Family Focus

"Wild Elephants and the Secular Media"

by Grace Fox

My husband Gene and I recently met the child we sponsor through World Vision. Six-year-old Ankit, one of 10 children in his family, lives in India. The clan shares a two-room, mud and rock house topped with a grass thatch roof. No electricity, no running water, no indoor plumbing. Their property consists of three or four fields, each the size of an average school classroom. Wheat was growing at the time we visited, and the family was hoping for a good harvest.

While there, we strolled through the fields with Ankit's parents. We chatted about their crops and water supply, or lack thereof, and then Gene posed a question through a translator: "What's the greatest challenge you face?"

I'd made a mental list of possible answers: poisonous snakes, rabid dogs, malnutrition, dysentery, lack of a clean water supply. But Ankit's dad gave an answer that surprised both Gene and me: "Wild elephants."

"Wild elephants?"

"Oh yes," he said. "They are very dangerous. They wander onto our property from the nearby jungle. If they get into our fields, they can trample our crops in a few minutes. And they can break our house and kill us."

The thought sent shivers up my spine. I wondered how I'd feel, as a parent, living in the shadow of this real and present danger threatening my family's well-being.

"What do you do to protect yourselves?" asked Gene.

Ankit's father shrugged. "It depends. There's an electric fence bordering the jungle. The elephants receive an electrical zap if they try to get through it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If they manage to break through in the daylight and we see them coming, we run for safety. If it's dark and we're in our house when they tromp into our yard, we blow out the candles and remain as quiet as possible."

My memory has replayed that conversation several times since it took place. As I've pondered the man's words, I've come to recognize that while our circumstances seem a universe apart, we share a mutual concern for our families' well-being. Ankit's family faces the threat posed by wild elephants. Our family, and yours, faces the danger posed by an enemy of a different sort - secular media.

In 1991, Josh McDowell conducted a survey to determine church-going teens' attitude toward God's Word as absolute truth. The results? Fifty-two percent denied it. The survey was repeated in 2002; the number had skyrocketed to 91 percent.

Why would our kids trade God's authoritative word for their own rules? McDowell suggests the negative influence of secular media is largely to blame. Day in and day out it bombards our children through magazine headlines, music, and television with attitudes and behavior that are anything but God-honoring yet appear to be the norm. Allowing this influence to permeate our homes puts our families at risk. It's like inviting a wild elephant into the living room and expecting it not to do damage.

So what can we do to protect our kids from this real and present danger? We can set wholesome guidelines based on Philippians 4:8: "Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." If a song's lyrics, a magazine's content, and a movie's images don't pass muster, we ought to choose something else that does.

The wild elephant might sneak through the fence on occasion, but in the media context, we ought not to knowingly let it run rampant in our yard. By following God's directives for life, we can protect our families from its danger.