BY EDWARD HICHEZ
EMINUDE CELEBRITIES SELL THEIR sexuality. Daring designers deploy their fresh faces and beautiful bodies in advertising their futuristic fashions. Tattooed punks. Pierced faces. Self-serving music. Hedonistic cases.
Popular culture, especially in North America, constantly bombards us with words, images, and ideas that often times have a direct effect on our spiritual lives. Television, magazines, toys, and music are some of the ways pop culture embeds itself in our lives.
Through television our minds become fogged with mundane scenarios, empty words, and lifeless concepts. Many of the characters portrayed on television seem to be looking for meaning where there is none to be found.
Hip-hop is, right now, at the forefront of the music industry. It has evolved so much that a subculture has derived from it-the hip-hop culture. However, it absolutely contradicts the law of God, which is to love Him with all of our heart. Instead, it promotes the love of self, money, drugs, and premarital sex.
Magazines. You name the genre; it's out there. They feed us with lies ("How to Make Your Lover Hunger for You-in 3 easy steps!"). They deceive our minds, creating in us unnecessary insecurities through our comparison of ourselves with the images we see. They glorify and idolize celebrities through painting a false picture of them, implying that they are superior to us because of their worldly success, their good looks, and their bank accounts.
And of course we cannot leave behind video games. They have become very digitally enhanced and technologically advanced. They've come a long way from Atari, which only increases their capacity to lure us to the TV set for hours. Hypnotized, we become entranced in a world of violence, aggression, and selfish competition.
These days it seems we even have less control over the aspects of popular culture we choose to walk away from. We can turn off the TV, but the advertisers make sure we get a dosage of their drug through billboards and ads on vehicles of public transportation. We can turn off the radio, but the tunes permeate the air in shopping malls. And the relatively recent phenomenon, the media monster with the greatest influence (and increasing potential for more), is the Internet.
Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard we try to evade Satan's circle of influence, our efforts are made in vain when we enter cyberspace. There we are bedazzled beyond belief with the offers of "Click here for the Sexy Video of the Week" or "Looking for a Partner, or Just a Playmate? Click Here!" Every navigation is a potential temptation. Satan knows his time is coming to an end, so he and his demons are working overtime, full force, giving double dosage every day.
Is There Hope?
Is there any hope? we wonder. If Satan is working so hard, and we are so weak, should we even try?
The answer is this: "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me" (Phil. 4:13, NASB).
We are weak, but the Holy Spirit in us fills us with supernatural strength. We are blind, but He opens our eyes so that we may perceive right from wrong, and so that we may see temptation coming before it even gets here. We are ignorant, and He gives us wisdom. We search for meaning-He is the meaning! We are thirsty, and He fills us with the "springs of water welling up to eternal life!" (John 4:14, RSV).
"How can we have all of these things if our culture poses so many obstacles?" we might ask. Satan is working hard, but Jesus is working harder! His angels are working nonstop, and so is He. He is our heavenly priest, our lawyer, our counselor and friend. Continually He provides us with His grace, with His divine assistance, and appoints His angels to guide us so that we may not stumble.
Wow, how can I get Him on my side? we may wonder. God already is on our side. It's up to us to go to Him. All it takes is a genuine relationship with Him. You must know someone before you love him or her. The same it is with Jesus. We must know Him through His Word, the Bible, in order that we may love Him and attain all of the divine blessings He's eager to bestow upon us.
We live in a jungle with many roads that lead to perdition. But the Holy Spirit is always there to guide us to the road that leads us to eternal life. We need not be perfect, sinless, or irrevocably pure to walk on the road He has paved for us. What we must be, however, is receptive to His Spirit, open to accepting His guidance, willing to love Him more than anything.
Safe at Jesus' Feet
Without a solid foundation in Christ Jesus we will undoubtedly get wrapped up in the toils of this world. No matter how hard we try to abstain from some of the corrupt social norms that inevitably penetrate our minds, we will not be able to make it on our own. We must be willing to crumble. We must despise the sinner in us so much that instead of falling into temptation, we fall helpless at the feet of Jesus!
The media, in general, stimulates our senses with misconceptions induced by the master of deception. The empty smiles are void of true happiness. The sultry celebrities fill their lives with the shallow satisfaction of public admiration. The music we are presented with delves into the dark side by exploring scenarios whose content is deeply demonic. The messages oozing out of all the avenues of popular culture express the need to live life to the fullest because we have it only once.
However, the media doesn't tell us that the way we choose to live it will determine our eternal life or death. Instead, they display hedonistic examples of the way the "good life" should be. We are led to believe that worldly success in all possible ways-and more of everything-is the answer. The only answer is Christ Jesus filling our hearts and guiding our lives.
American popular culture is in a delusional bubble, oblivious to the truths of the Word of God. It is disinterested in the salvation of souls, the heavenly bliss that awaits us, and the amazing satisfaction of knowing that God lives in our hearts. It is aloof to the fact that love, when projected outward, is multitimes more gratifying than when projected into ourselves. This world, with all of its bright lights and late nights, pales by far in comparison.
_________________________
Edward Hichez writes from Boston, Masschusetts.
