Suzanne Hadley wrote a thoughtful post at Boundlessline about our entertainment choices as Christians.
An important excerpt:
Sadly, I believe we have many among us who use the excuse of becoming culturally relevant to justify their unhealthy media consumption. These are Christians who claim that their knowledge about movies, TV shows, albums, and so on, helps them to witness. But does the exposure to pollution really enhance witnessing abilities?
In my experience, no. I’ve watched a few movies I shouldn’t have, and they’ve never provided a single opportunity to share Christ’s love with someone. In fact, I believe those who do not know Christ sometimes feel comforted by the innocence of a Christ-follower. It is a position on life that stands out.
Truth be told, many of the things we commonly watch harm us spiritually, whether we acknowledge it or not. I hear lots of folks splatter all sorts of claptrap about wanting to be relevant to the culture, “why are you so uptight?” and “it’s just TV,” but typically all that’s a cover…we just want to watch what we want to watch and we really don’t care what it does to us spiritually. Neither do we care about honoring Christ in everything we do.
I’m seeing a significant number of my Christian friends not just take in something questionable every now and then, but imbibe a steady diet of this stuff.
I can’t count the number of Christian friends who fall over themselves watching sitcoms like Family Guy, movies by Jud Apatow (SuperBad, Pineapple Express) and The Daily Show. With F.G and J.A movies, they are so crass and vulgar that I seriously don’t see how anyone could deny they affect your mind and heart negatively. With the Daily Show, I can see someone tuning in every once and a blue moon so that they can mindfully critique John Stewart’s hufflepuff, but being a devoted fan? C’mon. Let’s have a conversation and see what turns up in your thinking. I’ll go to Vegas on the bet that your worldview and affections for the good are affected by it much, much more than you care to acknowledge.
On that note, I’m not just talking about all the sexual jokes, tiresome Bush-is-dumb shtic, and general liberal worldview subtly packaged as comedy. My main focus is the irreverance. It is the air John Stewart and his 20-something male demographic breathes. I know many won’t view it this way, but I’m beginning to see that this irreverance, which is expressed all over the place in our culture (ever check out the top performers at Digg?), is a strong force keeping boys from shedding their Peter Pan tights.
Hey, I’m all for laughs and a good ol slapstick joke, but the type of humor these shows specialize in is a horse of a different color.
We Americans cling tightly to the notion of autonomy. If we don’t want something to affect us, it won’t; that’s the attitude. PHHHHH! If that were the case, advertising wouldn’t be the billion dollare enterprise that it is.
In addition, for those who watch Family Guy and such, could you see yourself plopping down on the couch with Jesus to watch those things? Could you see yourself walking into the theatre with Jesus to see Sex Drive and SuperBad?
BTW, this isn’t legalism. If you don’t think this has anything to do with your spiritual life, you are fooling yourself. It’s all connected. Everything is spiritual (to borrow a Rob Bell phrase. Don’t agree with much of what he’s about, but I agree with that one), and the human propensity for self-justification is ubiquitous.
Really, we just gotta be more honest with our motivations for watching what we watch. We claim to follow Christ, but in this area, he doesn’t really factor into our choices…at all. For people that fervently sing such passionate worship songs to Jesus on Sundays, that’s a bummer.
