The Jesus Way

Matthew 9:9-13

God and the Media - Week 5

Based on a 2007 study by A.C. Nielsen Co:

______ - minutes per week of meaningful conversation spent between a child and parent

______ - minutes per week a child spends watching TV (________ hours)

__________ - total # of murders watched on TV by a child completing elementary school

__________ - total # of acts of violence seen on TV by the age of 18 (________ murders)

The Ethics of the Media:

1. ___________________

The rightness or wrongness of an act or moral rule is solely a matter of the nonmoral good produced directly or individually in the consequences of that act or rule."  J.P. Moreland & William Craig

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.  "What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." John 11:47-50

People become _______________ on this view

2. ___________________

A decision is made about ethical matters on the perceived good or bad outcome for me.

3.  _________________

Moral – no absolute standards of behavior

Cultural – no standards exist across nations or people groups

"The horror-film genre is multiplying like one of its own monsters, showing six-fold growth over the past decade—turning what used to be a Hollywood curiosity into a mainstream product. … Why do Americans pay to watch images as revolting as the cinematic imagination can discover? Many things might explain the vast new market for uncanny evil. If you do not believe in God, you will believe in anything, to misquote G.K. Chesterton; and, one might add, if you do not feel God's presence, you will become desperate to feel anything at all. Terror and horror create at least some kind of feeling. After pornography has jaded the capacity to feel pleasure, what remains is the capacity to feel fear and pain."
—David P. Goldman, associate editor for First Things magazine

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6

Pharisee’s logic – I desire sacrifice, not __________

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

Homework:

Think of your favorite TV show character.  How do they behave and resolve situations?  What do you see of how they value people in their behavior?