Gospel.com Blog

One of the paradoxes of Christianity is that, while our faith is centered around sharing Christlike love and peace, our private spiritual lives are vividly likened to a battleground. Warfare and battle are apt metaphors for our constant struggle to resist temptation and remain committed to the principles of the Bible.

What does this “spiritual war” look like in our lives, and how does it manifest? More importantly, how do we make sure we win this war? In a short devotional essay on spiritual war, Al Menconi explains where this spiritual warfare takes place… and lays out a battle plan for victory. Menconi believes that our minds are the ground zero of this spiritual war, and that we’re particularly vulnerable to spiritual attacks that come at us through the entertainment we absorb:

Instead of Satan announcing that he is our enemy and warning us that he wants to undermine our spiritual life, he has convinced us he is our friend and he simply wants to entertain us. And we deserve to be entertained….

I believe that this is a major reason why so many Christians are struggling with their spiritual life. We have allowed our minds to be “conformed to the values of this world” (Rom. 12:1) without even realizing it. Things that once were considered offensive, now entertain us.

If this is true, shouldn’t churches take a stronger role in educating believers on how to fight in this spiritual battle for our minds? Most churches and parents want to avoid the entertainment issue entirely. But we can’t. It is all around us! It shapes our world, but it doesn’t have to shape us!

Does this ring true to you? What sort of entertainment fills your idle time—and is it entertainment that conforms you to the mind of Christ, or to the values of the world around us? How have you and your family approached the difficult task of discerning between entertainment options?

Ever wondered why you are here on earth, or what the purpose of your life is? According to a new essay by media expert Al Menconi, you’re searching for answers to life’s four basic questions—questions that every person asks at some point in their life. What are they? Menconi lists them in the article:

1. Who am I?
2. Why am I here?
3. Where am I going? and
4. What is true?

In his essay, Menconi outlines the Bible’s answers to those four questions—and using a recent example from his life, he explains how seemingly innocuous things like the entertainment we imbibe can lead us astray as we look for those answers. Read the full article, and if you find it helpful, take a look through the Al Menconi Ministries website and read hundreds of other essays about faith, everyday life, and the messages (good and bad) that we absorb from the culture around us.

Al Menconi Ministries has put together a nice video introducing their media ministry and talking about the importance of making wise entertainment choices for your family. You might already know about Al’s ministry—we’ve noted the site’s many essays about entertainment topics and video game reviews—this video does a good job of introducing Al and his discerning approach to entertainment:

As you can see, Al Menconi Ministries isn’t about telling you what you can and cannot watch; they’d rather help your learn to make entertainment choices that are right for your family and in line with the Bible’s moral teachings.

If you’ve seen the Gospel.com homepage this week, you know that our focus this week is on God and politics. Is there any aspect of public life (save perhaps religion) that can energize, outrage, and divide like good old politics can?

Nobody will argue that politics isn’t divisive, and that the political arena doesn’t get vicious and unpleasant these days. But as tempting as it might be to divorce ourselves from these day-to-day political debates and candidates and votes and scandals, this isn’t a subject that Christians can ignore. Politics is an integral part of living in our society today, and if Christians are called to reflect the light of Christ into every part of our lives, that means we’re called to behave politically in a way that honors God.

And so this week, we’ll be featuring a few ministries and other resources that talk about how Christians ought to engage politics. We aren’t taking sides, and we’re not telling you how to vote—we just want to encourage you to think about government, political parties, presidential candidates, and the voting booth as a Christ-follower, not just a citizen.

We’ll begin by noting a blog—one that’s actually not precisely about politics, but which focuses on an institution that in the eyes of many Christians is is inextricably intertwined with the Culture Wars. The blog is GetReligion, and the always-controversial subject it covers is the portrayal of religion in the media. GetReligion doesn’t just sit back and complain about the media—it looks at how Christianity is discussed in the public sphere and how that discussion might improve.

Contributors like Terry Mattingly, Douglas LeBlanc, Daniel Pulliam, and others offer detailed analyses of how journalists talk about Christianity and religion—and since religion is front-and-center in a lot of political discussions these days, various political and public-square topics crop up a lot. See recent posts that talk about media coverage of the California marriage ruling, sex scandals in the church, and the religion in the US presidential race. And if you’re hungry for yet more, GetReligion contributor Terry Mattingly writes the weekly “On Religion” column, which addresses many similar issues in a slightly different format.

Take some time to explore GetReligion (and perhaps add it to your RSS reader), and tune in tomorrow for more politics!