In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It became the #2 best seller in the nation (second only to the Bible), and turned the tide of white American sentement against slavery. Ten years later—19 months into the Civil War that would bring an end to slavery in America—she met President Abraham Lincoln. He said, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”

Well-told stories are powerful. They uniquely enable us to see others’ perspectives. They cause us to dwell in experiences outside the scope of our small, daily routines. They engage our emotions and make us more empathetic, more human.

We are entertained in so many ways in 2019. Movies, television, social media, books, visual art, music, plays, poetry… All of these are mediums for story. News media, too, is a form of storytelling, carefully curated and crafted to capture our attention and focus it on certain events. 

As a writer, I love the power of stories to impart deep and multifaceted truths. But I also see a dark side to all this. If stories in their various formats are uniquely able to impart truth, they also have tremendous power to twist that truth, normalize wrongs, and embed lies. 

The propaganda of the 1940s helped the Allies win the war, but also promoted horrifying racism that had fallout in the lives of Japanese Americans for decades. 

The portrayals of women in media would, for the most part, have us believe that females must be young, thin, and sexy or else play a minor role in someone else’s story. Millions of women bear the weight of this lie. 

And the images of Africa that most of us are familiar with are of children with bloated bellies and flies on their faces, surrounded by wasteland, rags hanging off their bony shoulders. But is this an accurate picture of an entire continent? We must be careful.  

And that is only a few examples in my own country. When I pull back to consider the role of media in the world, I am equally concerned. 

Journalists are arrested and even murdered for speaking out about corruption. Along with the well-publicized murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports 15 other journalists murdered so far in 2019. Also according to CPJ, there are at least 47 journalists in jail in China right now (to name one country). 

And those pictures of starving African children—they don’t just impact how people in the West see Africa. Africans themselves, well-acquainted with these images, too often believe that these photos and messages of poverty define their circumstances. 

Popular media in India (which churns out about 2,000 movies a year) reinforces the beliefs about gender that have made India one of the most dangerous places to be born a girl. 

On the flip side, the novel and Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale” has become a rallying point for female activists everywhere from Ireland and England to Croatia and Argentina.

I could give endless examples, but the point is this: media has tremendous influence for both good and evil, for shaping what we believe and determining whose stories get told. Yet it rarely occurs to me to ask God to intervene in it. Will you take time this month to join us in praying:

  • That God would give His Church a renewed understanding of her role in creating media that glorifies Him and brings truth. Pray for Christ-followers in every artform to have opportunities to hone their craft and understand the intersection of faith and art. Pray for deeper revelations of truth and beauty that flow naturally into the media they create.
  • That God’s people would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as they consume media. Pray for discernment, protection over our minds and hearts, and a willingness to submit this area of our lives to the Lordship of Christ.   
  • For news media. There are many ways to tell any news story, thus influencing what people believe to be true. Journalists face everything from outright government censorship to pressure to please advertisers. Pray for protection over journalists, and that they will maintain integrity and truth in the face of opposition. 
  • For artists, actors, writers, and musicians to have a deep longing for God and for the beauty and truth that come from Him alone. Pray that many cultural influencers will come into a personal relationship with God, and that this relationship will be the spring from which their creativity flows.