I’ve spent the last several days preparing a Powerpoint with extensive video and image illustrations for high school students. The hope is to get them to install an internal media filter that will stay in place whether they are watching TV or YouTube, Twittering or uploading photos to their Facebooks, playing video games, or texting on their phones. We are called to glorify God in everything we do (1 Cor. 10:31), and that certainly extends to processing media messages.
It was most enlightening me for to find illustrations for this presentation. The naturalistic worldview that characterizes our society runs from the merely godless (most of the Harry Potter books, up to the shock of the Christian elements at the end of the last book) to the openly hostile (House, M.D.’s contempt for all things and people of faith). When I read the lyrics of the top iTunes songs, I couldn’t help but wince at the potty-mouth sexism of “Boom Boom Pow,” the glorification of “Waking Up in Vegas” (hungover and married???), and the total insipidity of the “No Boundaries” song our brother Kris Allen was forced to sing on American Idol.
Finding illustrations for the way the media desensitize us wasn’t hard. Consider that most high school students have a “ho-hum, yawn” apathy about same-sex marriage; they’ve been desensitized to the whole issue. And there is more blood and gore in the opening credits of CSI: than most people would have seen in a lifetime a generation ago, but we munch on chips through it all while not blinking an eye.
Nor was it hard to think of ways in which the media present an unreal view of our world. Girls are still in love with Edward, the vampire hero of the Twilight series. And back to CSI: the last time I was called to jury duty, during the voir dire process we were told of the “CSI Effect” that now leads juries to have unrealistic expectations about how crime evidence is harvested. Solving real-life crimes is harder than it appears to be in a 60-minute show. (I mean, c’mon, don’t we all just know that every partial print is going to show up in CODIS?)
We will be calling students to glorify God in their media consumption by engaging a filter comprised of questions through which they view and experience images and messages:
* What is their view of life? Where do they say life is found?
* Can you discern the philosophy of those pumping out images, information, or music?
* Are they telling the truth in what they’re saying?
* Is there hostility to certain values and beliefs, especially Christianity?
* How does this compare to what God tells us to keep in mind? (What is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy)
Come to think of it, maybe that’s not such a bad thing for all of us to do!
Note: I zipped up the Powerpoint and all the videos (plus an audio clip) in a folder which can be downloaded here: http://www.box.net/shared/muz26dhvch
Ray and I are providing the curriculum for Super Summer Arkansas, a youth ministry of the Southern Baptist Convention of Arkansas, and several other people will be teaching the messages we compiled. So each slide has information in the Notes view for other people to teach the material.
We just ask that if anyone ever uses this presentation, that Probe Ministries receives credit. 🙂
Warning: it’s 72 MB! Hope you have broadband!
Addendum: here’s a link to just the Powerpoint: http://www.box.net/shared/lc1nbc4m1j
This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/engage/sue_bohlin/a_media_filter_for_the_glory_of_god
on May 26, 2009.
Sue Bohlin
Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker/writer and webmistress for Probe Ministries. She attended the University of Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 40 years. She is a speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and Stonecroft Ministries (Christian Women's Connections), and serves on the board of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach to those dealing with unwanted homosexuality. Sue is on the Bible.org Women's Leadership Team and is a regular contributor to Bible.org's Engage Blog. In addition to being a professional calligrapher, she is the wife of Probe's Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of a son in San Francisco and another son who joined his baby sister in heaven in 2024.. Her personal website is suebohlin.com.
What is Probe?
Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults, our 3-minute daily radio program, and our extensive Web site at www.probe.org.
Further information about Probe's materials and ministry may be obtained by contacting us at:
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