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Withdrawing Consent Part I -- What are you so upset about?
by Jim Babka
February 13, 2004Janet Jackson stole the headlines from her brother with her "costume accident" at the Super Bowl. It doesn't really matter whether or not she and Justin Timberlake meant to do it. The whole halftime show was awful.
Who's to blame?
Everyone should've known there would be trouble when it was announced that MTV was running the halftime program. The philosophy of MTV is nihilism.
Dictionary.com defines nihilism thusly:
A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated… Rejection of all distinctions in moral and religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality and religious belief.
I would assume that most Christians reading this column don't watch much MTV. But many, many Christians watched the halftime show. Ms. Jackson's exposed breast was the most "TIVO'd" moment in the technology's history (TIVO is a system that allows you to pause and rewind live television, or store a show for later viewing).
It's a safe assumption that a lot of those TIVO remote controls were in the hands of professing Christians. Perhaps they couldn't believe it and just had to make sure they really saw what they thought they saw. But it's no excuse.
Who is to blame? I am.
I was on the road for several days, starting with Super Bowl weekend. On the Tuesday after the game I was listening to a Christian talk-radio show. The conservative host desperately wanted someone to call for strong government action. Four callers offered their opinion during my ride – none of them took the host's bait.
The first caller cited a passage in Psalms about protecting your eyes from evil. She said she had watched the whole show with the sense that the Holy Spirit didn't want her there. She had even shielded her son's eyes. But that was no excuse she said. "I should've turned it off or left the room."
I empathized with this caller. I sat through the halftime show. And I was in a home where they had TIVO.
I usually avoid MTV. I don't watch award shows either (I missed the Britney Spears- Madonna kiss). I know what to expect from these shows. I know that my values will be assaulted.
But I didn't exercise the same judgment this time.
I am to blame for the morally impoverished halftime debacle.
The second caller referenced the talk show host's monologue (which I had missed). Apparently the host had talked about the Great Commission, the Christian responsibility to be Salt, and had wondered aloud how much longer Christian values would be trampled on. But this caller pointed out that Christ's call for us to be salt came with a warning – useless salt was tossed out and trampled under foot. He pointed out that the church has lost its savor, and is getting exactly what it deserves.
He indicated that our values would be embraced only as we, the church, demonstrated our worth to the community.
Two more callers made similar statements. None of them seemed at all fired up that the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission was promising a government investigation and potential fines for the network, the artists, and all the affiliates.
The callers were spot on. This wasn't a political problem and millions of our tax dollars wasted to tackle this issue will only get the FCC Chairman (whose name I'm unwilling to reprint) more celebrity to advance his own political career.
Christians have the ability to turn off the TV – to "Just Say No." They also have an even more powerful tool at their disposal and it's already working.
What to do about indecency on TV
There's an old libertarian joke that says the solution to every conceivable problem is, "let the market handle it."
And boy did the market give its verdict. Janet Jackson lost a presenter slot at the Grammy Awards. Jackson and Timberlake were both compelled to apologize. So too were the NFL and CBS.
Even MTV pretended to apologize.
A WorldNetDaily letter-to-the-editor writer Ellen Sinclair wasn't buying the apologies. She provided a warning...
"Just wait while we lull them back to sleep," is the insinuation, "and then we can go back to the game plan of gradually bringing you full-on orgies, courtesy of Pepsi and other high-profile, deep pocket advertisers.
…and some valuable advice,
Maybe I'm too stupid to monitor this sewer any longer, cleverly shielding my children from degeneracy while still enjoying the "quality entertainment" the television industry has to offer. Maybe I'm just too stupid to figure out which networks and advertisers are money-grubbing, immoral cynics, and which ones are innocent dupes. Maybe I'll just have to go back to reading books until I'm smart enough.
We can cancel our cable television altogether since nearly every system in the country requires MTV to be a part of the package.
We can turn off CBS television for Lent.
We can stop playing those insipid Hollywood-insider, celebrity-lifestyle shows, and turn off anything on the tube that features or interviews a Jackson, a Timberlake, a P. Diddy, or whoever else showed up.
At a minimum, we could boycott halftime next year, even if they bring an all-American extravaganza of schlock, replete with country and gospel singers, flag waving, and old-fashioned marching bands.
The government can put a band aid on the cultural problem, but it can't stop the hemorrhaging. Government involvement will probably lull the Morally Outraged back to the comfort of their recliners.
Ellen Sinclair is right. We shouldn't let a potentially phony apology be enough. By all means, we should let the market decide.
Empowering the destruction of culture
If Christians really believed in standards – actually lived by them – and applied them consistently, the problem would be solved. Allegedly, there's too many of us to ignore. But Hollywood does just that.
Each of us can withdraw consent. Moral renewal is not a government program. Renewal starts with individuals who make the commitment to be of moral character in their own homes.
We, the Body of Christ, still have the power to say, "Go ahead, have your fun, but not on our dime, not on our time, and not in front of our families." And if enough Christians merely checked out of the nihilistic, materialistic culture, I promise you, there'd be a radical change for the better in what you saw on TV.
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