Be Aware of the Power of the Media...

Today, I read about a video aired by CNN recently in Breakpoint, an excellent Christian worldview daily email that I highly recommend. The video was made by insurgents in Iraq and shows a sniper shooting and killing an American soldier. In the video, the insurgents can be overheard talking about being careful to not harm any innocent people. CNN, after coming under fire for airing the video, has defended itself as simply showing the whole truth about what is happening in Iraq.

Now, I don't want to simply rehash the points made by Chuck Colson on Breakpoint, but they do bear a brief overview. First, it is clear from the large numbers of civilians who have been killed in the fighting in Iraq that the insurgents are not interested in protecting innocents. In fact, the death of these people, especially women and children, is known by the insurgents to be the most effective way of influencing us in America. So, their talk about protecting the innocents is meant only for us, to make Americans think that the insurgents are the heros and our soldiers the villians. Second, it is clear that the insurgents wanted CNN to air this video to help their position. It is timed close to our elections and obviously tilted to show the insurgents in a good light. Thus, I really think it should be considered a crime to have aired it, call it aiding the enemy, and I certainly hope that the US military follows through on its threat to ban CNN reporters from military units and operations. Third, Colson made the point that CNN's claim that it is simply showing the whole truth cannot possibly be true. This last point is what I would like to expand upon further.

I guess I need to start out by saying that it is impossible to communicate anything more complex than a simple fact (such as "my shoes are red") without shading the information with presuppositions and desired outcomes. This is mostly true just because of the enormous amount of information that is involved in any significant event. The information simply must be narrowed down into something that can be related easily. For example, think of a car crash. If all the information about that crash was related to a person, it would include full interviews of each person involved, each police officer that responded, each witness, a police report detailing the event and who was responsible, insurance reports about what it might cost to fix the damage, and on and on. If this were put on the evening news, it would take literally days of video to relay, and it would never be complete as it would be impossible to get inside the people's heads and know what they were thinking/feeling at that moment. So, we should always remember that the events related to us are incomplete.

Added to this, we must consider the motives of the executives in control of the news programs. First, they are motived by money. They receive money through their advertising, and they can charge more for commercial spots when they have more people watching the show. So, they are motivated to air the most emotive and exciting events that they can to draw attention. Unfortunately, because of the condition of fallen man, we seem to be most attracted to events that are gruesome and evil. Second, many of these executives are among what has been called the cultural elite of America, which is a loosely defined group of people using their power to mold American thought how they see fit - following a liberal agenda. They often use TV as a tool, and an effective one, to push their ideas. Usually this is not overt, but hidden in the messages of popular shows.

Speaking of that, it is important to point out the impact media has on our thoughts by introducing ideas in a prepackaged way. This is especially true of TV, since it does so through images. At least print media allows people to play with the ideas in their heads through their imaginations. TV takes that away by presenting the idea in an image that is already set for people. It literally does our thinking for us. We shouldn't be surprised by that, since TV dictates to such a great degree our clothing and hair styles and even our social mores. It also plays on the old idea that seeing is believing. However, anyone who delves a little deeper knows that, with TV, seeing is not necessarily believing.

In conclusion, I am suggesting that, even here where the freedom of the press is written into our Constitution, the press needs to be held accountable. Certainly, freedom has never meant lack of responsibility/accountability. We Christians should be careful to not buy the media's point of view without examining it. To allow such a powerful influence past our defenses is a giant mistake.

One Counter-Cultural CEO...We Need More...

Today, I was reading on Fox News on-line and saw an interesting interview in the economic news section. The CEO of JetBlue airline, David Neeleman, was speaking on one of the shows( I can't keep the different personalities separate in my mind since I only read the articles on-line and don't actually watch them) about how he donates his entire salary to his company's crisis management fund, which apparently helps out victims and families of victims of accidents related to the airline, and refuses to take stock options as part of his payment. In fact, his salary is only $200,000 per year, which sounds like a lot but isn't considering his position and that he is being successful.

Now, Mr. Neeleman is quite wealthy and probably doesn't miss the money he donates, but the example is stunningly different than the majority of businesspeople. It seems that the news has been full of businesspeople being indicted for crimes committed through their power and position as heads of companies, and the majority seem to be fleacing their own workers.

As I read the New Testament accounts of Jesus teaching on money and wealth, I am somewhat uncomfortable with those who would horde wealth and even more so with those who would gladly step on others for more. It seems that we need more CEOs who are willing to be satisfied with what they have and to view their positions of power and wealth as platforms for working good for others.

Bankruptcy...

This morning I was driving across our part of town to our church to do a voice-over for a video (a new skill of mine), and I had to have seen twenty or more high school and middle school aged students walking the streets. They weren't just near the schools, and they weren't just in the poorer neighborhoods. They were everywhere.

Now, as a once and future educator, I am appalled by this sort of truancy. As I drove, I was thinking bad thoughts about these kids and finally came to an important question. I asked myself, "Don't they know that they are handicapping themselves for their future by skipping school?"

However, this question immediately caused me to wonder about some even more important things. Just what is it that they will be missing out on if they continue on this trajectory? I realized that our secular society holds up materialism as the prize for those who work hard and succeed. That is exactly what we all tell our students in schools - work hard, study, behave so you can be successful and grow up to have a nice job, nice house, and things. The problem is that this sort of future is empty - profoundly. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Whole generations of people are even now coming to maturity who know that materialism fails to meet our most important needs.

Now, I definitely do not mean to excuse these truant kids as some sort of heroic rebels set against the corrupt system we have. But I am pointing out that what we are offering our students as the goal toward which they are working is not worth working for. We must offer something far more rewarding, and I think that such reward can only be found in Christ.

Of course, that last statement I made is a little hard to put flesh on sometimes, but Jesus gives us the meaning and value that we long for. Also, He provides us with a reason to be excellent at all things - His glory's sake. In addition, He has given us all (Christians that is) the ultimate mission to accomplish, which provides us with a community of support and an ultimately higher aim for our lives. Lastly, Christ gives us an eternal reward, while materialism is only valuable so long as you can enjoy it, which will certainly not last past your death and probably won't last that long.

We need to get out and offer this goal to those who are waking up to the failure of the American dream.

The Stewardship of Pain

I am reading a book called "The Joy of Fearing God" by Jerry Bridges along with two other Christian guys. We read a chapter a week and discuss it over lunch on Fridays. I recommend it as a good book for forcing us to deal with the concept of fearing God, which is not well understood in our churches and rarely preached.

In this week's chapter, something really stood out to me. It is what the author has called the "stewardship of pain." This is the idea that God brings all things into our lives for us to make use of those things to bring Him glory, even the pain, both physical and emotional, that we go through. God desires us to give over to Him our pain just as much as He desires that we commit our time, abilities, and money to Him.

This is an amazing thing to think on and accept because it brings us to a wonderful place of trusting Christ to not only grant us the grace that we need to rejoice even in our sufferings but also to make use of those sufferings in ministry to others.

As I've said before, I firmly believe that God wastes nothing. All things that we are led through will be used by Him for His glory. This gives me great delight to trust my savior who I know is in control of every situation.

As a commentary on our society, it is important to point out that this "stewardship of pain" is very counter-cultural. Our society seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Certainly, it is rare for the society to hold up pain and suffering as tools for good, which is exactly what God can make of them.

A General Rejection of Utility

Utility is something nearly all high school graduates know something about. It is usually introduced to us in economics classes. It is defined in Wikipedia (an incredibly useful source, even though you must check its facts) as "a measure of the happiness or satisfaction gained by consuming goods and services." Now, I taught high school economics for a semester and taught about utility. When dealing with rather mundane examples, such as the number of twinkies a person eats and how that relates to utility, this is a good teaching concept. However, utility is increasingly being applied wholesale to our world to great detriment.

In the past two weeks, we've seen two different school shootings involving men who either sexually assaulted girls or seemed to intend to prior to turning thr guns on them. Those men saw those children as goods to be consumed for their satisfaction, pure and simple. They may have had other serious mental/spiritual problems, but their treatment of others is clearly utilitarian.

While less bloody or high profile, we've also seen an increase in this sort of thinking toward the elderly, infirm, and unborn over the past 30 years or so. Repeatedly, we hear reasoning related to mercy killings, euthanasia, and abortion couched in terms like "quality of life" and "contribution to society." People have been increasingly reduced to what they are able to provide to the great ME our society seems to worship.

This can be thought of directly in terms of utility. Person A (an elderly mother, for example) provides Person B (son) with steadily decreasing utility because A no longer makes an income and requires constant care from both family and medical workers. In this way of thinking, when the utility derived falls below an acceptable level, B no longer has the responsibility to provide for A. In fact, some are arguing that A should be pressured, or even forced, to go ahead and put an end to her life so everyone else can maximize their utility.

And the examples abound.

We must reject this sort of utilitarian view of the world in favor of a Christian view that upholds the value of every human life as a sacred thing treasured by God. If we allow utilitarianism to become the main way of thinking, we will be left with a world in which a sexual predator is no longer doing anything wrong, since those children provide him with utility.

Revolt and Its Impact on History and Us

Recently, I finished reading a book by Ron Wells called "History Through the Eyes of Faith." It was an excellent read, and I recommend it strongly to anyone interested in a companion text to help shade in some areas left untouched by most Western civ history books. It helps point out many Christian points of view on events without coming to judgment on those events. In fact, the author makes the point, which I think I agree with, that history is not about making judgments on past events rather than reporting on them. The judgment must happen, but that is not history - it is us learning from history.

One of the most important parts of the book is the way it highlights three different revolts that have occurred in Western history, all of which have serious implications for our world today. The first two can be considered good, from a Christian perspective, but the last has been a serious tragedy to be sure. They are: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment.

Both the Renaissance and the Reformation were, in their own ways, revolts against Medieval thinking and attempts to get back to an ancient ideal - ancient Roman and Greek thought and art on the one hand and early church doctrine as found in the Scriptures on the other. While some might see these are reactionary, it is clear that they both had positive goals that have remained ideals for some of us. Of course, there were problems. The Thirty Years War in Central Europe was an excess that came directly out of the Reformation that is probably the darkest aspect of that movement (literally 30% of people living in that part of Europe were killed!). However, that hearkening back to our roots was a wonderful thing.

The Enlightenment has really been a rejection of Christianity to be replaced by a new ideal altogether. This is based on the ideas of progress and evolution that coincided with the Enlightenment. The main jist is that man can become perfected, given the right circumstances of environment. Enfortunately for us, the Enlightenment is still the dominant thought pattern for our society, and all other Western societies. In fact, both of the dominant government systems in the past century (democracy and communism) were birthed from the Enlightenment (think about the "new Soviet man" that the Russian were always trying to create and the many social programs often attempted in the USA).

One interesting thing to note is the nature of our government. In truth, we do not have a democracy in the United States. We have a republic. Both come out of the Enlightenment, but one (democracy) is an attempt to see the Enlightenment principles fulfilled while the other (republic) is a system designed to check Enlightenment principles before they can cause too much damage. It is a good think for us that the Articles of Confederation (our first government and constitution) failed and was replaced by the Constitution. Additionally, while I have serious problems with many government programs, it is important to note that government exists to limit man's fallenness, not to create a perfect world in which man can become new.

We Christians hold that the one and only means by which a man can become a new creation is in Jesus Christ. There is no program that can match His graceful work - and that is the sort of revolution that I long for!