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FOUL MOUTHS, SHOOTINGS, MEDIA, A RANT, AND A PRAYER
I'm already annoyed and the ridiculousness of the Don Imus ordeal. I think the guy said some stupid- Godless stuff. But I don't expect a media that doesn't claim to have anything to do with God to act Godly- especially a self proclaimed shock jock. Jesus didn't either. He saved his harshest comments for those who professed to follow God and did not. When he ran into someone who neither knew God nor behave as such, he offered them a meal and a lifestyle of change from the inside out. Should Don Imus lose his job? I guess that depends on what you're paying him to do?
That's my problem. I just wish the media and our culture would figure out which it wants. Do you want to represent morality and truth OR entertainment at all costs? We are desperately confused about this as a culture. The very same people who pay Imus to entertain us are the ones who used his words to fuel a boost in news entertainment dollars and then fired him.
This weeks time magazine puts the dichotomy this way: "But we also live in a culture in which racially and sexually edgy material is often — legitimately — considered brilliant comment, even art.... and So who gets to say "ho," in an age when Pimp My Ride is an innocent car show and It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp is an Oscar-winning song?" I have a friend who linked to a sports article that is worth the read from a black man's perspective on the Imus comments.
Our nation cannot accept the fact that it has created some serious schizophrenic bipolar behavioral norms in our ability to compartmentalize what is right and wrong based on situations... which is what one must do when they can't agree on who or what sets the standard for moral behavior.
It's just as ridiculous to me that a mother can pay to abort a child in our country but if you kill a mother who is pregnant, we will charge you with a double homicide. The president, who is the commander and chief of the armed forces can have an affair. However, if an Admiral in the Navy does, we fire him for adultery. We evidently cannot decide what is right or wrong.
I listened to a section of Adam Carolla's broadcast a few weeks ago while on my way to work and he was having people call in to share and laugh about their drunk driving stories. He consoled with, mostly men, who had driven drunk and then been arrested when the hit a cop car or were arrested in their driveway- which Adam claims should be some kind of safe, get out of jail free card zone. If you make it to your driveway safely, you evidently don't deserve to be arrested. After all, everyone drives drunk sometimes. So which is it, do we want a society of drunk drivers encouraged by Adam Corolla's funny humor bits, or do we want to mourn with children who lost their parents in a car accident caused by one of those same people? Evidently, we want to do both. BUT IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!!!
Just to be fair, the American church- historically isn't much better at this. Many will shun you if you're gay but if you are obese becase you eat too much and worship food, we'll give you a platform at Pastors Conventions. You'll be kicked out for a "moral failure" but if you live so materialistically that you never give a dime to the church but faithfully drive your kids to it in the latest tricked out SUV and we'll welcome you with big arms and call you an Elder. You can be a woman who teaches people in other countries and does missions work, but you can't be a "pastor" in our local church.. AHHHHH!
I'm sure the blogging world is slammed with the tragedy today from Virginia Tech. I stayed home from work today to sleep after a weekend in the desert with our high school men and turned on the TV during lunch. However I quickly discovered it wasn't a day to eat lunch, but instead a day to fast and pray. What a horrible tragedy! As I brushed up against this history changing event today, I heard/read two things that saddened me and caused all the previous comments in this post to come rushing back to me and boil over.
That's my problem. I just wish the media and our culture would figure out which it wants. Do you want to represent morality and truth OR entertainment at all costs? We are desperately confused about this as a culture. The very same people who pay Imus to entertain us are the ones who used his words to fuel a boost in news entertainment dollars and then fired him.
This weeks time magazine puts the dichotomy this way: "But we also live in a culture in which racially and sexually edgy material is often — legitimately — considered brilliant comment, even art.... and So who gets to say "ho," in an age when Pimp My Ride is an innocent car show and It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp is an Oscar-winning song?" I have a friend who linked to a sports article that is worth the read from a black man's perspective on the Imus comments.
Our nation cannot accept the fact that it has created some serious schizophrenic bipolar behavioral norms in our ability to compartmentalize what is right and wrong based on situations... which is what one must do when they can't agree on who or what sets the standard for moral behavior.
It's just as ridiculous to me that a mother can pay to abort a child in our country but if you kill a mother who is pregnant, we will charge you with a double homicide. The president, who is the commander and chief of the armed forces can have an affair. However, if an Admiral in the Navy does, we fire him for adultery. We evidently cannot decide what is right or wrong.
I listened to a section of Adam Carolla's broadcast a few weeks ago while on my way to work and he was having people call in to share and laugh about their drunk driving stories. He consoled with, mostly men, who had driven drunk and then been arrested when the hit a cop car or were arrested in their driveway- which Adam claims should be some kind of safe, get out of jail free card zone. If you make it to your driveway safely, you evidently don't deserve to be arrested. After all, everyone drives drunk sometimes. So which is it, do we want a society of drunk drivers encouraged by Adam Corolla's funny humor bits, or do we want to mourn with children who lost their parents in a car accident caused by one of those same people? Evidently, we want to do both. BUT IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY!!!
Just to be fair, the American church- historically isn't much better at this. Many will shun you if you're gay but if you are obese becase you eat too much and worship food, we'll give you a platform at Pastors Conventions. You'll be kicked out for a "moral failure" but if you live so materialistically that you never give a dime to the church but faithfully drive your kids to it in the latest tricked out SUV and we'll welcome you with big arms and call you an Elder. You can be a woman who teaches people in other countries and does missions work, but you can't be a "pastor" in our local church.. AHHHHH!
I'm sure the blogging world is slammed with the tragedy today from Virginia Tech. I stayed home from work today to sleep after a weekend in the desert with our high school men and turned on the TV during lunch. However I quickly discovered it wasn't a day to eat lunch, but instead a day to fast and pray. What a horrible tragedy! As I brushed up against this history changing event today, I heard/read two things that saddened me and caused all the previous comments in this post to come rushing back to me and boil over.
- I heard one commentator say that, "Tragically, we hold the corner on this kind of violence. Our national violent acts of this nature are most often carried out on school campuses." It got me thinking about how culture even defines how and what violence looks like. In Israel, if you get pissed off, you evidently strap a bomb to yourself and enter a bus or a crowded mall. In the US, you go to a school and start shooting. This too is a sad commentary on our society. I'm not sure that it's related in any way to the Imus debacle, but it's another indicator that our society is seriously hurting.
- I have a former fraternity brother who is a pastor in the Seattle area. He linked to a blog he found while surfing the internet. It is a report from a student about his girlfriend who was shot in the hand during a german class this morning. When I looked at that post tonight, it had over 100 comments on it. But peppered through those comments are several requests from ABC, CNN, MTV, and numerous other news/entertainment agencies around the world requesting to contact the writer and his girlfriend for an interview. This says a lot about our culture too. We are hungry to be the ones to break the news on a tragedy. We want to mourn, but we also want to get the latest. We want to cast some blame for this tragedy on someone- anyone- but our own doorstep. No, I don't think the media created this tragedy. I just don't think the media can decide what it wants to be... our culture can't decide what we want them to be. Millions of us evidently want them to produce sexually explicit programming so we can mass consume it. Then we want them to come to the aid of hurting people on our behalf. Then we want them to go back to gathering the latest gossip so we can know how Britney looks today and what kind of underwear she is or is not wearing. Then we want to criticize then for selling us the crap we love to watch. THIS IS ASSININE. (spelled incorrectly on purpose)
Dear God help me to not feed the schizophrenic machine of media in our culture which I know is created by my own schizophrenic tendencies to bounce between honoring you and denying you.. Of this trend in my life I repent. Oh God, help me to be a fresh source of light to a dark world that needs to see and find you. May I be true in my devotion to you as evidenced in my parenting, my spending, my web surfing, my tv watching, my pastoral role, my words, my thoughts, and my actions. May they reflect a heart that seeks to serve you in every area. And please, please, please continue to bring heaven to earth. This place is a mess. We need Eden back. I need Eden back.
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