Teaching Kids to Appreciate the Good in Culture, Not Just Avoid the Bad
Helping children develop into mature, godly adults is a daunting responsibility. Doing so in a digital world in which an endless ocean of sin and perversity is available at the click of a button has not made the task any easier. As a culture critic and a parent of two pre-teen children, I have learned that there is no book, formula, or simple set of rules I can follow to achieve that goal. As parents, we must ultimately trust in God’s sovereignty. Nevertheless, some biblical principles can provide a solid foundation. When it comes to teaching our children how to engage with culture, our approach should be grounded in those biblical principles. Yes, if you go looking for unholy filth in today’s entertainment, you will soon find it. But if teaching our kids to avoid unwholesome content is our only objective, then we are selling them short.
Anti-Culture Christianity
An anti-culture mindset is the default posture for many Christians today. I recently encountered a Christian YouTube channel that has amassed a large subscription base and regularly produces videos that receive more than 30k views. During a “review” of an animated family film (one I had personally found redemptive and beautiful), the influencer condemned the sinister and subliminal messages lurking beneath the surface. It wasn’t until partway through the video that the reviewer revealed he hadn’t actually watched the movie. This channel produces hundreds of videos containing fear-baiting negative assessments of everything “bad” (real or imagined) in Hollywood, but I couldn’t find even one video that acknowledged the possibility that the entertainment industry could ever offer something “good.”
Before casting stones, I should acknowledge my own journey. I published my first book as a 23-year-old recent college graduate. It featured two chapters on how Christians should approach entertainment. The first chapter referred to entertainment and media as “Satan’s poison gas,” while the second offered follow-up suggestions for using pop culture as a “tool.” Notably, neither presented culture as something to be enjoyed. Entertainment certainly can be a dangerous vessel of ungodly content and ideologies. But fifteen years later, I question my starting point. I had adopted the prevalent posture that culture is inherently “bad” and that the task of discerning Christians is to sludge through the bog without getting too much muck on our clean white clothes. The underlying assumption was that entertainment is an inevitable affront to our Christian purity, and we need to learn how to minimize its damage.
A Biblical View of Culture
Contemporary Christians often adopt an anti-culture posture, but the Bible itself offers a more positive perspective. Human life began in a garden, and the first God-ordained task was to cultivate the earth—to be culture makers. A trendy sentiment through the years has been to claim that since “cities” only emerged after original sin, the ideal Christian pursuit is to “return to the Garden.” Setting aside the fact that almost everything in life emerged post sin (including institutions like the church), this understanding is at odds with Scripture. According to Revelation, our future destination is not a garden paradise but a “New Jerusalem.” Heaven is a city.
Culture is a beautiful, God-instituted creation that has been marred by sin. We would be unwise to ignore the corruption and perversity in our culture, but we shouldn’t lose sight of its beauty either.
Scripture doesn’t sugarcoat the reality of sin or the need for Christians to pursue holiness. But Christians often approach this pursuit in the opposite manner to what Scripture suggests. The key to avoiding spiritual darkness is not to focus on the darkness but to “live in the light” (1 John 1:5-10). When the apostle Paul described what Christians should focus on, he didn’t say to look obsessively for anything “bad” that should be avoided. Instead, he instructed, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8). If you live in the light and learn to fix your eyes on whatever is good, true, and beautiful, then that which is ugly and grotesque will gain no foothold in your life.
See the Good, Not Only the Bad
If you ask Christians what they see in the world today, it will become clear that many are more in tune with Satan’s activity than with God’s. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising, since we often train our children to look for what is “bad” rather than to discern and appreciate what is good.
Before watching a movie (particularly a mainstream Hollywood film), many Christian parents prepare their children for any problematic content they may encounter (“You may hear some bad words, but that is how the world talks sometimes. We don’t use those words, okay?”). Parents prime their kids to keep an eye out for what might be harmful rather than to see “whatever is true, whatever is noble…” (Phil. 4:8). After the movie, they may discuss and correct any unbiblical worldviews that cropped up. Conversely, if the movie is wholesome and edifying, they may not discuss it at all, letting the “good” speak for itself.
As parents, we ought to ask ourselves: What is our goal? Is it (just) to shield our children from as much Hollywood garbage as possible? Or is it to open their spiritual eyes to see the good, true, and beautiful in the world around them? Of course, this is not an either/or decision. Helping our children see the good does not mean we shouldn’t also teach them to recognize the bad. But our starting place makes a crucial difference.
Appreciating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful
The qualities that make art and entertainment potentially dangerous also hold redemptive potential. Yes, art impacts us. But that impact is not inevitably negative. God created humans to be culture makers. Although sin permeates all human creations, so too does our status as image bearers of God (Genesis 1:27). Light is more potent than darkness, as darkness is merely the absence of light. To see only the darkness is to fail to see God’s creation as it truly is.
As a parent, I’m fully sympathetic to other parents’ desire to protect their children’s innocence and purity. But if we train our kids only to fear the darkness rather than to appreciate the light, then we will have failed. The Bible says, “Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it” (Proverbs 22:6). The best way to keep our children from being led astray by the many ungodly paths of the world is to teach them to recognize God’s goodness, truth, and beauty wherever they find it.
