avoiding dumb and dumber
I listened to an interview with one Mark Bauerlein an English Professor at Emory University on the MarsHill Audio journal last week. I know most of you are out of college, but since our learning doesn't end when we go through commencement (that's why they call it Commencement: you're BEGINNING!), you might consider how our media-saturation can really curtail how well we learn, which impacts how well we function in and contribute to society. Here's the essay upon which the interview was based.
Any comments?
posted by Patrick Lafferty @ 12:25 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
As precursor, let me express a few caveats. Entertainment is not bad, but when it rules us it is. Television is not from the Devil. God has put us hear on this earth at this time in history for a single most splendid purpose: to glorify and enjoy him by extending His Kingdom on this Earth in all facets and all ways.
The problem with entertainment is that it ends. It is certainly needed for us to have times of recreation. We are whole persons, our bodies and minds need rest. However, I think entertainment for many in our generation is very much the modern opiate for the masses. Often it is not a means of recreation but a way of escape and as such a means of waste.
I say this as much to myself as I do present this as food for your thoughts. Dr. Ferguson used to tell us (with coffee cup in hand) that John Owen used to rail against coffee houses because they were something like "factories of idleness". Then he would say, and that man wrote more with a quill pen than five modern theologians together with computers ever will.
The point is not about whether or not you watch television or go to coffee shops or wether you like John Owen. The point is really whose time is "your" time? If we understand that it is God's time graciously given to us with which we are to be good stewards, then we will use it one way (and that does not exclude recreation of course); if we view our time on this earth as ours alone we will of course not see the stewardship that is involved with our lives.
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