Is TV Really So Bad?
by Dr Joel R. Beeke
We are living in a sin-sick, morally degenerate, and pleasure-mad world. Our society continually demands entertainment, amusements, and pastimes at an ever-increasing level.
What is the goal of this "continual-entertainment" spirit? To keep modern man happily busy.
In a certain sense, entertainment does succeed in its goal. It keeps thousands and millions busy.
The very words themselves reveal this fact. The word amusement comes originally from the French and literally means "to stare at fixedly so as to prevent musing or thinking." The word pastime speaks for itself. It means to kill or use up time as a thing of little value; to pass time away. The root of the word entertainment means to divert. Thus it implies something which takes us away or diverts us from the normal, real world of everyday life.
In other words, entertainment, amusements, pastimes are things which keep us busy - busy avoiding the realities of life and truth as they are set down in God's Holy Word. They keep us busy avoiding thinking about eternity, hell, heaven, sin, God, Christ, salvation, our own selves, and especially our need for a new heart.
But if entertainment succeeds in its first goal of making man busy it fails miserably in its second: happily busy. Never has there been so much restlessness, dissatisfaction, and yes, unhappiness - in spite of the millions who immerse themselves in modern-day entertainment. Despite our freedom from poverty, our multiplication of opportunities in nearly every walk and aspect of life, plus our continual drinking in of entertainment - no age has been as unhappy as modern man.
Entertainment can never give enough - it always leaves an empty feeling behind. The more it is practiced and relied on, the emptier it becomes.
It has turned our society into an object of pity, for we are victims of our own system. Society goes full cycle, from being pleasure-hungry to pleasure-mania to pleasure-boredom.
But do you know what is even worse? Not only the world, but also the church has begun sliding down the slippery slope of entertainment which can only end in sin, and disastrous results.
Satan does not stop with liberal churches only. He comes also among us. We who believe that the truth is still preached among us - who know so well that the Word of God says, "Abstain from all appearance of evil," who read continually, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" - are also beginning to fall victim to the idolatrous god of entertainment.
Step-by-step some are beginning to look for new things (in the church and outside of the church) with which we entertain and keep ourselves busy. Step-by-step the old-fashioned, plain gospel message with its emphasis on the necessity of conversion, is being increasingly de-emphasised. Less and less time is being spent praying together as a family, reading religious books together with children, talking together in family circles about spiritual matters.
Are we not all guilty? Do we not all fall short in experiencing the reality of the seriousness of life, death, the judgment day, and eternity? Today we have a carefree, laughing society, but you never read in the Bible that Jesus took life lightly. Rather, especially referring to our day, He said: "Watch, and pray, and again I say unto you watch!"
But by nature we don't watch. By nature our question is, "How far can I go and still not sin?" instead of, "How far can I flee from sin and avoid the very appearance of evil?"
At the very heart and center of our modern entertainment spirit stands TELEVISION. This is an obvious fact. Television sets are in the homes of 97% of Americans today and 91% of all television time is dedicated solely to the purpose of entertainment. Entertainment-addiction and television-addiction cannot be separated from each other.
Our society has become TELE-HOLIC. On a night when wives do not leave home, 95 out of 100 will spend it watching TV and 85% of their husbands will do likewise. Among teenagers, 80% will follow their parents' example, and 75% of children will also spend their evening drinking in the sin shown on TV.
There are people, however, who do not believe that television becomes an object of slavery in the home, and for that reason we have to consider the power of it in the homes where it is allowed. I shall seek to show you from plain facts that a television owner usually becomes addicted to TV with respect to (A) TIME, (B) SIN, and (C) CONTROL.
(A) TIME. The average TV viewer spends 5˝ hours per day watching TV. By the time an average American youth becomes sixty-five years old, he will have spent fourteen years of his life watching TV (compared to one year spent in church, Sunday School, and catechism if he comes faithfully to all). In the U.S.A. children three to five years old spend fifty-four hours every week watching TV, which is 64% of their time awake. When the average graduate from high school receives his diploma at seventeen years of age, he will have spent 11,000 hours of his life in school, but 22,000 hours watching TV. Every time an adult sits down to watch TV, he/she averages 3˝ hours of watching time before turning the TV off. Children are glued to TV for an average of 2˝ hours per sitting. With the exception of sleeping, the average American will spend more time in his life watching TV than anything else - yes even more than working. Do we not have a tele-holic society with respect to our precious, God-given time?
(B) SIN. TV is a flood of sin. It numbs its watchers against all ten commandments.
First commandment: Anything we put above God becomes an idol. Modern man has become addicted to putting TV before God.
Second commandment: If not in reality, in practice TV has become a graven image in the hearts of most of its watchers.
Third commandment: TV causes its hearers to become addicted to hearing the name of the Lord used in vain. Profanity is used so often that it becomes an inoffensive thing. Few TV watchers realize that every time they willingly watch and hear such things, all those sins are reckoned to them on account of their willing participation.
Fourth commandment: Even the Sabbath Day is not holy enough for TV watchers to keep it turned off, or, if a small percentage may still do so for conscience's sake, desire and craving for it usually remains even on the Lord's Day.
Fifth commandment: TV does anything but honor father and mother. It continually degrades fatherhood and motherhood, and even frequently glorifies the disobedience of children. Family life, respect for authority, and obedience to government are repeatedly violated on program after program.
Sixth commandment: Instead of "thou shalt not kill," one study reached the conclusion that by the time a child is fourteen at least 18,000 violent assaults and murders take place before his eyes. Another study confirmed that the average child between five and thirteen years of age soaks in 1,300 murders each year, so that violence, assaults, and murders no longer speak the message of sin or its consequences. Murders, hatred, violent actions and words assume the role of normal behavior. The average child's program contains thirty-eight acts of violence per hour (adult program: twenty). A New York City judge who spent his life in courts judging juvenile delinquents and teenage criminals has plainly said that those who investigated the situation know that TV is a prime cause of crime. Another judge said: "Parents, one hour of TV can teach your children more crime, rebellion, smart-aleck freshness, and sex than you can counteract in months if you work at it."
The trouble with violence on TV is that it does not show the real consequences of violence. The guilt that is left behind in the soul of the murderer, the bereaved family, the orphaned children, the filled hospitals, and the solemn graveyards are not shown. Especially in children's programs violence is often totally unreal. Their heroes are often crushed or blown into pieces and moments later reappear unscathed. TV is artificial violence glorified instead of showing real violence in all of its ugly and terrible long-term consequences. Is it a wonder then that there have been thousands of examples of tragedies nationwide when children have "played TV together"?
Seventh commandment: How can the TV viewer remain pure with respect to the seventh commandment when seven out of eight references to sexual acts on TV take place between those who are not married? How can he remain pure when the TV viewer sees on an average of three times every hour sexual misconduct between unmarried adults? How can he remain moral when countless circumstances, conversations, immodest dress, actions, and behavior all point to the excitement and acceptability of sinning against the seventh commandment in a false and unrealistic way?
Eighth commandment: Can an hour be found that goes by when TV actors do not unashamedly steal before their audience? It is not wonder that thousands of thefts in real life have been patterned after TV plots and heroes.
Ninth commandment: Lying against a neighbor becomes a normal, acceptable, and even expected form of behavior on television shows.
Tenth commandment: Covet is a desirable word for TV viewers. Constantly they are reminded through advertisements of a stream of unending luxuries which they are told they shall never be happy without. There is always something they must have which they don't have. The programs themselves are not an exception. For one man to covet another man's wife (or vice versa) is the main theme of entire shows.
From beginning to end TV glorifies sin. On TV the only thing that is "sin" is morality. TV applauds sin, approves of sin, and forces its watchers to minimise sin through tens of thousands of countless repetitions. Over and over again the traditional family life is despised as old-fashioned: fatherhood is replaced with heroism via pathways of sin; motherhood is rejected as demeaning; obedience from children is laughed at as being too boring to be entertaining.
TV has become a catalogue of sin, and all studies reveal it is getting worse. It has become the devil's classroom. The devil is smart enough to throw in a little religion too, and occasionally even a little morality, to pacify consciences enough not to throw it out. Does not TV make a tele-holic society with respect to sin when it feeds lust, perverts morals, presents impurity as love, pictures murder as thrilling, exalts nakedness and indecency as beauty, and seeks to legitimize all kinds of sin against every command of God?
(C) CONTROL Here the addiction becomes even more serious. Thousands of family fights take place regularly because no agreement can be reached on which show to indulge in. In American homes 35% of mealtimes are spent in front of the TV set. Nightly thousands of parents realize the programs that will come on are demoralizing and harmful for their children but yet are so hungry themselves to drink in the sin which they contain that they often let their children watch it too, having no power to control it.
People who say they can control TV are usually speaking idealistically, not realistically:
(1) Our natural hearts love sin, our ears listen for sin, our eyes look for sin. That is just the problem with TV. It is not the box itself that is the problem, but it is our hearts. TV shows what the heart of man wants to see. We have enough "TVs" already in our hearts without buying one for our home. It is our "TV hearts" that are inclined to TV sets. We do not stand above a TV watcher - just the opposite. We desire to come so low that we confess we would not trust our own heart with such an instrument.
(2) Who is able to keep sin from flashing before them on the screen at any moment, whether it be through the program being watched or through advertisement?
(3) Is a person who has owned a TV set for some time, and consequently become hardened to many sins, really qualified to know what is necessary to "control"?
Man does not control TV. TV controls him. Only one study of many will prove this point. Approximately four years ago in St. Catharines, Ontario, the newspaper headlines read one day: $500 paid for disposing of TV. The article went on to say that a study was done in Detroit in which the goal was to find out to what degree people are controlled by TV. Two hundred fifty families were scientifically selected from various races and classes to be offered $500 if they would live without their TV set for one month. After thirty days they could take it back in, and receive $500 free. Out of 250, only fifty families agreed to do it. How many families "made it" through this trial of thirty days? Eight! The other forty-two forfeited their $500 sometime during the month - one family took their TV back in on the 29th day. The eight who made it through were interviewed extensively. All said it brought their family closer together without TV. Six fathers said they first learned to know their children. One father said: "The day that I disposed of our TV was the first day in twenty-five years that no one was killed in our living room, no sirens screamed, no shots rang out, no artificial merriment told us when to laugh, and no one slashed anyone else." And what was the final result of these eight families of whom seven said their family life was considerably more rewarding without TV? The last line of the article tells us: "All eight families took TV back in."
Tele-holism. Knowing it does more harm than good, and still keeping
it - that is slavery.
Dear friend, I urge you to dispose of TV today on the following grounds:
(1) It is against the word of God. In Psalm 119 the Lord commands us to turn our eyes from vanity. The entire Bible speaks against television because of its unending list of evils.
(2) The sinfulness of television damages your own soul. Every secular and/or religious study has revealed TV's over-all effects. Since you know that we are fallen children of Adam and Eve, corrupt, and prone to backsliding, why do you unnecessarily feed your own corrupt nature with still more corruption through this instrument of sin?
(3) Studies on television reveal that TV also hinders the God-given treasure of family life and communion. This alone should be reason enough to dispose of TV immediately.
(4) By keeping television you are stepping on and fighting against your own conscience.
(5) You are wasting precious God-given time for which you will have to give an account one day. Would it not be far better that you take the time spent watching TV to read Scripture or good books, or listen to sermon tapes?
Do yourself a favor: for the Word of God's sake, the church's sake, your own soul's sake, your family's sake, your conscience's sake, dispose of your television today. Do it permanently before you become its lifelong slave.
Finally, may it become the prayer of all of us with David: "I will set
no evil thing before my eyes. Turn Thou my eyes from beholding vanity."
(Pilgrim's Gate; Condensed)
(This article from Fair Dinkum, Free Autralian Magazine, issue 52. All statistics are taken from studies conducted between 1979 and 1999.)