The Dawn Treader

What a great question!

Hands down, the best resource on this topic is Paul David Tripp's .  Chapter nine, called the Life in The Real World, is packed with wisdom for dads and moms on how to help your children engage culture worldviewishly and redemptively.

Tripp smacks down two common Christian parenting strategies for dealing with culture.  The rejection-isolation response to culture, whose philosophy is "evil is in the thing so avoid the thing".  Avoid movies, music, dancing or any other cultural activity that would infect your children.  The danger?  It sets up a "sacred secular" divide in the mind of your children.  It takes the focus off the core struggle with evil within us (our sin nature), and makes evil to be something out there (external behavior).  It promotes self-righteousness and sets up a perfect recipe for raising little pharisees.  The second response is the assimilation response, which is to presuppose that culture is neutral and there is no harm in participating in culture.  The danger in this is that it runs counter to Scripture which shows us that nothing is neutral (Matt 12:30).  Worldviews are embedded in everything in culture ... to mindlessly allow your children to participate in culture is like taking your kids out for a fun day at a polluted lake, and smiling on while they splash around in the bacteria infested waters.

There has to be a better response.  There is.  Teach them the truth about the world as revealed in God's word.  Then teach them what culture is, the nature of its power and influence, and form a biblical plan for living in it.

The biblical plan has to involve living in the world but not of the world.   It must involve you helping your children be astute observers of culture so that they can critique, evaluate, interpret and analyze their surrounding culture from a biblical perspective.  They need to think biblically about life, and worldviewishly about movies, books, TV and pop culture.

Sound hard?  It is.  But it is what we are called to do as Christian parents.  This kind of thing is better "caught then taught."  In other words, they will learn how to do it if they see mom and dad doing it, and coming alongside them and helping them to do it.

So ... that means you have to watch films alongside them.  You have to listen to their music.  You have to enter into their world.   You have to take the time to talk with them about it and help unpack it.  Sound like a lot of work?  Welcome to parenting.

This leads me to my friend's question.   How do you actually do this in the case of movies?

I look to three experts in the area of how to look at something worldviewishly.

First, I turn to Paul David Tripp.  He suggests that you ask the following questions when you are doing a Bible reading as a family ... and then use the same basic questions when interpreting a movie or song lyrics or whatever...

What does this teach us about God, his character, or his plan?
What do we learn about ourselves, our nature, our struggle, and the purpose of our lives?
What does this teach us about right and wrong, good and bad, true and false?
What instruction is there about relationships, about love, authority, etc?
What does this teach us about life, its meaning and purpose?
What does this teach us about the inner man, the heart, and how it functions?
What would we learn about how to make decisions or guide the way we live?

Second, I turn to Chuck Colson.  Colson does an outstanding job of drilling these four questions into your psyche while in the Centurions program.  The questions form the overall structure of Colson and Pearcy's monumental worldview book,

Where did I come from?
What’s wrong with the world?
What can be done to fix it?
What is my purpose?

These questions force one to think through God's design and purpose, how sin has affected this design, how God has provided a way out, and how we can restore things towards God's purpose.  So if a movie presents a message about marriage, you engage in a discussion about what God thinks about marriage, how sin has affected marriage, how God has dealt with sin,  and how we can restore God's design for marriage in light of how He has dealt with sin.  You then compare biblically informed answers to the opinions offered in the movie.

Third, I turn to James Sire and his thoughts on viewing culture worldviewishly.  Sire is mainly dealing with reading books in his book , but his ideas work for film as well.  Sire suggests to learn to ask yourself how the writer of a movie (or a book) would answer the following seven questions, based on what you observe in the film (or book).

What is really real?
What is the nature of the world around us?
What is a human being?
What happens to a person after death?
Why is it possible to know anything?
How do we know what is right and wrong?
What is the meaning of human history?

Concluding thoughts:

These are all awesome questions.  They are a little hard to remember, and heavy on the philosophy.   I like the seriousness of the questions, but we need something simpler.  We need to have the cookies on the bottom shelf, or we probably won't eat them.

Here is what I suggest.  Ask these questions and be persistent in not accepting one syllable answers.

What opinions does this movie present about what is right or wrong, what is true or false, or what is real or not real?

Does the Bible teach the same thing as the movie?  Why or why not?

Those questions should not be too hard to remember, and they will launch you into a discussion that will offer you an opportunity to help your children exegete culture and compare it to biblical truth.

For those Christian parents reading, I would like to know what questions you ask?  How do you teach your children to unpack a movie?  If your children are still in diapers or watching Veggie tale videos, how do you intend to help them when they are older?

8/30 Update : zwilson comments : "When we read a book or watch a video with them, we often ask them questions like: Which character is most like you and why? Or which character did you dislike the most and why?"  Those are great heart disclosing questions.  They provide a lens into how your child is processing the impact of the film.  That is a great starting point.   Move from there towards a discussion of truth.  Since movies are designed to impact our emotions, it is a natural place to start.  I just don't think you should end there.  Move from the existential level to the  worldview  level -- in other words,  are the basic assumptions about the world in this film true or false.

8/30 Update: Keith Plummer suggests another excellent resource : by Brian Godawa.  Keith gives a book review in his post.  A second helpful book review is at World Magazine posted by David Wayne (Jollyblogger).   It sounds like Godawa teaches how to find the story of redemption embedded in so many movies ... and then use that story to engage others.