Walt Mueller exhorts us to watch this years Video Music Awards on MTV. He writes:
Before tuning in, consider this fact: research indicates that the average 8 to 18-year-old engages with media for six-and-a-half hours every day. Music and music video are a big part of that daily media diet. In addition, you need to realize that these are kids locked in their formative years. Their values, attitudes, and beliefs - all things that inform and shape behavior - are being molded now. With the increased absence of parents in their lives, they are left to turn to the institution of the media to be shaped.He gives a helpful list of questions to help you discern what you will see:
If you choose to watch nothing else on Television all year, don't miss the VMAs. I am convinced that they offer a concise and very telling peek into where youth culture has come from, where it is, and where it's going in the coming months. Resist the temptation to turn it off and watch something else. Why? Because this is the world of today's kids. If we want to speak the unchanging truths of God's Word into the realities they face, well, then we must know the realities. Watch the VMAs on Sunday night to see and experience the mission field.
Based on what I'm seeing on the VMAs. . . -who are we as a culture?I know some of you will say that you don't need to watch that trash to be able to effectively engage culture. There certainly is room for the argument. I don't need to go to a strip club to know that strippers needs Jesus. Some of your consciences would tell you that it's not ok to watch the VMAs. I understand that. But for some of you this could be a heartbreaking springboard into a greater understanding of the values and foundations of the next generation. Consider it.
-what do we value in our culture?
-what do we believe in our culture?
-how are we choosing to live in our culture?
Then, contrast your answers with answers to the following questions:
Based on what I read in God's unchanging Word. . .
-who has God made us to be?
-what has God commanded us to value?
-what has God called us to believe?
-how has God called us to live?
7 comments:
I will be up-front and say that I probably could not watch the VMA's without being terribly tempted to sin. I respect that there are other Christians for whom that would not be a problem. I would encourage those Christians to watch with the VMA's with Gospel-centered hearts and desires of understanding and reaching a lost world. Either that, or cancel their cable altogether and use the saved money for similar Kingdom purposes.
Oops-- obviously, I meant to type, "watch the VMA's", not "watch *with* the VMA's."
I think this is a lame excuse for people to not engage our youth culture face to face but analyze it from afar! We need caring adults to go hang out with the emo's, etc. and show them and tell them of the hope of the Gospel.
Zach,
Thanks for posting this! I am a photographer. I believe that media is a key way to impact and engage my culture. Currently, I am at a Christian photography conference where we are asking ourselves what it means to be not only a Christian photographer, but a photographer Christian. We are asking ourselves what art is, what beauty is, and what truth is, which is what we want to portray in our work. The questions posed in this post only serve to add to my thought process on the matter.
Thankyou!
I personally don't know of anyone - kids/tweens/teens or adults that even watch MTV, MTV shows, or music videos any more. And I'm not speaking from just my Christian culture but well beyond that. Don't see references to it in social media, FB, etc. Is this just me?
i'm exposed to a lot of this stuff all the time anyway, but i tuned in and could only take about 5 or 10 minutes. that host is extremely vulgar. and, i just have to mention, Kanye West is pretty wack for jacking Taylor Swift's speech... i can't stand that guy.
Jesse,
I'm curious to know what "lame excuse" you were referring to in your comment. The original post was encouraging Christians to watch the VMA's. I replied that I probably could not watch it without being seriously tempted to sin. Is the "lame excuse" somewhere in Walt's article... or maybe in my comment? I'm honestly confused.
As a 36-year-old man who was only saved seven years ago, I had plenty of contact with youth culture. I was a heavy metal "headbanger" in middle school, a punk rocker in high school, and a Goth/existentialist would-be intellectual in college.
For myself now, it's not that I want to stand apart from youth culture and analyze it, in some aloof, uncaring way. I want to reach younger people for Christ. However, there are ways to look into and seek to understand youth culture without watching a two or three hour blatant celebration of sexual lust (from VMA's that I have seen in the past). I have to be careful and watchful about such things, especially as an unmarried Christian man.
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