The Walking Dead (AP Photo/AMC)

The seemingly ever increasing violence of mass entertainment in America (TV, movies, video games, etc.) has once again rekindled the controversial debate: “What is it with America’s seeming obsession with violence, and is it dangerous and destructive, or merely morbid?”

Any casual observer of American mass media cannot help but observe an ever more graphic depiction of violence, mayhem, and bloodshed. And, the descent into this abyss of violence appears to be accelerating with each passing month.

Furthermore, the problem is not new. As Dr. Brad Bushman, communications professor at Ohio State University, has pointed out, the Surgeon General of the United States sounded the alarm on this issue in 1972, stating, “It is clear to me that the causal relationship between television violence and anti-social behavior is sufficient to warrant appropriate and immediate remedial action. … There comes a time when the data are sufficient to justify action. That time has come.”

Sadly, in the intervening 43 years, the evidence demonstrating the damage inflicted on the populace, especially young people, from exposure to these extraordinary levels of media violence has continued to accumulate at an alarming rate. Not surprisingly, more and more Americans appear to be addicted to the pornography of violence. And just like sexual pornography, exposure leads some to addiction, and for yet others, the acting out of the actions they have become addicted to viewing with ever increasing frequency on the screen.

The levels of violence to which Americans are being constantly exposed have desensitized us to violence. Furthermore, as Dr. Bushman and others have pointed out, when extraordinary levels of violence are perpetrated by sympathetic or heroic characters in mass entertainment (movie, TV, and video games), people in turn are more likely themselves to engage in, and support, violent behavior.

Unborn baby (AP Photo)

Also, entertainment violence does not take place in a vacuum. Americans have been literally engulfed in a tidal wave of moral relativism over the past half century. For example, over the last four decades we have seen abortion on demand devour upwards of 30 percent of our unborn babies each year (approximately 55 to 57 million babies since 1973). This wholesale taking of innocent life has devalued life in our society and desensitized us to violence against human beings. (Abortion is violent death inflicted upon innocent life in the womb, and yet pro-choice advocates oppose even legislation that would require pain killers be administered to unborn babies before they are killed.)

Such indifference to this massive taking of human life has led directly to what Pope John Paul II called “the culture of death,” which has marched inexorably from the womb, to the nursery, to the nursing home, and to the intensive care unit. Now, we have several states which have enacted voluntary assisted suicide laws (the latest being the country’s most populace state, California).

Of course, the purveyors of this pornography of violence and death protest vociferously that their entertainment has no relation to the increasing fascination and preoccupation with violence and death in our culture. Really? Let’s take the example of the vast television industry. How is commercial television underwritten? How does it get its money? The answer, of course, is advertising. At the same time these merchants of violence and death are claiming their product has no impact on viewers’ behavior, their entire industry is financed by manufacturers spending millions of dollars on thirty second advertisements that they believe will change viewers’ purchasing habits and cause them to buy their products. If such advertising did not work, the manufacturers and their advertising agencies would not continue to spend the tens of millions of dollars they do to convince people to go out (or go online) and buy their products. As customers (or targets), we all know it works if the ad does its job. Who among us, of a certain age, does not immediately recognize (even though we haven’t heard it in decades) the iconic Lucky Strike ad, “Lucky Strike means fine tobacco” (L.S.M.F.T.). The Wendy’s ad, “Where’s the beef?” actually became part of a presidential campaign in 1984, when former Vice-President Walter Mondale incorporated the phrase in his campaign against President Reagan.

Yet, when it comes to their entertainment product, they say, “Us, influence anybody? It’s just entertainment!” What utter and complete hypocrisy!

God created us as social beings, and we will be impacted by the environment in which we live. As Christians we must expend all the effort we can to insulate ourselves and all those within our circle of influence from exposure to such gratuitous violence (and don’t forget the internet and video games). Many parents closely monitor what their children watch on television and what they listen to and yet forget about the far less regulated internet and video game industry.

Simultaneously, we must sound the alarm and seek to alert our fellow citizens to the serious and destructive dangers of a society increasingly addicted to the pornography of violence.

In recent years we have also seen a bizarre connection surface between graphic violence and a morbid interest with “zombies” and the “undead.” We have extremely popular television series like “The Walking Dead,” which is indicative of a New Age fascination with the afterlife accompanied by grotesque levels of violence. What is going on? I believe this surge of interest in zombies, the undead, and vampires, is, at least partially, a subconscious expression of the universal desire for immortality. As an increasing number of Americans reject traditional, Judeo-Christian beliefs about the afterlife, the resurgence of quirky New Age Spiritualism, including the sub-genre of zombies and vampires, will increase.

This is not a healthy society, and its preoccupation with violence and death is a symptom of serious spiritual and emotional dislocation. Sound the alarm. Ultimately, this is spiritual warfare, and it is our Christian duty to “ride to the sound of the guns!”

Dr. Richard Land is president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and former president (1988-2013) of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s official entity assigned to address social, moral and ethical concerns, with particular attention to their impact on American families. He has taught as a visiting or adjunct professor for several seminaries and has authored or edited more than 15 books.