TV Talk

This week's lineup on Boundless includes an article by Josh Harris of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Boy Meets Girl and Not Even a Hint fame.

In it he talks about the dangers of absorbing pop culture and the biblical warnings against it. Because so much of our media looks not only harmless but good, he reasons, it's easy to fall into the sin it promotes. His reasoning is solid.

"The greatest danger of the popular media is not a one-time exposure to a particular instance of sin (as serious as that can be)," he writes. "It's how long-term exposure to worldliness — little chunks of poison pill, day after day, week after week — can deaden our hearts to the ugliness of sin."

The more books for singles I read (authors like Camerin Courtney, Connally Gilliam and secular author Jillian Straus come to mind), the more I'm convinced that popular entertainment is what's shaping single women's attitudes about men, courtship, marriage and family. References to Friends and Sex in the City abound in recently published books. The top rated shows of yesterday and today all paint a dim picture of marriage and family. The best sex, according to them, is single sex. As Straus says, "there's hot sex, romantic sex and married sex." Once you get married on these shows, that's when the fun stops; unless of course you cheat on your husband.

But it's not true. Straus goes on to quote studies that show married sex is actually the best; married people report the most sexual satisfaction. Still, we tend to believe what we see on TV.

The Christian authors talk about singleness being more holy than marriage — they talk about having a Godly view on their status — but their thinking, on display in their writing, bears witness to the influence of television more than the verses they quote. As Harris says in the Boundless article, "Too many of us sow to the flesh every day — watching hours of TV but spending 15 minutes in devotions — and wonder why we don't reap a harvest of holiness."

And this influence isn't limited to published authors. For example, I often view the blogs of people who comment on my blog. In their profiles they say things that identify them as believers. One caught my attention when under "favorite movies" Pride and Prejudice appeared right next to Bridget Jones' Diary. Even my Barnes and Noble copy of Pride and Prejudice talks about what a bastardization of P&P Bridget Jones is; full of profanity and promiscuity and utterly foolish situations that Elizabeth Bennett never would have abided.

Still, Christian women go on loving pop culture, unaware of or unwilling to shield themselves from the lies that interfere with biblical thinking. Even Debbie Maken referenced Sex and the City in a way that made me wonder if she's a fan of the show. As much as I love her book and think it's the best one on the market for singles who want to be married, I think it's time we all take a hard look at what influences our thinking, and by default, our actions. Harris' article is a good place to start.

"Following Christ carries radical implications for the believer's lifestyle," he reminds us. "If we would honor God in this area, we need to regularly re-evaluate our media habits."

You cannot uncritically inhale the cultural air and still expect to exhale biblical virtue.

Entertainment has everything to do with our ability to live out our faith.