|
Editorial Review Product Description
Sex. Graphic killings. Profanity. Adultery. Flip on the television, head for the movie theater, or open a newspaper and you can t get away from it. How do you raise a family in a world supersaturated with media extolling toxic values that are not your own? Media critic Dr. Ted Baehr and legendary entertainer Pat Boone draw from their own extensive experiences and interviews with experts to help readers understand the power of the media and its influence on families. They also examine the ongoing threats to family values by those in the media who promote a humanistic worldview. Media consumers are challenged to understand their own worldviews, make wise choices and are given the information they need to do so. Baehr and Boone also look at the progress that has been made in family values programming in Hollywood, and offer hope for the future. ... Read more Customer Reviews (13) 
Eye-Opening Expose
The Culture-Wise Family is an eye-opening expose of the ubiquitous influence of mass media and the entertainment industry in the contemporary world.It exposes the phenomenal reach of a toxic culture which envelops everyone, with pernicious effects in particular on youth. Hollywood rules, but this is not an occasion for jubilation. Typical Hollywood productions featuring excessive nudity, vulgarity, sex, and violence now reach across the globe via electronic technology, providing a distorted image of the West, especially the U.S., as the purveyor of filth, moral decadence, sexual perversion, materialism, atheism, and moral-ethical relativism, broadcast via satellites, the Internet, DVDs, movies, MTV, podcasts, etc. into even remote villages in the Third World.
The book's contributors ably dissect the multilayered aspects of today's mass production and mass consumption culture, and offer practical advice to both youth and parents who need to become media-wise and discern what is good from what is tolerable and what is bad by drawing on the resources of a renewed and renewing Christian faith. Parents could use all the help they can get in bringing up children to become responsible, upright, productive citizens. All of us are indebted to the volume's editors-Ted Baehr and Pat Boone-for practical and worldview advice on how to navigate in a world which is not only interconnected but also drenched in cultural artifacts of dubious provenance. Dr. Baehr is well-known for his tireless ministry of raising the level of culture in the entertainment and media industries via his Christian Film and Television Commission and its unique Movieguide. In fact, the book includes a sample Movieguide review of the popular film, Amazing Grace, about the nineteenth-century British abolitionist and reformer, William Wilberforce. For background regarding the movie, there is a fascinating historical-pictorial guide, The Amazing Grace of Freedom: The Inspiring Faith of William Wilberforce, compiled by Dr. Baehr and the film's producers, Susan and Ken Wales.
What is ingenuous about The Culture-Wise Family is that it connects the cultural with the personal, and the personal with the cultural. This has far-reaching implications not only for individuals and families, but society as a whole and its varied constituencies. Among major challenges, the book counsels churches to resist the temptation of the secular culture's Siren call and instead boldly proclaim the Gospel. What may surprise some is the book's implied argument that even non-Christians should support the Christian moral-spiritual worldview as the foundation of Western civilization and its most cherished attainments of liberty, human rights, and democracy. This, in turn, confirms Alexis de Tocqueville's prophetic insight in Democracy in America that: "Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith." In brief, both youth and adults face great challenges in discerning the truth and keeping the faith in a secular world that has forgotten God. The Culture-Wise Family is thus a timely and welcome handbook on how individuals and families can redeem the culture. Reviewer: Oskar Gruenwald, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
thought provoking
The book has a good idea for its premise, going to Christianity instead of staying with artwork that continues to express violence, sex, and drugs.It needed better editing to take out the name dropping of people like John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, that really add nothing to the argument of the book.It also cites Critical Theory as the source for immorality in the arts, when the better choice of philosophy to point the finger at is Postmodernism.The book could be cleaned up for republication.Just needs stronger editing.
A valuable tool in our spiritual battle
I have to agree with a previous poster who stated that the book was not cohesive. It seemed that the author jumped around and there didn't always seem to be a logical progression, especially within individual chapters.
That said, I appreciate the general message of the book...our children are watching entirely too much television/videos, and we need to be more careful that what they watch is in line with our Christian worldview and our biblical values.
Overall, I most appreciated chapter 10, titled "Who Stole Our Culture?", authored by William S. Lind. Lind gives the history behind the shift from Judeo-Christian values to politically-correct, cultural Marxist values. He explains that the number one goal of cultural Marxism has been the destruction of Western culture and the Christian religion (including the family) and shows how this has been put into action through gaining access to our institutions - the schools (ie...public education), the media, the churches and every other institution that could influence the culture.
I also thought that chapter 11, "Where Are We Going?", tied together the secular humanism of cultural Marxism with the Muslim advance, especially in Europe.Will the Muslim advance fill the void left in the wake of cultural Marxism?This is certainly a relevant question.
All in all, I would recommend this book to parents (and grandparents!) trying to better understand the pervasiveness of mass media, the dangers to our children, and the evil of the "politically-correct" culture we live in.
Doesn't stay on topic
For those of us who work with teenagers, we are aware of the vast influence of mass media in their lives.Most teenagers spend hours a day listening to music, watching television, or surfing the internet.Disturbingly, the messages that stream across the airwaves, through fiber-optic cable, and over Wi-Fi networks often seem to be in contradiction with the values, standards, and norms we are trying to instill into our Christian young people. How should we deal with this?
Ted Baehr and Pat Boone (along with other guest authors) try to answer this question in The Culture-Wise Family: Upholding Christian Values in a Mass Media World.The authors come from the premise that America was founded as a Christian nation (Chapter 4) and that Christians must win the "cultural battle" (157). Ever since the removal of prayer from school, America's social problems and illnesses have grown exponentially (156).Statistics charting the changes in America's cultural landscape from the 1960s to 1990s help support this claim (21).In attempting to turn the tide, Christians who want to "apply biblical principles to all areas of life, and Christ's authority over all things" are left with no choice but to say, "Our goal is nothing less than a Christian civilization" (162).This is the approach the authors take in regard to culture.
The authors assert that the proper interaction of Christians with our culture is to avoid any form of media that does not conform fully to a biblical, Christian worldview.Books and movies like The Da Vinci Code and Harry Potter should be off-limits for Christians.In reference to the media we consume, Christians must always remember that "Jesus, who sits at the right hand of our Father in Heaven and sees all, is watching us, and God is taking down our names" (154).By voting with our pocketbook, those who control the media will be forced to begin producing works that are in line with a Christian worldview.
One of the most helpful chapters in the book is chapter 5, which explains the different ways that children interact with media according to their age and development.It is important for parents and youth workers to realize that children and teenagers do not process media in the same ways as adults because of their mental development.
Perhaps the compilation of authors hurt the book's cohesiveness.The chapters seem to suffer from a lack of flow and obvious thought-pattern.Even within a chapter it is sometimes difficult to see the relevance of some of the author's stories and examples.Additionally, although it is not an academic work, more documentation of sources would be helpful to support some of the claims made in the book.
While there is some value to be gained from this book in regard to interacting with culture, the book suffers from too much sprawl related to issues that have little to nothing to do with helping Christians interact with culture.The book could stand some significant editing or a new title.Too much space is spent hearkening back to the 1950s and waging war against liberals.Readers hoping to find a robust, systematic, and cohesive approach to interacting with culture should look elsewhere.
Few good points, but too long and too complicated a read
While there were some good nuggets of valuable information and insight in this book, overall I wasn't too impressed.The book was too long and it seemed like many of the authors writing sections of this book for Baehr were more interested in showing how much they know about a subject and far less interested in passing along anything of value to the reader.Plus, the connection with Pat Boone and what he added to the book told me that the target audience for this book is a much older audience than I would have anticipated - I would think that young parents with younger children would be the primary focus, not grandparents.This book really missed the mark on communicating a clear, concise and consistent message.
However, after saying all that, the book did raise some very good points along the way.The first point made is that children watch way too much TV and are exposed to far too much sexual activity and violence along the way.Parents need to be more discerning and there really isn't any excuse for not knowing what children are watching and listening to these days except for pure apathy.The next point that Baehr does drive home is that parents need to be biblically literate and understand the concept of the Christian worldview as they train their children to be discerning participants instead of mindless consumers of media.Finally, Baehr does communicate that Christians should not retreat from the culture, but prepare to engage.
Overall the book was too long and too complicated for the average parent looking for a resource that will better equip and prepare them to help their children make better decisions regarding media consumption.A much better book that deals with this subject is Leal Arrington's Worldproofing Your Kids.
... Read more |
unconciously limited perspective