The Christian Media Ministry has developed a guide to children viewing the Lord of the Rings, and other controversial movies that contain violence. The Ministry describes LOTR as relatively clean, but the sword fighting may be too strong for children. However, his Christian references in the novels prove to be a good adventure for children. Their notions of the LOTR references can be implemented in other media types too. The Ministry believes that the media violence problem is a great one, and needs to be dealt with accordingly by parents. By the time a child is 17 years old, they would have spent 40,000 hours watching movies and other types of media and only:
11,000 hours in school
2,000 hours with their parents
800 hours in church
An average of 2,353 hours of media is consumed by children each year, and only 165 of those hours would have been representative of a strong Christian worldview.
Official portrait of Acting Surgeon General of the...
Ministry Musical Science & Melody
Tolkien's Cover Designs for the First Edition of T...In 2001 the Surgeon General of the United States agreed with top medical groups that violence in the mass media is contributing to increasing violent behavior among children. The Ministry offers a solution to this problem in the form of "four pillars". These are
1) Understand the negative influences of the entertainment media
2) Understand your child's cognitive or psychological development
3) Understand the grammar of the entertainment media or how the media works
4) Understand your moral, spiritual values and teach them to your children
The Ministry sums up their view by stating that the best way to develop wisdom is to choose the good, not just reject the bad.