"Since we all live in a world created by television, it is almost impossible to see what has happened to us. The only hope is to read what people were like in previous centureies. Biographies are a great antidote to cultural myopia and chronological snobbery. We have become almost incapable of handling any great truth reverently and deeply. Magnificent things, especially the glory of God, as David Wells says, rest with a kind of "weightlessness" even on the church.
It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by
this that he is ethereal but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the
world so inconsequentiallly as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human
life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God's existence may nonetheless
consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their
appestites for afflunece and influence, his judgment no more awe-inspiring than the
evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers' sweet fog of flattery and
lies. That is weightlessness. It is a condtion we have assigned him after having ndged
him out to the periphery of our secularized life....Weightlessness tells us nothing about
God but everything about ourselves, about our condition, about our psychological
disposition to exclude God from our reality.
We have lost our ability to see and savor the complexities of truth and the depths of simplicity. Douglas Groothuis explains the connection between this weakness and television:
The triumph of the televised image over the word contributes to the depthlessness of
postmodern sensibilities....One cannot muse over a television program the way wone
ponders a charactoer in William Shakespeare or C.S. Lewis, or a Blaise Pascal parable, or
a line from a T.S. Eliot poem, such as 'But our lot crawls between dry ribs/to keep its
metaphysics warm.' No one on television could utter such a line seriously. It would be
"bad television" -- too abstract, too poetic, too deep, just not entertaining....[Not only
that] but the images appear and disappear and reappear without a proper rational
context. An attempt at a sobering news story about slavery in the Sudan is followed by a
lively advertisement for Disneyland, followed by an appeal to purchase panty hose that
will make any woman irrestistible, etc., ad nauseum.
Therefore the man who stands before God with his well-kept avoidance ethic and his protest that he did not spend too much time at the office but came home and watched TV with his family will probably not escape the indictiment that he wasted his life. Jesus rebuked his disciples with words that easily apply to this man: "Even sinners work hard, avoid gross sin, watch TV at night, and do fun stuff on the weekend. What more are you doing than the others?" (see Luke 6:32-34; Matthew 5:47)."
Youch!! Yeah, I know John Piper can be rather direct. But the guy loves Jesus! And I might add that he raised 5 children without a TV in the house. Is he worse off for such a decision? Doubtful. Here's the other thing that got me thinking about all this TV stuff again recently. We rarely watch primetime TV. Mostly because we literally do not have time (who can feed, bathe, and do homework with 6 children and have ANY time for TV?). But a couple of weeks ago, Randy was gone for a board meeting and I decided that the kids and I would watch "The Biggest Loser." It's an inspiring show, right? I mean, really, it is in many ways. That p.m. I watched it for 2 hours with my kids. The following week was the season finale and so of course I HAD to see that and planned my entire evening around it. I got irritated with my kids when they interrupted and sat there for THREE hours watching all this DRAMA - and I'm sorry, but I find the name "reality" show really funny! - and for what?! We finally had to turn the TV off every time a commercial came on. I realize that some of you are probably saying "Have you heard of Tivo?? But does that really solve the problem? I guess I was just struck after that whole experience of how quickly we get pulled into a world that is not reality and how MUCH it impacts - and I think I would go as far as to say controls - us and how we think and believe.
Okay, I think I'm done with that for now. I have one more woman who has written this great book about books for kids - she has some great comments about TV and its impact on us and our kids, but that's for later! Kids are going bananas!!
1 comment:
agree, agree, agree! I felt so much more "in" when we had cable - I finally knew who Paula Deen was. But I did waste WAY too much time watching it. Now that we dont have cable again, i truly dont miss it at all. I am so much better off not watching the news. I spent 5 mins on a news website the other day and was totally saddened and disturbed and no better off for it. I dont want my head in the sand - I hear about the big stuff.
Now if I could just read more and be online less. I really want to read more and more with the kids....want to put together a summer reading list?! Id love to hear your ideas for that :)
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