The ABC's Media Watch cops it from the operators in the media who regard themselves to be high priests of truth and don't like anyone calling them to account. Given their record of lies and sensationalism I find it hard to believe that most people still believe the things they say. When Christians engage the media they need to engage their minds.
The mass media tell us what the proprietors think we should know and that usually gets down to what they think we’ll find most interesting or entertaining because that inevitably determines the revenues from the sponsors. Sponsors like good drama but not too good. They don't’ want you being so impatient to get back to the programme that you don’t imbibe their ads.
What do we do with the thousands of reports and comments on current events that enter our head and are then stored into the deep recesses of our mind, often never to be referred to again?
How does all this information shape us? Is that which we reflect on more or less influential than that which goes straight to the archives? Could these sound bites of information become subliminal messages causing us to react instinctively without thinking?
Come to think of it, how many of your attitudes and opinions about life have actually been thought through? How many of your reactions to events in your life are the result of subconscious programming in the past?
How many of them would stand up to rational scrutiny? How many are helpful? How many are godly and the product of genuine spiritual transformation? How many should have withered away years ago but are still with you today?
How active are your critical faculties when you engage with the media? Are you switched on or off? Do the stories pass through you without comment or reflection, or do you seek to process them intelligently and critically?
Humans in their natural fallen state are heavily biased towards sin. We live in a world of spiritual and moral entropy. We struggle to do good whilst evil is something we can accomplish without even thinking. This means that the Evil One, the key operator behind the information and entertainment business, needs to do very little to shape you and mould your attitudes and ideologies about life.
It’s much easier to kill someone by pushing them over a cliff than it is to save them by carrying them out of a mineshaft. Standing takes much more effort than lying down but if you don’t stand for something you end up falling for anything.
Peter began his career as a disciple with a habit of speaking without thinking, but he came realise through bitter experience that beings like us, with our predisposition towards selfishness can never afford to think or act instinctively.
He warns us to “Be self-controlled and alert”, because our “enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour”. (1 Pet 5:8). The most vulnerable person is the one whose mind is undiscerning and open to anything.
Christians can never afford to live without examining and reflecting on life. If you want to withstand the satanic onslaughts on the mind you have to think.
Paul understood this when he wrote to the distorted intellectuals at Corinth saying; “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor 10:4-5)
God created our minds and Christ, as part of our redemption, has given us his mind (1 Cor 2:16). I think he would like us to thank him by exercising it—your survival and usefulness might depend on it.
