Maybe It's Not Alright  

The screen comes alive; a man with a tire tool walks up behind another and starts pummeling him to death, blood flies everywhere. The beaten man falls into a heap.  

An American soldier of some kind carrying a machine gun is moving through a building. He makes his way through a maze of obstacles, going from room to room. Bad guys pop out of corners and from behind things, the soldier mows them down with his weapon, he leaves bloody bodies in his wake. 

Laughter booms from the studio audience as one homosexual man is sitting in another ones’ lap, as a ‘straight’ guy makes a joke about them. 

As the classic old rock song was fading out, which I enjoyed, the DJ talks for five minutes with his top of the hour replacement about the wild night he had with a "drunk babe" he met who he snuck out on the next morning. 

After the children in the classroom didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance, and didn’t have a morning prayer, they sat down to a day of learning how man evolved from monkeys, how the universe came to be by a mysterious bang and the totally secular version of world history. 

What are these descriptions of?  A popular video game, a popular computer game, a prime time ‘sit com’, my local classic rock radio station, and the average public school room.  This is just a small sampling of what is out there today. Not on cable or restricted in anyway, readily available to whomever wants to partake, including children. You say ‘so what, I knew that, that is freedom of speech.’  Have we become completely desensitized to all of this? As long as it sells and keeps the economy afloat, is that alright?  It’s amazing to step back and look at what is considered to be alright in our society now. Is this what you want for your children? Is this the best we can do? At the risk of sounding like a prude, I can’t believe how far we’ve sunk. I am not even that old, and I have to admit, it wasn’t until I had a child that these things really started to get my attention.  

As far as television and radio, just in the last ten years look how far it has degraded. Not only has the quality of TV shows spiraled downward, look at what the networks now permit. Listen to what can be discussed freely on prime time radio. The FCC used to have a real function, and that was to keep profanity, as well as partial nudity, violence and very questionable subject matter off of regular network television broadcasts. What is the function of the FCC now? Every year there is one or two more words added to the ‘acceptable’ list. One or two more subjects that are okay to present, a little more blood and violence than the previous year.  

Video games are now rated like the rating system used for movies. A recent survey of parents across America revealed that over 70% of them paid little or no attention to the already liberal ratings when purchasing the games for their children. If you’ve never played one of these or seen one, you need to look at one. The graphics are unbelievable. I can’t imagine a parent looking at people slaughtering each other in high definition and saying ‘I have got to get one of these for little Johnny!” 

I enjoy watching sports on television, but if my little girl is in the room, I have to keep the remote control within arms’ length because as soon as one of the many commercials come on, she’ll be exposed to 32 inches of Trinitron quality jiggling silicone in a beer ad. This will be followed by previews of the upcoming ‘sit coms’ including the latest stab at masturbation, homosexuality, pre marital sex, infidelity, impotence, etc etc etc. 

Believe it or not, the Bible is still the standard by which we are to live and which we are to distinguish good from bad and reality from illusion. We don’t have to live according to what others say is alright. We don’t have to conform to the rest of society just because that’s the way it is. This is not what God wants for us. (Romans 12:2)  We don’t have to buy violent video and computer games for our children. We don’t have to come home and automatically flip on the TV, allowing whatever is being broadcast to enter our home. It’s okay to home school our children or look for alternative schools if we don’t like the curriculum the public schools have to conform to or if we fear for their safety. 

            Yes it is a free country and you have the right to choose what you watch, listen to or otherwise expose yourself to, but the quality choices are becoming fewer and fewer. You must constantly stay on guard to what is easily accessed.  What we are presented with is offered in a way that says, ‘go ahead, it’s alright now’.

I say, maybe it’s not alright.   

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.  (Romans 12:2)

                  Steven Walls