Print 
PDFChildren and teenagers watch a little over 3 hours per day.
Evidence is mounting that in its presentation of violence, sex and profanity, or even the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs, television shapes those who watch it.
Certainly television is having a negative effect on children. But it isn't only children, studies are now showing that adults are also being significantly influenced in their moral beliefs by what they see on television.
The media, all media, but particularly television, has become a medium of propaganda. And a transformational cultural power in America.
NBC has created its "New Normal" while Fox gives us the girls and gays of "GLEE"---ABC, "Modern Family."
The result of this is the cultural confusion and mess of today.
While NBC openly mocks Jesus Christ, the media tries Pastor Robert Jeffress for being anti-Semitic and homophobic, declaring him guilty.
Christian leaders are now beginning to push back. On many fronts.
Pastor David Jeremiah is pushing back very hard.
And a secular progressive Hollywood insider is actually admitting, in an article, that there is a left wing agenda in Hollywood and they are succeeding in transforming the culture.
One News Now has published an excellent article on how the media has evolved in its destructive influence on the thinking of individuals. I have used it as one of several sources my sources.
NBC's Saturday Night Live recently ran a skit mocking Jesus in a make believe movie trailer about a movie where Jesus returns after His resurrection as a vengeful killer.
In the so-called comedy sketch which aired just 4 days before Lent began, the mock movie trailer narrator says, "He is risen from the dead and he's preaching anything but forgiveness," while Jesus is shown slaughtering Roman soldiers with a sword.
Just before their gun-wielding Jesus shoots Judas in the chest he says, "When you get to heaven, say 'Hi' to my dad."
Blasphemy.
And some Christian leaders have gone to great lengths to find a positive message in this moral mess from Saturday Night Live that they call "entertainment."
There isn't one.
The recent Tim Tebow incident provides another example of how the media is trying to shape the mind and culture in their own image. And just how far they will go to do it.
I won't go into the Tim Tebow details. You already know them. I've written about them earlier.
Pastor David Jeremiah has begun to push back on the Tebow incident and the media's agenda in general.
He said this last Sunday:
As you are surely aware by now, hateful and spiteful vitriol directed against Robert Jeffress, the pastor of Dallas First Baptist Church, intimidated a prominent athlete into reneging on a commitment to speak at his church.
Dr. Jeffress has been the unrelenting target of secular fundamentalists and homosexual activists, who are the source of the real hatred and bigotry in the debate over sexuality and marriage.
Through it all, Dr. Jeffress has remained resolute in his determination to declare "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27), not just the parts that are politically acceptable and tickle the ears of the public. I stand proudly alongside my brother and friend, Dr. Jeffress.
I commend him for his courage and his boldness to speak the truth in love.
American Family News is now reporting this:
"The media pounced on his fellow pastor for allegedly being “anti-Semitic” – an accusation Jeremiah says is absolutely wrong – because Jeffress quotes the Bible, which in John 14:6 clearly states the only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ.
“So then they take that and then they say, Well, those right-wing, mean-spirited Christians say all the Jews are going to hell. We didn't say that,” explains Jeremiah. “What we did was we answered the question: What do you believe? We believe that in order for you to go to heaven, you have to put your trust in Jesus Christ – and we have every right to believe that.”
And he stresses that believing that doctrinal principle does not make Jeffress or any other Christian “anti-Semitic.”
Jeremiah describes the Dallas pastor as a godly, gracious man who has also been falsely accused by some secular media outlets as being “anti-gay” because he simply takes the biblical view of homosexual conduct.
“Anybody who reads the Bible with any kind of integrity at all would come away with the same interpretation,” states the San Diego pastor, “but we now, as Christians, no longer have the right to believe what we believe without being painted as almost religious terrorists – and it's just ridiculous.”
“When the gay influence gets into it, [the media] take the position you hold – which is a normal, natural position which we've held for years – and they make it something that it's not.”
Jeremiah says those reporters would be shocked if they attended his church because they would learn the truth about Christians.
Dr. Jeremiah, who is one of the featured speakers at the dedication of First Baptist Church's new facilities in April, says he has no intention of canceling that engagement."
Cecil B. DeMille, a founder of Hollywood, is quoted in the book "DeMille: The Man and his Pictures," page 160: "It is a sobering thought, that the decisions we make at our desks in Hollywood may intimately affect the lives of men, women, and children throughout the world."
While I was a pastor in the church in North Hollywood, I became aquainted with some of the Laskey family who, along with DeMille, founded Hollywood as the film center it has become. Bill Laskey, whose father worked with DeMille, told me that Mr. DeMille was known to be concerned about how films would influence the public and the culture.
He did not want them to undermine the good and goodness in the culture. We are far, far, far from that today. The intent to influence is significant, deliberate and not intended for good.
Hollywood, whether film or television, has become a new class of prophets speaking their version of "truth" into America's homes.
Jonathan Chait, a Hollywood secular progressive insider, writer and commentator, wrote an article last year for New York Magazine that frankly, astounded me. He was very clear that Hollywood has an agenda and it is working. In his extensive article he admitted that television was both an instrument of moral propaganda and transformational change for the culture.
I strongly recommend you read his article if you are a parent or grandparent.
Television is more powerful than film because it is repetitious. Every night Americans watch several hours of TV, then go to sleep. Our culture has been repetitiously and incrementally transformed by a well planned, well executed entertainment agenda. One intended to transform the morality of society.
The title of Chait's article says it all. "The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy Is On Your Screen."
I'm talking more about this on my live radio program this morning. You can listen here at 9 AM pst.
"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable will of God" (Romans 12:2).
May God help us.
Be Vigilant. Be Discerning. Be Prayerful. Be Active. Be Blessed.