9.00am and 10.30am Sunday 11 May 2003
Rev Des Botting
Readings: Mark 12:28-34; Philippians 3:3-11
(This message is the fourth in a series of messages on Modern Day idolatries. Much of the material for this series is gleaned from the second part of Marva Dawns book, Is It A Lost Cause? Having the Heart of God for the Churchs Children (Grand Rapid, MI: Eerdmans, 1997).
Sometimes I say to people, Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first? In speaking about the idolatry of the media and technology it is very much like this, because there are some very disturbing facts about the effect of peoples, and especially childrens, exposure to these two avenues of communication that we need to be aware of. At the same time the media and technology have tremendous potential for good, and in all that follows I am not saying you have to throw out your television set. Some of the religious, sports, and nature programmes, and the existence now of a Christian television channel in Shine TV are a real blessing. The issue really boils down to, who is the servant and who is the master.
Picture in your mind bumper-to-bumper traffic on the motorway in peak hours. Think of the thousands of vehicles of all shapes and sizes entering into the city, carrying people and goods for a multitude of purposes. Marva Dawn suggests that we imagine our exposure to modern media as being like a superhighway entering our homes. The advent of Sky television and the multiplicity of channel options open to viewers means that the churchs children are exposed to all kinds of new opportunities for media involvement. Its very important as a church to understand the implications of living in this age of technology and what we must do in the present media revolution to raise our children of faith.
As was mentioned before, the media and technology have tremendous potential for both good and evil. (10.30am service only - They can foster what we have just sung in Fosters hymn the scorning of Christ, the assailing of His ways, the warring madness, the wanton and selfish gladness, the accumulation of things that leads to poverty of soul, and the resignation to evils we deplore.) Much has been written and is being written about the destructive effects of the media and technology on our bodies, our minds, and our relationships, that are not readily noticed, but that are very clearly documented. In a further sermon in this series well be considering some sobering information gleaned from NZ research on the subject of violence.
In the time we have this morning there is only space to introduce some of the dangers of media consumption, alert you to the problems associated with this, and how we as Christian families and as a congregation can put into place strategies to take advantage of the benefits, without succumbing to their great perils.
First,
I. Six Dangers of Media Consumption. The first and most obvious problem with the rise in number of media options, especially demonstrated in television viewing, is
1. It wastes so much TIME. Think of the hours that children and adults spend with the media daily, including videotapes, video and computer games, and the Internet. Peter D. Hart Research Associates have discovered that 63 percent of U.S. residents watch television while eating dinner, including 76 percent of young people between the ages of eight and twenty-four. Think of what a tragic loss of family time this is for conversation! In our family, the evening meal is the one time of the day all the family is together, and we value that time to catch up with how our day has gone, to share in a family devotion and pray for each other. Reading has decreased by half since the 1960s. Other leisure activities, especially quality time for families to be together, have also declined. The NZ Department of Labour Website reports that the standard 40-hour working week is waning in popularity, as increasing numbers of New Zealand workers put in considerably more hours or considerably fewer. Trends in the Household Labour Force survey over the past 14 years show a growing spread in our working hours. On the one hand, more people than before are part-timers, but on the other, increasing numbers are working at least 50 hours a week. About 22%, that is, almost a quarter of the workforce, are now putting in this many hours, compared with 17% in 1987. Think of the implications of this for involvement in Worship, Bible Study and projects the church might run to help people. One father with a young family I spoke to recently works six days a week, and 10 hours each day. Twenty years ago, it was estimated the average citizen could read the entire Bible fifteen times in the amount of time spent watching television in one year! Think of what that must be now!
Secondly
2. It stifles the IMAGINATION. Children who are used to watching the media for long hours
have difficulty entertaining themselves when theyre away from their television. This is very noticeable when traveling on an aeroplane. They often dont know how to play without electronic toys, arent interested in nature or the wonderful sights that can be seen from the aeroplane window, wont read books, and give up easily if anything they do requires creativity.
Closely linked with this is the loss of attention span. Maybe because our programmes are interrupted regularly with commercials, it limits the length of time people have to concentrate. The media presents everything at a rapid, hyped pace. Teachers face a real challenge with this in schools, which raises the question of how will we help children learn if it isnt possible to involve them in anything that requires effort, continued attention, and imagination?
A much more critical point has been clearly demonstrated through the research by Jane Healy, an educator of educators, in her book, Endangered Minds: Why Our children Dont Think. She says that watching a lot of television
3. develops smaller BRAINS in children. Without a balance of verbal output, constant input fails to bridge the hemispheres of the brain, and lack of involvement with the environment decreases the proliferation of dendrites. When children are young their brains are still developing, and it is only through the stimulation of conversation and handling things like toys, a musical instrument, or ones legs in running does the brain build new pathways through these nerve endings and the information received actually gets learned. Healy emphasizes that the medias bombardment not only causes our children to be unable to think; it also prevents them from actually having the brain space in which to think and learn. She pleads as follows:
If we wish to remain a literate culture, someone is going to have to take responsibility for teaching children at all socio-economic levels how to talk, listen, and think . . . before neural foundations for verbal expression, sustained attention, and analytic thought end up as piles of shavings under the workbench of plasticity.
. . . Students from all walks of life now come with brains poorly adapted for the mental habits that teachers have traditionally assumed. In the past, deep wells of language and mental persistence had already been filled for most children by experiences at home. . . . Now teachers must fill the gaps before attempting to draw skills from brains that lack the underlying cognitive and linguistic base.
We care deeply about the smartness of our children, but our culture lacks patience with the slow, time-consuming handwork by which intellects are woven. The quiet spaces of childhood have been disrupted by media assault and instant sensory gratification. Children have been yoked to hectic adult schedules, and assailed by societal anxieties.[1]
You might ask, why havent we heard about this before? The reason for this is that it has been masked by the tendency of schools and agencies to make things like reading tests easier. Healy proves this by showing the difference between a fourth-grade reading test and an Advanced Reading Achievement Test used in 1964 to the one used in 1982. The Advanced test in particular was very much simpler.
One can sympathise with teachers in that parents complain if their children are not doing well at school, and yet there is no way in which they can offset all the bad influences of childrens homes. Many children have no background vocabulary or study skills to reach what is expected of them, and so teachers are forced to give them passing grades anyway by reducing the requirements. What can help children to process and, therefore, benefit from what they see and hear is if parents sit down and talk with them about it, and give them appropriate activities to do.
Neil Postmans book, Amusing Ourselves to death, the title for todays message, highlights the fact that
4. Children are less motivated to THINK because television encourages them to be passive listeners and this is true even of the supposedly good programmes. Even programmes like Sesame Street, which was created to help children love school, puts learning in an artificial environment. Postman says,
Sesame Street undermines what the traditional idea of school represents. Whereas a classroom is a place of social interaction, the space in front of a television set is a private preserve. Whereas in a classroom, one may ask a teacher questions, one can ask nothing of a television screen. Whereas school is centred on the development of language, television demands attention to images. Whereas attending school is a legal requirement, watching television is an act of choice. Whereas in school, one fails to listen to the teacher at the risk of punishment, no penalties exist for failing to attend to the television screen. Whereas there are rules for behaviour at school, there are no such rules when it comes to watching television. Whereas in a classroom, fun is never more than a means to an end, on television it is the end in itself.
Fifthly, referring back to what we considered last week about consumerism, the outcome of exposure to all the advertising that comes across on television is that
5. It promotes and fosters GREED. Advertisers use every avenue available to push their products. One thing that we can be thankful for is that books dont usually have ads.
The American Academy of Pediatrics reports in its booklet on Television and the Family that average children in the US see more that 20,000 advertisements during the 1,300 to 1,400 hours of television at they watch annually, more than 60 percent of those commercials are for heavily sugared breakfast cereals, sweets and toys. Since only about 4 percent of the advertisements concern the healthy food groups of meat, milk products, bread or juice, children can get a very distorted picture of what they ought to eat. In the light of all the recent media attention to overweight children in NZ, it is significant to note that recent studies in the US have shown a direct correlation between the amount of television viewing and childrens risk of obesity. I wonder if they have thought to do the same research in NZ.
The greed fostered by the media is just one aspect of the much larger problem with television, namely,
6. It muddles our perception of REALITY. As we saw last week, advertisements play to our emotions, particularly our fears and desires, and cause us to act on our feelings rather than on facts and common sense. Neil Postman says that we dont really know from an advertisement how well a car performs because the commercial attracts us, not with facts about the car, but with the thrill of driving it, or the sense of enjoyment that comes from going on a journey together as a family.
Another author, Jaques Ellul, also points out the fact that because the daily news on the media features everything horrible in such short segments and that it changes so rapidly from day to day, it fosters a catastrophic, fragmentary, and inadequate view of the world. A doctor who worked in medical missions in several of the trouble spots of the world said that the news reports didnt reveal those situations accurately at all.
There are many other issues that one could mention, like the medias invasion of family privacy, and some further dangers will be highlighted in other messages in this series. However, this should be sufficient to make us deeply concerned, and to show how necessary it is for congregations and Christian parents to encourage those things that bind families together and contribute to the faith development of our children so that they have the values they need to weigh what they watch on television. The Christian community can also offer to the world both wisdom and solutions to the problems inherent in the media. Which brings us to the second point, that
II. We Can and Must
1. set LIMITS on the media. Quentin Schultze suggests establishing a 3:1 ratio of family interaction/relational activities and media consumption. Unless we do so, he warns, we will reverse the worldwide, ageless custom of parents teaching their children the wisdom of their faith and heritage, and in the process leave our children without a sense of who they are or what life is really for. Proverbs says, Teach your children right from wrong, and when they are grown they will still do right.[2] Or as the NRSV puts it, Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray. This is a primary responsibility for parents, and the church should be there to back them up in their efforts. As has been said many times, the Christian faith is caught, rather than taught, by our children. What offers the most powerful learning for children is to have adults model what it is to worship God and live a life of faith. They need to see Gods Word lived out in peoples lives rather than in one more amusing video. This means being discerning in the use of media even in the area Christian education.
There was a very interesting article in The Plough, the magazine of the Bruderhof Christian communities in the US, which described what happened when they began using videos for educational purposes and once in a while for entertainment. They had always lived without television. Here is what the report said:
But the more videos we watched, the more difficult it became to discern which ones were appropriate, worthwhile, or edifying. Dubious footage, which might have shocked us months before, gradually failed to bother us anymore, and our teenagers and even some adult members began to hanker after each of the latest box office hits as it became available at the video outlets.
The medium itself was problematic, too: it seemed to induce passivity, and the unreal world of images, excitement, and colour exercised a greater and greater power of attraction. Watching a video became the big thing, whether in the classroom, as a special treat at home, or merely as an easy way to occupy ones time.
The article goes on to say,
Last fall we decided in our brotherhoods to pack away all our VCRs and video cassettes and live without videos. The results were astounding. Creativity blossomed again among the children at school and at home. Singing, playing, and reading together, arts and crafts work, hiking, and socializing replaced the mass isolation of individuals glued to the screen.
None of us, including our children, has regretted our decision or misses the videos we might have been seeing. And our time, minds, and energies have been liberated for worthwhile pursuits.
What I found interesting were the comments of some of the children interviewed about the change. One, a 5th grade student, said, It was a good idea to stop watching videos, because it lets us think more about Jesus. Another 10th grade student said, Id rather be bird watching than watching movies. Not watching videos also gives me more time to practice piano.
Think of all the precious family time and creative potential, the thinking about Christ and the deepening of family relationship bonds, that is squandered because so much time is devoted to media consumption, particularly when time for families to be together is at such a premium. Marva Dawn says that for the sake of our childrens education, and also for the sake of their ability to genuinely worship, it is crucial to limit their media involvement. And, when you think of it, why would we want our children, and this is true for adults, too, to waste so much time on television when so much of it is so destructive to their moral formation. This, as was said at the beginning, is not saying we should necessarily get rid of it altogether, but the good programmes make up only a small proportion of the time spent by the average family in television viewing.
Of course it will mean that parents will have to sacrifice more time, initially anyway, to introduce their children to alternative activities, but ultimately they will catch on. When they see you enjoying activities other than Television, they will be eager to learn, and it can provide wonderful opportunities for deep conversation with your children about all manner of subjects. When you ask children about their fondest memories, over and over it will be about something that involved quality time with family.
It really is a choice, and it returns us to the basic issue for parents and for the church: do we realise that one of our primary callings in life is to invest time in the training of our children for life? The television cannot do that, but projects and games and working together on household chores can.
The other point of crucial importance is this, if most parents take great care in what they give their children to eat to nourish them physically, why do so many keep serving their children garbage for their spiritual nourishment. If we would not feed their bodies with toxic materials, why on earth do we feed their souls with so much violence, sexual immorality, and greed? This is why supervision, and as often as possible, companionship is necessary when smaller children watch television, and setting limits, such as Schultze suggests, for the viewing of older children. We need to take note of what Paul says about what to feed our minds, and those of our children, on: Finally, my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Dont ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise.[3]
As parents Grace and I made the decision not to have television in the home, except for events like the Commonwealth or Olympic Games, and some of the world cup sporting events, and its one we have never regretted, nor have our children. When we get the opportunity to watch it on holiday somewhere, it only confirms our decision.
This brings home a second point, namely that we Can and Must
2. ESTABLISH children in the Christian Worldview, its morals and its values. This will help them to be discerning in what they view on the media. Since they are going to be exposed to various computer and media possibilities in school and by their friends, we cannot isolate them from it. But we can give them the skills for choosing wisely, nurture the strength of character to reject what is ungodly, and an understanding of the meaning and purpose of life in the light of Gods Word.
When you watch television with your children, you should stop and discuss anything that is offensive immediately, so that our young people understand how directly opposed to the things of God much of our culture is and how alert we must be to avoid polluting our minds? Susan Douglas, in her article Remote Control: How to Raise a Media Sceptic,[4] suggests:
Dont think your choices are either no TV or a zombified kid. Studies how that the simple act of intervening of talking to your child about whats on television and why its there is one of the most important factors in helping children understand and distance themselves from some of the boxs more repugnant imagery. . . . Complete media-proofing is impossible, because the shallow, consumerist, anti-intellectual values of the mass media permeate our culture. And we shouldnt beat ourselves up for failing to quarantine our kids. But we can inoculate them which means exposing them to the virus and showing them how to build up a few antibodies. So dont feel guilty about letting them watch TV. Instead, have fun teaching them how to talk back to it rather than to you.
Douglass advice isnt specifically Christian, but it does show ways in which we can renounce the consumerism and greed that TV fosters, and especially how it can be fun as we equip our children to be able to evaluate what they see and hear. It isnt an onerous duty or a terrible burden to help our children reject the ungodly values of the world around them. It is instead a great privilege to empower them for choosing the values of the kingdom of God. It can also be an opportunity to bring home that of first importance is what Jesus said in response to the question of the teacher of the Law of Moses in Marks Gospel:
One of the teachers of the Law of Moses came up while Jesus and the Sadducees were arguing. When he heard Jesus give a good answer, he asked him, What is the most important commandment?
Jesus answered, The most important one says: People of Israel, you have only one Lord and God. You must love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.[5]
And also what Paul said to the Philippians, that
Nothing is as wonderful as knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have given up everything else and count it all as garbage. All I want is Christ and to know that I belong to him.[6]
Let me reiterate what was shared at the beginning. I am NOT saying that technology and the media are always bad. I use a computer constantly for my work as a minister and find it an invaluable tool, but I set strict limits on the amount of time I spend on exploring all it is capable of. I enjoy morally sound entertainment and find movies helpful for understanding society. What I am saying is that the media and technology are inherently dangerous, and I encourage you to think prayerfully about this matter and discuss it with other members of the congregation. Further messages in this series will add to what we have looked at today. For the sake of our children, our faith, our service to the world, and our Church, we must be mindful of the perils of the technological age in which we live. We must be active in giving our world the alternatives and the limits to media our Christian communities can create and set. And we must affirm that knowing Christ and having a personal relationship with Him, not amusements or anything else, is the only way to satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. Jesus said, I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest.[7]
[1] Jane Healy, Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Dont Think (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), pp. 277-278
[2] Proverbs 22:6 (All Bible references are from the Contemporary English Version unless otherwise stated.)
[3] Philippians 4:8
[4] Susan Douglas, Remote Control: How to Raise a Media Sceptic, Utne Reader 79 (January-February 1997): 79
[5] Mark 12:28-30
[6] Philippians 3:8-9a
[7] John 10:10b