General Foolishness

Jack Miller, Philadelphia pastor, to a missionary in Uganda, July 1986:

For me: pray for revival in my life and Rose Marie's. God did powerful things for us in Spain and Europe. We have come home and left the TV off, and this has given us extra time for work, prayer, and study--and other kinds of recreation. Not that we spent long hours before the tube, but watching news in the evening put splashes of violence, sensuous advertising, and general foolishness into our heads. We didn't need this mishmash of sensate values and violence bashing us every evening. It has been most helpful.

--The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller (P&R, 2004), 144

My suspicion is that for every legalist who gets rid of the TV just to feel superior to fellow Christians, there are ten more who are absorbing "general foolishness" and "this mishmash of sensate values" without realizing what it is slowly and subtly doing to them, perhaps baptizing it as gospel freedom. I'm thinking mainly of my generation here.

Sin/not sin is not the only filter for assessing how we spend our time. Wise/unwise is the other filter. All things are lawful, but not all things are beneficial.

All in response, glad response, to the Lord's outrageous love for us.