Author: Tom Thistleton

Ken Myers, of Mars Hill Audio, is a great gift to the church today. He’s able to stand outside our contemporary culture (and church culture) and, with a view toward history, see it in context and provide a critique that hits the target. His book, All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes, originally published in 1989, is part of the Board education program and has had a shaping influence on Mars Hill’s understanding of the challenges of living faithfully in the midst of contemporary culture.

In the introduction to his book, he says, “The challenge of living with popular culture may well be as serious for modern Christians as persecution and plagues were for the saints of earlier centuries.” Continue reading “Christian Faithfulness in a Disordered Culture”

Building on my first post, below is an excerpt from Ronald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. In the same vein as Neil Postman, his concern is not just the “bad” content on television but the medium itself and the kinds of habits and character it builds. This is due to the very nature of the medium. Neither Postman nor Dahl were Luddites, eschewing all technology, but they were thoughtful users of technology who saw both its blessings and curses … and they were calling us to be the same. Of course, their criticism of television applies all the more to the explosion of devices in our day: smart phones, tablets, etc.

Enjoy …

“The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set —
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all. Continue reading “Never, never, never let them near your television set …”