1. notleia says:

    Except….intention to/for what, exactly?

  2. Excellent post, Zachary. As with many things, our tendency as humans is to want to make a hard and fast rule that applies across the board, so that we no longer have the burdensome and sometimes exhausting task of thinking about it. We can just declare certain things “off limits” to everyone — i.e. “Christians should never listen to secular music” was a big one when I was in my teens, as was “Christians should never play ‘Dungeons and Dragons'” — and continue on our merry way.

    But while Scripture definitely gives us some general principles to govern our behaviour as Christians and help us make right choices for the glory of God, it also leaves a considerable amount of leeway for the individual conscience. I do believe that there are certain kinds of media which Christians ought not to watch for any reason — that whatever the motive behind it, the price of having (for instance) graphic pornography in one’s mind is too high. And I do believe that blasphemy ought to jar and upset us when we hear it, and that it should never go unnoticed or unremarked upon if we are reviewing media which contains a lot of blasphemies against the Lord’s name. But the point at which we feel morally and spiritually compelled to draw the line and turn off the TV / walk out of the movie theatre / skip to the next song / shut the book, and the amount of guilt we bear before the Lord if we ignore our conscience in these matters, will be different for every person according to their unique personality and background, the kinds of things that tempt them (or don’t tempt them) to sin, and — as you mention — their awareness of what they are doing and why when they engage with popular culture in the first place.

    Even if we are only partaking in a popular movie for the sake of having fun with a group of friends, we can make choices that honour the Lord and our individual conscience, and choices that don’t. We can be thoughtful and sensitive toward other people whose consciences may be weaker than ours in these matters, or we can flaunt our perceived “liberty” in their faces and cause them to stumble. We need to be thinking about these aspects all the time, and figuring out how they apply in every individual circumstance, when we choose what to watch or read. I think that’s what “intention” means.

    • I do believe that there are certain kinds of media which Christians ought not to watch for any reason — that whatever the motive behind it, the price of having (for instance) graphic pornography in one’s mind is too high. And I do believe that blasphemy ought to jar and upset us when we hear it, and that it should never go unnoticed or unremarked upon if we are reviewing media which contains a lot of blasphemies against the Lord’s name

      Amen to this.

      And I think that Christians who wake up and realize popular culture isn’t all terrible, but then begin justifying visual sexual pornography (in which actual actors actually sin and 99.9 percent of men, anyway, sin while seeing it), that goes too far.

    • sheesania says:

      I like this Randy Alcorn quote, which was in the context of a discussion on Christian views saying money is always evil or always good: “Both views have the advantage of all unbalanced positions – they require no discernment.”

  3. Lisa says:

    Good article! I think you have brought up an important aspect of how we should digest media, and one that has often been ignored. There are definitely lines I won’t cross when it comes to entertainment, but those are likely different from your lines. And that’s okay. I do agree that there are certain lines which should probably be the same for all Christians, but again we could probably have a great discussion about exactly what those are. But in the end we all have to be individually accountable to God for the choices we make, which is the glory and the challenge of it all.

  4. Meg says:

    I once heard a Christian singer say he fell into the trap of “needing to know what the rest of the world experienced so that he could be prepared to explain why it was wrong.” He said after some deep personal contemplation that “no we don’t need to experience the ills of the world to know that it is wrong”.

    I’ve been mislead in the past with a few publisher/author provided descriptions of books and have not been at all pleased with this deliberate misrepresentation just to get me to read it.

    Many times I’ve wished for a rating system spelling out what is in a book so that I can make a more informed decision. Instead I rely on authors and publishers whom I know I can trust.

    I try to view any entertainment in terms of the following verses
    1 Thessalonians 5:22 “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”

    Romans 14:20
    “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.”
    Substitute movie, video, etc. though not ALL are clean but you get the general idea.

    Because we never know when our actions will cause another to stumble or will open a doorway from which we can’t easily return we need to guard both our heart and our mind.

What do you think?