they are?

So here is the option- raise our own kids and teach them real culture or let the media force on them false images so that the media and it's associates can make money.