The key to media wisdom is intelligence.

Intelligence is not IQ. Rather, it is the ability to learn from external sources and apply knowledge in a discerning way. In the parlance of the CIA, intelligence is acquiring knowledge about the actual location of weapons of mass destruction. It is not merely someone's personal idea about where they may or may not be.

Sadly, however, relativism, pluralism and political correctness have undermined intelligence and sold us a bill of goods in the name of "experiential learning." Experiential learning has been a dismal failure ever since it captured the imagination of the West in the 1960s. In essence, experiential learning maintains that every individual must independently determine by personal experience whether a thing is good or bad.

Taken to logical conclusions, experiential learning is unsustainable as a lifestyle. Must every individual try drugs to find out that drugs are destructive? Or commit murder to learn that murder is wrong?

The good news is that we can learn from secondary sources. We don't have to put our foot in a trap to know the trap will hurt. We can use intelligence.

(Column continues below)

Regrettably, a new wave of Christian media courses promotes sending vulnerable children to movies with corrosive immorality and corrupting philosophy. Some of these courses used in church schools, such as those developed by edchange.org, promote pure Marxism under the guise of multiculturalism, diversity and tolerance.

Some resources circulated to churches, such as the many materials sent out to churches about "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Golden Compass," have exposed vulnerable children and teenagers to pagan, hedonist and atheist doctrines under the guise of preparing them to talk to their friends about a particular movie or television program.

This is experiential learning at its most subtly dangerous. It is not media wisdom. Children are imitative and should not be given over to instruction by examples of depravity, but rather by examples of virtue.

The media-wise viewer of any age gathers intelligence from secondary sources before choosing a movie. He finds out beforehand whether a movie is good or bad and chooses the good.

If for any reason you need to discuss an abhorrent movie with your friends, you can get all the information you need from Movieguide.org.

Life is short. There are innumerable media choices we all must make. Wisdom is going to sources such as MOVIEGUIDE® so that you can choose the good and reject the bad.