Posted: 04/17/07

Leading Our Children Out of Darkness

Ken Smitherman and Ronald Kirk

EDITOR'S NOTE:  This insightful article is a companion article to Dr. Ted Baehr and Pat Boone's new book CULTURE-WISE FAMILY: Upholding Christian Values in a Mass Media World. It is available in a special section of www.movieguide.org. Entertainment expert Dr. Ted Baehr and legendary musician Pat Boone think it's time we began paying attention to our mass-media consumption. They urge people to make wise choices for themselves and their families so they can protect their children from toxic messages in the culture. The Culture-Wise Family offers a rich, authoritative analysis of the many perilous trends in a time when parents face challenges that are unprecedented in their intensity and detrimental influences. This book builds on the firm foundation of a biblical worldview and analyzes the implications of other worldviews as they are expressed and promoted in media, entertainment, and public education, the three purveyors of the increasing secularization and pluralization of our times. It will not only help you to protect your children and grandchildren, but also it will help you redeem the times and the culture!

One of the most significant contributions we can make to our culture is to educate our children. The word "educate" comes from the Latin educo, which means "to lead out of" and inferred that an educator led a student out of the darkness of barbarism into the light of Christian civilization. Regrettably, today educational processes often imply the opposite-to lead out of the light of Christian civilization into dark neo-paganism. This chapter addresses this predicament and offers solutions using insights from two Christian educators who are gifted with Christian wisdom, knowledge and understanding.

Into the Light:
Ken Smitherman¹

While I recognize exceptions, prevailing motifs affect all students today that blur any cultural differences between Christians and non-Christians. These motifs include:

•  Pressure for performance. From parental demands for high grades to personal anxiety about being above the cut on a sports team, pressure for performance can be almost all consuming for a teenager.

•  Premature sophistication imposed by subjection to illicit influences that short-circuit character development. This is a trend perhaps best symbolized by media presentations of five-year-old Jon Benet Ramsey, the kindergartner portrayed as a glamour model, who was the victim of a grisly murder.

•  Diminished concern for ethical and moral values.  The message here is that "if it's right for you, it is right!"

•  Personal entitlement. This is a credo of deserving rather than earning, which says, "Here I am to collect!"

•  The belief that the end justifies the means. What counts here is where you end up. Process and procedure take a back seat to shortcuts, instant responses and self-gratification.

•  Indifference to cheating, sexual irresponsibility and violence. This is the belief that "what you do is none of my business; it's your life. To each his own!"

•  Anti-social conduct. This is often reflected in gross rudeness, flippant and open vulgarity, disrespect and mockery.

•  Pessimistic uncertainty about the future. Despite economic prosperity, young people have the sense of being caught in a downward shift from good to bad times as they hear of such threats as the aids epidemic and global environmental disasters.

Developing a God-honoring Worldview

Today's cultural messages powered by the high-octane fuel of entertainment media present a great challenge for the family, the Church and the Christian school to apply the Word of God against these ungodly influences. It is a world impacted by a spirit of materialism to the point that consuming to live has become living to consume. However, many Christian schools today are diligently seeking to help students develop a God-honoring worldview. Fran Sciacca, a Christian educator, writes the following regarding this in his book Generation at Risk:

I completely rewrote my senior Bible curriculum to focus on the principle of worldview. One week was spent on each of ten key questions about life from the standpoint of both secular and biblical worldviews. We sought answers in the Bible for the problems that any worldview, whether Christian or secular, must address and answer to be legitimate. The ten issues of life we discussed were

1.   Individuality: Who or what am I?             2.   Meaning: What's the point of it all
3.   Values: How am I to make moral choices?4.   Truth: Is it possible to know the truth
      about ourselves and the universe?
5.   Love: What is love, and where can it be | 
      found?
6.   Suffering: Why is there suffering, and how
      can we live with it?
7.   Death: How am I to face death? Is there
      life after death? 
8.   Hope: What hope is there for the human
     race?
9.  Reality: Is there anything more than the 
     physical world?
10. Evil: Is there any hope in fighting evil and
     injustice?

A number of curious things began to happen as we examined secular and biblical answers to the above ten questions. Those who were intently following what we were doing gradually began to see that biblical Christianity made sense of life as it really is. They slowly realized that being a Christian was not just a matter of saying yes to a creed. It involved all of life and demanded the alignment of their lives with God's will.²

This is but one example of the diligence and effort that mark Christian schooling and give us a choice-to develop young men and women who are not of the world but effectively in the world, bringing salt to preserve it and light to dispel its darkness.

By Ted Baehr Click here for bio and archived articles