The secular world rarely considers the effect of popular culture on our thoughts. The only time it shows concern for the thought life is … when someone becomes a racist through being exposed to racist literature, or a killer mimics a scene from a violent film. The Bible presents the different idea that what we think is judged alongside what we do. It's possible to keep the law and yet have an immoral mind. Our thoughts are as much a part of our moral character as our actions. …
Often people will defend unsavory entertainment because they say it hasn't led them to do anything bad, but this doesn't take into account the content of their minds. We can remain meek and mild yet have a brain swirling with the most poisonous images. When Jimmy Carter was running for U.S. president in 1976, he gave an interview to Playboy in which he was asked whether he had committed adultery. In his answer he said that he had committed adultery many times in his heart. The secular media scoffed at this because it hardly seemed like a moral infringement, but Carter was of course picking up on a Bible truth that it's possible to commit sins in the privacy of our heads; sins known only to God. …
Christians sometimes expose themselves to dangerous stuff just to show how resilient they are. It's the spiritual equivalent of tightening your six-pack and challenging someone to deliver a swift punch: "See! It didn't hurt." But we can't always tell at the time how things will affect us in the long term. Images we saw decades ago can rise to the surface of our consciousness without us being aware of where they came from. The biblical proverb asks,
Can a man scoop fire into his lap
without his clothes being burned?
Can a man walk on hot coals
without his feet being scorched? (Prov. 6:27–28)
This suggests that we can't be careless about our consumption of popular culture. We have to respect its capability to shape our opinions and decorate our minds, and need to work at being transformed in order not to be overwhelmed. … We can't expect the culture that is trying to fashion us to reveal the secrets of how it is fashioning us. The world will tell us nothing untoward is happening to us. We are being overanxious. We are being too intense. We are victims of Christian paranoia. …
[But] dealing with popular culture demands more effort of a Christian because his or her nonbelieving counterpart feels no obligation to remain alert and vigilant. The unbeliever is not concerned about giving an account of his or her thoughts and words to God. …
The Christian doesn't have the option of being passively educated by culture. Writing to the Romans Paul says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Rom. 12:2).
Taken from Popcultured by Steve Turner. Copyright © 2013 by Steve Turner. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, PO Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60187. www.ivpress.com
