We live in a fallen world and no
matter how much we try to be good, our physical nature and the nature of this
physical world will always gravitate toward the bad, toward the rotten, toward
the evil. However, it was not always the
case. When God created the world, he
made everything good. Genesis Chapter
One records six occasions when God sees the world as good: verses 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31 (Life
Application Study Bible (LASB), pp. 5-7).
Interestingly enough, there were six days during which God was creating
and six times the mention of “good.” So
everything God created was good, including the humans, after whom he says,
“very good” (v. 31). Evil came when Adam
and Eve, the first people on earth, had sinned by being disobedient to God as
recorded in Genesis 3. They listened to
the serpent that deceived them by questioning God’s command not to eat of the
forbidden tree (LASB, p. 10). When that
happened, God punished the man, the woman, and cursed the serpent and the
ground. To the man God said, “Cursed is
the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days
of your life. It will produce thorns and
thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your
food until you return to the ground” (LASB, p. 12). God punished the man with hard physical labor
involving land that is cursed with “thorns and thistles” which would make the
work even more difficult. To the woman
God said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you
will give birth to children. Your desire
will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (LASB, p. 11). God punished the woman by increasing her
pains in labor and being dominated by man.
To the serpent God said, “Cursed are you above all the livestock and all
the wild animals! You will crawl on your
belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life” (LASB, p. 11). God cursed the serpent by taking away his
legs. It is important to note that God
did not curse the man or the woman, but only the serpent and the land. Because of these curses, humanity, though not
cursed, lives in a cursed world with a cursed ruler, the Devil, as a result of
punishment. This is why no matter how
hard people try to be good, it is impossible to do so without God. When it comes to sex and violence in our
culture today, the same could be said. Because
we live in a fallen world in a fallen nature, we naturally gravitate toward
evil even though our conscious tells us to do the opposite, that is if we still
have a conscious. Apostle Paul in Romans
Chapter 7 verse 15 describes this phenomenon by saying, “I do not understand
what I do. For what I want to do I do
not do, but what I hate I do” (LASB, p. 1893).
This reinforces the idea that our natural self is always drawn toward
the evil. So when it comes to the
prevalence of sex and violence in our society, it is not a matter of finding
the source of influence that causes it, but rather finding the source that is
able to overpower it. Instead of blaming
technological advances such as television, movies, or the Internet for
influencing the amount of sex and violence in our society, it is important to
understand that fallen nature is the number one reason why sex and violence is
so prevalent throughout the world.
One of the main reasons why we
should not blame technology for the pervasiveness of sex and violence in our
society is because it existed even before the technology age. This is evident from the very beginning of
time when the first people Adam and Eve had their first children, Abel and
Cain. These two brothers had no
television or violent video games around, nor did they have access to the
Internet to learn how to be violent.
However for some reason, Cain killed his brother Abel as recorded in
Genesis 4:8 (LASB, p. 13). He did not
even kill him for a good reason, but only because of anger that was linked to
jealousy. Genesis 4:4 states, “In the
course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to
the Lord. But Able brought fat portions
from some of the firstborn of his flock.
The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his
offering he did not look with favor. So
Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast” (LASB, p. 12). In other words, Cain was jealous that God
accepted Abel’s offering and not his, which lead to anger and then to
murder. So it is obvious that this
violent behavior did not come from any outside source, but rather Cain’s
heart. He bore jealousy and anger in his
heart, which lead him to murdering his own brother. On the same note, sexual immorality was also
prevalent in those times as recorded in Genesis 19:5 where the people of Sodom
and Gomorrah tried to have sex with the Angels that came to rescue Lot and his
family. They said, “Where are the men
who came to you tonight? Bring them out
to us so that we can have sex with them” (LASB, p. 36). Did these people watch too much television or
played to many violent video games that they learned about homosexuality and
rape? No, these men were sexually
immoral because of their fallen and sinful nature. So according to the Bible, it is obvious that
evil comes from the heart, not from any outside source.
Richard Rhodes in his article
“Hollow Claims about Fantasy Violence” supports the notion that there is no direct
link between exposure to violence on television and human violent behavior (p.
555). He uses a number of examples from
history to support his point including the fact that in South Africa, though
television was banned until 1975, the “white homicide rates remained stable”
(Rhodes, p. 556). He also goes on to say
that the same thing happened in other countries. He states, “Homicide rates in France,
Germany, Italy, and Japan either failed to change with increasing television
ownership in the same period or actually declined, and American homicide rates
have more recently been sharply declining despite a proliferation of popular
media outlets – not only movies and television, but also video games and the
Internet” (Rhodes, p. 556). There are
many other examples in our history where it is evident that violence has only
decreased with the increased amount of media.
Nonetheless, does that mean that
what happens around the world does not influence evil behavior? Of course not! Rhodes states, “But violence isn’t learned
from mock violence. There is good
evidence – casual evidence, not correlational - that it’s learned in personal
violent encounters, beginning with the brutalization of children by their
parents or their peers” (p. 557). What
this means is that even though media has almost no effect on evil behavior, at
least not a proven effect, there are other outside influences that can
encourage or promote violent or immoral behavior. For instance, people that lived in Sodom and
Gomorra probably did not all start out that way, but because of how forceful
others were with their immorality, it was impossible for people not to give
in. Even Lot was about to give his
daughters to these immoral people in order to protect the Angels. Genesis 19:8 says, “Look, I have two
daughters who have never slept with a man.
Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with
them. But don’t do anything to these,
men, for they have come under the protection of my roof” (LASB, p. 36). So even though evil does not begin with the
outside force, it may be encouraged through an outside source. According to Rebecca L. Collins et al., who
has summarized RAND Health research, “Youth who viewed the greatest amounts of sexual
content were two times more likely than those who viewed the smallest amount to
initiate sexual intercourse during the following year or to progress to
more-advanced levels of other sexual activity” (p. 543). However, besides television, the RAND study
identified other factors that could possibly contribute to increases sexual
behavior in teens such as “being older, having older friends, getting lower
grades, engaging in rule-breaking such as skipping class, and sensation-seeking”
(Collins, p. 543). Thus, even though the
evil behavior may initiate in the heart, the outside influence can promote it
if people are not strong enough to withstand the pressures.
So what does all this mean for us as
a society? Does that mean we should let
our children watch violent movies and play violent video games? Should we allow them to watch sexual scenery
in movies or Internet? Absolutely
not! Even though, there is very little
evidence that media influences or increases evil behavior, we should not be the
ones to say that it is okay by allowing them to be exposed to it. It is our job as parents to protect our
children from such immorality, not that we can completely protect them from it,
but we can at least be role models in ways that will show our children that
those behaviors are not acceptable. Moreover,
we need to teach our children that we live in a fallen world and that all
people by nature are sinners in need of a Savior. Unless people repent of their sins and
surrender their lives to Jesus, they will be powerless in controlling their
evil behaviors. This is not to say that
they cannot try, but all their effort will fail because only through Jesus we
have power over sin.
Bibliography
Collins, R. L. et al. Does watching
sex on television influence teens’ sexual activity? Elements of
argument: a text and reader. Boston, NY:
Bedford/St. Martin’s.
Life Application Study Bible: New
International Version. 2005. Carol Steam, IL & Grand
Rapids, MI: Tyndale
House Publishers, Inc. & Zondervan.
Rhodes, R. Hollow claims about fantasy violence. Elements of argument: a text and reader.
Boston, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
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