Passing the Torch in a Digital Generation

Good, Beautiful and True

Once upon a time, younger generations trained their minds on better things—beautiful literature, memorized poems, and historical exemplars of character and courage. While this time has long passed, its influences shaped the tastes of our Greatest Generation, whose own children therefore enjoyed relatively unhurried and saner upbringings. Yes, sin and brokenness still captured hearts, but neither were normalized and celebrated as they are today.

By the 1980’s, though, technology had begun to renovate everything, from our entertainment down to our core beliefs. We think of the eighties as an antediluvian period for technology, and by today’s standards, it was. However, even Atari’s clunky game console and “car phones” were transformational—baby steps toward today’s full sprint into today’s world of digital payments and Artificial Intelligence.

Those who cut their technology teeth on the neon, hairsprayed eighties—our Boomer grandparents and Gen X parents—adapted to technology even as it enfeebled their minds. The naysayers and skeptics were old knuckle-draggers; the future was here! We’ve come a long way, indeed: adults are addicted to online porn, incorrigible toddlers stare at iPads, and lonely teenagers wail about “misgendering” and pronouns.

Our digital depravity (and moral cowardice) was unimaginable to those of the Greatest Generation who, at age 20, stormed Normandy’s beaches in combat boots, wading through death. Back then, even the less religious understood the basic requirements for a stable life—marriage, parental discipline, playing outdoors, and hard work. All such givens have now crumbled after years under steady attack.

Fewer readers, more online “influencers”, prescription dependence and moral collapse are among the sad legacies of our progress. Not only are we now unhealthier, but we are also unhappier—the maturing fruit of our digital Pandora’s box.

So what to do? For those of us who are raising children or grandchildren, there’s still an opportunity to be the good kind of influencer. There is still a chance to read and relay beautiful things, particularly those based on biblical wisdom and truth. You can still crown your posterity with your favorite passages, enduring music, faithful teaching and wise habits. It takes two things, though—time and discipline.

It takes time and discipline to read scripture, or even to read a solid devotional with a scripture reference.

It takes time and discipline to sit quietly and pray that God would make that same scripture come alive in your life, and in your children’s lives.

It takes time and discipline to learn from a quality podcast or soak up a classical musical performance while doing household chores—time that might otherwise be spent with a TV mindlessly blaring in the background.

It takes time and discipline to go walking or running instead of sitting around scrolling social media at your chid’s hour-long sports practice—remember, parents need exercise, too.

It takes time and discipline (and courage!) to tell your annoyed high school kids, “Before you head upstairs after dinner, I’m going to read something important to you for ten minutes.”

These suggestions are not meant as legalistic condemnations but as practical examples of how we can enrich our parenting (and grandparenting) in small but purposeful actions—and those require both time and discipline.

Most importantly, what does scripture have to say about these things? All scripture points us to the truth, goodness and beauty that reflect God’s own character. While our world is full of noisy, crushing, argumentative, crude, violent, and confused words, our hospitals and counseling offices stay packed with their dreary consequences. By contrast, God’s words bring life, hope and purpose to a world beset by despair.

Throughout scripture, we are therefore encouraged to guard our minds, choose our words and company carefully, and train up our children to do the same. This means that we evaluate our educational, cultural and physical appetites with God’s word as our standard for truth, goodness and beauty—and with an eye towards the future generations that will benefit from our faithfulness.

This isn’t optional, either. As believers, we are commanded to teach our children and grandchildren biblical truth and expect it to bear good fruit.

“You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” —Deuteronomy 11:19

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” —Proverbs 22:6

“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.” Proverbs 12:25

I’ll close with a wonderful quotation that encourages us to seek noble influences and old paths—the good, beautiful and true that are found in scripture first, but also in the finest of literature, music, political thought, athletics and art. As we do, we can imprint them on our families for a transformation that far exceeds the dark and pervasive influences of technology.

“We forfeit the chief source of dignity and sweetness in life, next to the direct communion with God, if we do not seek converse with the greater minds that have left their vestiges on the world.”—J. Martineau

I could not agree more.