One of the first things God taught me in a new life of ministry was how slippery the slope is in consuming popular media. The mucky slope from completely safe media and pretty safe media would lead to watching OK media with only a few moral content problems, but then when people become fans of a series or genre, they're often willing to tolerate more and more bad material in their favorite media or move into much worse content in the same genre. Anime and cute cartoons, hilarious sitcoms, catchy musicals and songs, and awe inspiring adventures and superheroes.

Decades ago I was a typical secular consumer of most popular media. I grew up watching television in the 70's and 80's, most of which was pretty safe content because of America's language and content regulations for programs on over-the-air TV. But then, soon came the age of satellite and cable TV, where there was no regulation of foul language or violent or sexual content. Still, I consumed the media oblivious to any bad effects it might have on me, family, or society. It was just normal, everyday material. That is the same mentality most of the world continues in today, only now it's media outlets on over-the-air TV, cable and satellite, and the most common of all, the Internet and streaming media.

But worse, even trusted, "family friendly" networks, like Disney, turned over to worse and worse material and adult content in the name of profits, as well as a darker kind of greed to promote all sorts of lusts in family and child media. When Disney animation and other cartoon works are a regular diet, especially for child rearing families, the constant feed of overt lust and sexualization in so-called family offerings becomes a deadly mind-altering prescription. The typical hero changed from admirable and righteous into heroes and heroines that cussed, demeaned others, and needed to make sexual comments every other minute. Some people actually think cussing and lewdness is necessary to portray real life, but really, it is an oxymoronic mix of hubris and innocent naivete for writers, directors, producers, actors, and such to think you need to display all the dirt and lust of life to effectively tell a story. Creating such works shows immaturity and artistic incompetence more than creative vision.

But overt language and sexual content aren't the only things corrupting everyone's moral integrity. The famous, long running, comedy sitcom, Friends, was a favorite for most everyone that watched TV. Even trendy and more adult media, like romantic comedies and horror movies were normal, too. But after becoming a person of faith, my awareness of dark spiritual forces exploded. It was not just things the Bible or church taught that showed me popular media was corrupting society's morals, but God set me on a more hands-on path in the spiritual life Christians call the Good Fight or Good Race - a new life of repentance, cleaning sin out you and your circle of relationships, and some of the hardest battles in the Good Fight - battles with dark spiritual forces after realizing and seeing they truly are real and out to make you fail; forces that much of the world dismisses as just ghost stories and fantasy nonsense.

Yes, even though I was a semi-spiritual person before becoming a Christian, because I already believed in spirits (I had witnessed ghosts and other spiritual phenomena first-hand since I was a child, after all), but, I never would have thought that the spiritual things in the Bible were real, too. For a regular scientifically-minded person, how can fantastical stuff like Moses parting the Red Sea have anything to do with reality? The Bible's angels, demons, and supernatural powers and curses all seemed like Greek mythology and fantasy fiction.

However, in the few years that led me to become a Christian, God let these supernatural things become evident in my life. I was clueless to the spiritual realities I would see, but as I fought the Good Fight becoming a minister and teacher for God, these spiritual things started to make sense; the Bible started to make sense. I saw with my own eyes that God in Christ was calling and leading me to a new life, so never, ever, did I think as a devout Christian that the dark spiritual forces in the church and world would be so covert and misleading as to fool even the most zealous of believers for God and Christ. God made the Good Fight for me a multitude of revelation after revelation, much of which was not good, because the Lord showed me just how corrupted even His very own chosen people had become.

Most everyone in believing communities have no idea that their Good Fight was corrupted by the devil so as to make them his pawns to spread false teachings. And as the years went on, God showed me there was no place clean among His people. Truth was not black and white anymore and following God much harder than the church led everyone to believe. It doesn't matter what sect you belong to. In my life of ministry, God showed me that not one sect, denomination, or ministry showed itself to be uncorrupted by the twisting and lies of Satan (see God's Alarm for more). I've decades experience in evaluating the peoples' doctrines to know, so if even the absolutely devout cannot avoid such serious moral corruption, where does that put everyone else?

Where do you and your loved ones stand when you remain consumers of what appears to be good and safe? Do you still love to watch Friends and other favorite popular media? Why are they so bad? Humor can hide many corruptions and it relaxes people's guards. Who's on high alert when they're laughing? Even less alert when they're enjoying the media with loved ones. But remove the merriment from series like Friends, and you can see that all the main characters live a life of fornication and often talk about sex and porn. Most of them end up sleeping together. One of the much loved main characters is a womanizer, or what the New Testament calls a whoremonger (KJV); a very lustful man who is greedy for women and sex.

When I watched Friends, it was one of the most amusing series I'd seen because of the main characters' comical lives and close relationships. It all seemed normal, too. But after God opened my spiritual eyes, I could see how bad media like this is. It teaches people, even families, to live just like the main characters. It normalizes promiscuity, adultery, unwed sexual relationships, and premarital pregnancy. Such obvious logic is often dismissed by social scientists and medical experts. What harm does having sex before marriage do, anyways? So what if a guy tries to sleep with as many women as he can? Stupid orthodox, far right nonsense!, they say. Just have safe sex, they say.

Oh how lamentable and naive people are. The curses that sins bring are as real as their favorite comedic actors, and I'm afraid, popular shows like Friends played a big role in ushering in a new normal of having children before marriage and single-parent households. I shared proof of this reality before and what God gave with it, real world evidence that premarital sex was truly hurting children and families (see Pratical Sex Matters and Practical Romance Matters for details). It's nothing to laugh at. When I said popular and common media was becoming deadly and mind-altering for society, I meant exactly that.

But the world and families continue to flock to what is amusing and looks good and safe. More recently I looked at the huge popularity that anime and other cartoons are having now. In recent months, I started seeing anime channels and streams popping up in streaming networks everywhere, but despite some extremely cute and amusing content, I also found far too common, even worse sexual content in anime channels that are promoted to children and families. God actually used it to link guidance with numbers that go with Satan. See the meaning of 352 for details of this and how it goes with anime and animated works.

The corruption popular media is having on society should be evident to you. More and more reports of attempted child abductions, more reports of sexual abuse and rape, more gun violence, more murder, more poverty, more homelessness, more drug addictions, more health problems, more mental health problems. It's time to leave behind all those beloved shows, music, and media corrupted by sins and lusts, because the sins they feed to the people multiply into more sins and curses upon them.

That's why I said "more poverty, more homelessness, more drug addictions, more health problems, more mental health problems"; things not directly related to what is shown in popular media. These are curses for people who continue living in sins, like shown in popular media, and they affect your whole house and circle, as I've often stated (see Practical Sex Matters and About page for more), so don't freely feed popular media to your children, including teenagers; even Disney, anime, and cartoons need to be examined individually before giving them pass for viewing.

Morals are easily corrupted when people naively accept sin hiding among laughter, comedy, and everything that peaks interest. For the sake and well-being of your loved ones, for your futures to be blessed and not cursed, heed the warnings about being complacent in this. Instead, remember,  "[God and salvation through Christ] teaches us to say 'No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and Godly lives in this present age... these are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority..." (Titus 2:11-15)

May you all be strengthened in will and morals to leave behind all that should be abandoned, through Mashiach Yeshua (Christ Jesus). Amen.