Ground Breaking Research

by Lindsey Tanner & Mark Hamby

On November 3, 2008, The Times Tribune newspaper featured an article that summarized research on a study titled, "Ties Teen Sex to Risqué Television" by Lindsey Tanner.

Tanner's groundbreaking research suggests that pregnancy rates are much higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and behavior compared with those who have tamer viewing tastes.Sex and the City, anyone? That was one of the shows used in the research. “The new study is the first to link those viewing habits with teen pregnancy,� said lead author Anita Chandra, a Rand Corp. behavioral scientist. Teens who watched the raciest shows were twice as likely to become pregnant over the next three years as those who watched few such programs. Previous research by some of the same scientists had already found that watching sex on TV can influence teens to have sex at earlier ages.

The study is being released today in the November issue of Pediatrics. It involved 2,003 12- to 17-year-old girls and boys nationwide questioned by telephone about their TV viewing habits in 2001. Teens were reinterviewed twice, the last time in 2004, and asked about pregnancy. Among girls, 58 became pregnant during the follow-up, and among boys, 33 said they had gotten a girl pregnant.

Participants were asked how often they watched any of more than 20 TV shows popular among teens at the time or which were found to have lots of sexual content.  These included Sex and the City, That 70s Show and Friends.

Pregnancies were twice as common among those who said they watched such shows regularly, compared with teens who said they hardly ever saw them. Ms. Chandra said TV-watching was strongly connected with teen pregnancy even when other factors were considered, including grades and family structure. "The media does have an impact, but we don't know the full extent of it because there are so many other factors."

I am sure that to most of my readers this comes as no surprise. What the article doesn't address is the effect of TV shows such as Heroes, Lost, Medium, CSI, American Idol, and a list that would take more space than could be read in the next hour. Of particular concern are the TV shows that make light of homosexuality, that make fathers and husbands look like bumbling fools, and that underscore women who act superior. 

In the Scriptures, Lot's righteous soul was vexed by what he saw and heard. He didn't participate, but just by seeing and hearing those things that are in opposition to God and His Word, his soul was being torn apart.

The Apostle Paul challenges Christians to think upon things that are good and beautiful, things that are in harmony with the character of God and His creative beauty. Throughout history, God's people were called upon to fight, not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in high places. It appears that very few are fighting a battle these days. There is no question that here in our American culture, the enemy is winning the battle. Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church. But history has shown that the church has done very little to prevail against the gates of hell.  Gates are meant to protect. God’s people need to be on an offensive march to bring redemptive hope to a dark world. The Reformation and the Great Awakening were victorious times for the church, but it wasn't long before complacency and apathy entered the veins of God's people and once again lulled them to sleep.

It is time to wake from our slumber. It is time to act. It is time to put away the pacifying and demoralizing media idols. It would behoove us to dig up the treasures of the Word of God, biographies, devotionals, and the plethora of great Christian literature so readily available today.

Perhaps The Times Tribune will feature an article that highlights groundbreaking research that links reading habits with teen behavior, suggesting that teens who read literature with role models exemplifying such qualities as courage, integrity, and perseverance have been shown to demonstrate those same characteristics in society and amongst their peers.  

As Charlie T. Jones once said, "You will be the same five years from now as you are today, except for the people you meet and the books you read."  It is time to turn off the tv and the darkness that it brings and turn on the light.

 

If you haven’t seen the eight-minute movie created by Lamplighter, you can view it here.

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Dialogues of Fenelon

Chapter 5: On Silence and Recollection

I think, Madame, that you should try hard now to practise silence, so far as general courtesy will permit. Silence promotes the presence of God, prevents many harsh and proud words, and suppresses many dangers in the way of ridiculing or harshly judging our neighbor. Silence humbles the mind, and gradually weans it from the world; it makes a kind of solitude in the heart like that which you desire: it will supply all that you need under your present difficulties. If you retrenched all useless talk, you would have many available moments even in the midst of society, where you are obliged to stay against your will. You wish for freedom for prayer; while God, who knows what you need better than you do, surrounds you with restraints and hampering claims. The hindrances which beset you in the order of God’s providence will profit you more than the sweetness of self-chosen prayer. You know very well that retirement is not essential to the love of God. When He gives you time, you must take it and profit by it; but meanwhile abide in faith, satisfied that what He gives you is best. Often lift up your heart to Him, without making any outward sign; talk only when it is necessary; and bear patiently with what crosses you. You have more need of self-denial than of light. If you are faithful in keeping silence when it is not necessary to speak, God will preserve you from evil when it is right for you to talk.

Your portion is to love, to be silent, to suffer, to sacrifice your inclinations, in order to fulfil the will of God, by moulding yourself to that of others. Happy indeed you are thus to bear a cross laid on you by God’s own hands, in the order of His providence. The discipline which we choose for ourselves does not destroy our self-love like that which God assigns us Himself each day. All we have to do is to give ourselves up to God day by day, without looking further. He carries us in His arms as a loving mother carries her child. Let us believe, hope, love, with all the simplicity of children. In every need let us look with love and trust to our Heavenly Father.

Psalm 131

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.

 

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Did You Know?

1) How long did the Hundred Years' War last?
2) Which country makes Panama hats?
3) From which animal do we get cat gut?
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?
7) What was King George VI's first name?
8) What color is a purple finch?
9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?
10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?

Answers located at the bottom of the "Laughter Is Like Medicine" section.

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