Instinctively parents protect their children. From swatting the toddler’s hovering hand away from the hot oven, to desperately praying the five-year-old can handle the thoroughfare of school, to anxiously wait-ing for the teenager to come home from an evening outing. We worry about our children, and do all we can to ensure safe travel through the world.
These instincts reach into the realms of watching, reading and listening as we seek to guard our children from wayward influences wherever we can. As Christians, we are all the more concerned, rightly recognising that the majority of the media that our young people will be exposed to will not be advocating gospel-shaped views or ways of living.
Threat or opportunity?
After reading a few pages of the young adult’s novel, The Hate U Give, you might well be reaching for that protective shield and instinctively not want your teenager to read it. There’s gun crime, cussing and messy familial relations.
