“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)
It’s back to school time most places, and quality of education is an ongoing concern. Parents, grandparents and other followers of Jesus want young people to experience growth in faith during their school years. That involves the second great commandment, loving your neighbor as yourself, the Golden Rule. An extensive survey of the spiritual and religious growth of college students shows that caring for others tends to grow during the college years with one exception. “Only one student activity appears to impede growth in…caring and connectedness: watching television. In many respects the act of watching television, in which one’s attention is entirely focused on external sounds and images, is anathema to the mindfulness and self-awareness that is involved in meditation and reflection.” (“Cultivating the Spirit,” Jossey-Bass, 80)
“Children learn what they live.” Do our TV habits undermine the growth in faith we desire for young people?
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