I drive down my street at night and in the front window of almost every home I see the blue flicker of the television screen. Especially during the winter, it seems like all we do in the evening is watch TV. And I'll admit it: last night I sat for nearly 3 hours and watched the entire Fiesta Bowl. And I'll probably catch at least half of the championship game. How much time do you spend watching television or movies? According to the statistics, the average American watches about 127 hours per month (4.25 hours per day). And add to that the time spent on the Web: 26 hours per month (1 hour per day). Beyond just how much time we spend and what we watch (both of which might be a problem), there’s a deeper issue at stake. Our entire culture is image-driven. In other words, we communicate, no longer primarily with words, but through images. We learn, we advertise, we entertain ourselves, we make decisions, through pictures on a screen. The average teenager reads for 16 minutes per day on the weekends (bls.gov) – and that sounds high to me! In my personal opinion, Barak Obama won the presidential election because of his image. We are an image-driven culture. What would Jesus say about that? Is it a problem? How should Christians respond to our culture? Author and pastor James Montgomery Boice, like many Christians, rejects the image-driven culture and blames television and movies for cultural decay: “…’mindlessness,’ the inability or unwillingness to look at life in a thoughtful way… The chief cause of mindlessness is television” (Boice). I’m not so sure about that. I think the problem is that people watch a lot of TV, read few books, and spend little time thinking. “What is wrong with television? …it shortens attention spans… [it] glorifies violence and hypes immorality… it undermines and eventually destroys the ability to think” (Boice). TV doesn’t destroy people’s minds, we destroy our own minds by doing nothing but watching TV. “[Television] does not develop great minds” (Boice). No kidding! And ice cream does not get you into shape… Does that mean I should never eat ice cream again? Ice cream is fattening. Does that mean it’s to blame for obesity? I don’t think we should close our eyes to our image-driven culture. If we did, we would miss out on some very good things. And we would not be able to communicate with our culture. But on the other hand, Boice has a point: television does not develop great minds. Perhaps we’re not even aware of how our minds and hearts have decayed because of television, movies, and the internet.