Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Thu, 27 Aug 1992 02:31:50 EST
From:         Kerry Stephenson <KSTE@PURCCVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Values and Popular culture (pt. 2)

Hi all:

This is part 2 of this posting.  Below is the heading from Part 1.
If you have not yet read part 1, please do so before reading part 2.
Thanks.

This is something that I wrote about three months ago, and I just
came across it again in my files.  I'd like to get some response.

HOWEVER, it is long, so I will post it in parts.  PLEASE hold
all comments until you have read the entire piece (I'm not saying
it's seamless; I just hope it moves from beginning to end and
needs to be swallowed before we attempt to digest it.)  When
I post the last part, I will identify it as such and ask for
comments.

Thanks.

Love INC,
         --Kerry

                   Values and Popular Culture (part 2)
                           (copyright 1992)


   It is not news that the medium of television supplies its viewership
with a steady diet of regurgitated secular humanist mush.  It should,
however, alarm us as Christians that the medium has become the channel
through which the spirit of antiChrist speaks and speaks boldly.  And
we have not even touched on the seemingly unending parade of whining
addicts, codependents, and self-help gurus that preach the gospel
of inner peace.
   The fact is that these programs should serve as a warning sign
to us that our culture is becoming a cesspool of degenerates
entertaining each other.  For these programs are not mere packages
of fiction submitted for our approval.  They are the daily stage
show of real people acting out their impulses and their sicknesses.
The guests on these shows are not reading dialogue written by some
behind-the-scenes societal message-sender.  They are average (more
or less, or at least that is the assertion) Americans, trying to tell
their stories to other average Americans.  They are, by and large,
the sinners we are supposed to be trying to reach.  Instead, they
are reaching us.
   The extent to which "the world" is invading the culture of
Christians can be seen, ironically enough, by observing the
format of Christian programming.  Increasingly, the topics taken up
on Christian programs (which are looking more and more like talk
shows themselves) tend toward the worldly.  Some days you can
find the same guests on Christian television that you saw the day
before on the secular channels.  Day by day, we move closer to
accepting a "Christianized" gospel of self-esteem and self-
actualization.  Inch by inch, we move toward an unseemly tolerance
for self-centered whining, graphic confession, and resistance to
the rigidity of Scripture.
  While the Christian world has not yet accepted the underlying
values of the talk shows, we have failed abysmally in offering
something of greater value.  The availability of a Christian
alternative in television has had no effect on the willingness
of the public to submit to the lure of the 976-GIRL syndrome,
nor has it prevented the explosion of antiChristian talk on the
tube or in the world.  While Christian programming has captured a
few networks, the devil seems to have entirely taken over the rest.
For every 700 Club segment proclaiming that the wages of sin are
death, there are ten times as many talk show guests contending for
their right to sin as they please.  For every John Osteen declaring
the literal truth of the Bible, there are ten times as many talk
show guests insisting that all truth is relative--and a hundred
people in the audience loudly agreeing.
   To those who think I exaggerate (come on, now--I know you were
thinking it), let me just share some of what you may have missed
on the talk show circuit over the past twelve months:

  *  men who had sex change operations so they could become
     lesbians.  (This subject appeared on two different talk
     shows in the same month.  On one of the programs, they
     featured a man who underwent the surgery and was presently
     angry because he couldn't find anyone to date him as a
     lesbian, and another who did not regret his decision but
     had decided to become celibate after the surgery.)

  *  women who were having affairs with their husbands' bosses.

  *  women who broke up their sisters' marriages by having affairs
     with their husbands.

  *  male exotic dancers teaching audience members how to do a
     striptease.

  *  female exotic dancers over the age of 50

  *  lesbians seeking to adopt children (as well as several who had
     already done so)

  *  children who murdered their parents

  *  people who "assisted" their relatives to commit suicide

  *  women claiming to have been raped and impregnated by
     extraterrestrial visitors

  *  a debate on whether public schools should give out condoms
     to children (featuring a representative of traditional values
     who was repeatedly ridiculed for claiming to believe that one
     should not encourage children to have sex).

  *  men in court fighting for the legal right to have sex with
     boys under the age of 12.

  *  various individuals claiming to channel the spirits of dead
     people, extraterrestrials, and dolphins.  (All had the same
     message:  "You are God.")

  *  a live, on-the-air wedding between two black homosexual
     Christian men, which included Scripture rephrased to
     accomodate the lifestyle they were affirming in their
     celebration of union.

       (continued in part 3)
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