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“As
those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved,
put on a heart of compassion...."
~ Colossians 3:12
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Inoculated
Hearts
Cameron
Lee has gotten under my skin. In his book Unexpected Blessing (pp.85-86),
he writes a couple of paragraphs that may irritate you in the same way.
[Our]
video-saturated entertainment culture has changed the very way we
think. For example, not only does the television news overexpose us to
human folly night after night, the very way in which the news is
presented lulls us into indifference. We see a favorite local news
team, immaculately groomed, serving up a smorgasbord of unrelated
snippets of stories. First a story about political genocide; if the
anchor is shocked by it, it doesn’t show in her face. The story is read
with a certain detachment. Our knowledge of the world is being mediated
by someone who presents each tragedy as just one more piece of
information. And even if we are inclined to reflect more seriously on
the story about political genocide, before we know it, we find
ourselves looking at a graph showing how many points the Dow Jones
average fell today or watching a commercial about laundry detergent.
This is news as entertainment, a program that even has its own theme
song.
News
as entertainment puts us at a distance from the tragedies represented
in the stories told. We are given enough to stimulate our voyeuristic
impulses, but not enough to make us feel grief or remorse about what
happened. As James Twitchell has observed, the cardinal rule in
television is to never make the viewer feel bad.
Web-based
news is no different. Scroll over the headline and get the 12-15 word
summary…”200,000 estimated dead in Port-au-Prince” … “2 U.S. killed by
bomb in Afghanistan” … “Wall Street ends week with a steep slide” …
“Actress Jean Simmons dies at 80” … “Caught on Tape: Amazing Dog
Rescue.” And after a quick scan we shift to the next task, untouched
and unstirred by the more grim realities of the world.
Yes,
Cameron Lee has gotten under my skin.
Does
my 15-minute news grab at 10pm help or hurt me? Are my news-junkie
tendencies inoculating my heart against the compassionate heart of
Christ? Am I so desensitized by the dispassionate presentations of
tragedy that I simply accept them rather than respond to them?
This
strikes me as a deep discipleship issue. In the struggle for our
hearts, is CBS, CNN, NBC, or Fox News winning the battle on a
battleground we’ve not even identified? May we have the wisdom—and the
heart—of the Father.
In
HOPE –
David
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