Technology is here to stay, and can be harnessed helpfully. We can worship, work, and play as worshippers and image-bearers without a total ban on screens or online access. But such spiritual success will only come with some vigorous cultivation. 

A little over eleven years ago, I published Save Them From Secularism. I wanted to fill a gap in the parenting literature. As I see it, the majority of helpful Christian parenting books deal with the heart, motives, behaviour, correction, communication, and roles. Few deal with a child’s deep view of reality: his imagination. The shaping of the child’s overall picture of reality is the most fundamental shaping force in his life. In the book, I argue that the imagination can be shaped, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.

When I originally wrote, social media was just hitting its stride. There was no such thing as ten year-olds with smart phones and multiple social media accounts. Child YouTube stars hadn’t even been dreamed of. No one yet saw that screens were going to become the new cocaine. But in the online world, ten years is equivalent to a whole generation. It’s occurred to me to add some chapters to the book.

In the last few years, some good literature has come out that helps parents with the dangers. Predictably, the first Christian responses were all about the content: pornography, violence, and false teaching. That remains an important area to guard and shape.

More recently, writers have been dealing with the negative ways people use the internet: time-wasting, pseudo-relationships, addictive scrolling, gossip, and the negative traits that come out in people: envy, boasting, narcissism, lust, voyeurism, ungodly speech hiding behind anonymity, and covetousness.

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