On the Church and Media

Last Tuesday when we were talking about the way the church handles art I mentioned the church my parents go to at home. I was trying to describe the last sermon, in which the pastor told the congregation to avoid modern media, and I physically shuddered in class. I had to stew on that for a few days and figure out why that thought disturbed me so much.

That pastor only looked on the surface of the media available. He said as much when speaking. He said something along the lines of, "I've never watched these shows, and neither should you. We as Christians shouldn't let modern media into our lives for the poison they bring into our lives." He went on to say television propagated "atheist ideals" and called R rated movies "perverse."

He went on to preach about avoiding temptation, but he kept emphasizing the idea of pulling away from any sort of media outside of the church in order to keep away from "worldly ideas." Thinking back on it, quite a few of his sermons mentioned staying away from what is worldly. What is it, I have to wonder, that makes "worldly" such a dirty word. Is it because people think that straying inside their community protects them from sin? Looking back to your roots can help keep you grounded in your faith, but staying inside a little bubble keeps said faith in an infantile state: never growing, never changing, never learning.

I'm not going to try to claim to have the answers for how we should handle and consume media, but hiding from and/or ignoring it don't seem like the most beneficial responses.