CHURCH SCHOOLS CHALLENGED TO COUNTER ‘CELEBRITY’

TV shows such as Big Brother have been attacked for ‘engendering damaging attitudes in children’. According to research, 50 per cent of children want to be a celebrity, and a third want to be Paris Hilton, Church Army Chief Executive Mark Russell told an audience of 100 church school head teachers. ‘The media, the press, the TV programmes we watch are generating an image of life that is unreal and, of course, children are sucked in’, said former youth leader Mr Russell. ‘Leading a school in an age of celebrity and consumerism requires us to be counter-cultural’. He outlined an action plan promoting different role models among children, and enabling spiritual creativity.

Source: Church of England Newspaper (2.5)