File Sharing

Last Sunday Night I discussed with my teens the uncomfortable subject of file sharing. I say uncomfortable because most of them had never really given it much thought. They were simply in the dark about the moral and legal issues involved. They were very receptive and seemed to see the moral implications of it all. We all walked away with the sense that downloading songs through file sharing programs and copying other people's cds is stealing, pure and simple.

This was another of our Learn to Discern exercises. I used the following article to get the discussion going...

http://www.christianitytoday.com/music/news/2005/gmafightsback.html

One of the things I learned during this discussion was that all of my 6th and 7th graders were easy to convince. Why is that? Well, none of them had ever downloaded a song for free or otherwise. They saw file sharing and cd copying for what it was...walking into a store and stealing a product that someone worked hard to produce.

The hard part was getting them all to see the relevance of the gospel. So we talked long and hard about being content because we, who have Christ have all we need. We do not need to steal to be happy. Happiness because of the gospel is rooted in the justifying work of the gospel. Because they stand before God, justified by grace through faith they have no need to steal. Their biggest problem is not being without a particular song or album. Their biggest problem has been dealt with on the cross.