Some time ago I read an article on the problem of porn (for Christians). The illustration went something like this. Imagine that your next door neighbors visit with you and your spouse and say, "Look, we like you. We're swingers and practice an open sexual relationship. Why not join us for sex?" "Oh," you tell them, "I'm sorry, but we can't do that. We don't engage in sex outside of our marriage." "No problem. We understand. Not everyone is like us. So how about this? Why not come over and just watch us have sex? No participation. How about that?" "No," you tell them, "that wouldn't be right either. It's too much like being involved, you know?" "Oh, sure," they say. "We understand. So, how about this? We'll video it and send you a copy."
You see the problem. We know we're not supposed to participate and we know we aren't supposed to be there, but watching it on a video is okay? The difference between participating and watching the video is too small to justify it. Big problem.
It makes me ask another question, though. If it's wrong to have another couple entertain you with their sexual practices, is there other entertainment that is wrong? Who is coming into your home to entertain you?
I know Christians who routinely tell me, sometimes in hushed tones because it's not "nice stuff", about the TV shows they enjoy that offer hardcore contradictions to biblical thinking and godliness. Often it's presented as humor. Sometimes not. For instance, GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) is happy to report that nearly 3% of all regular characters scripted for TV shows represent the homosexual community, with FOX leading the pack with 7%. One report said that some 80% of shows have pro-homosexual themes or stories. Is that how we should be entertaining ourselves? Leaving "gay" out of the picture, it seems that the standard television programming fare is pretty straightforward. Whatever the theme is, the storyline will be "People having sex and occasionally engaging in the theme." So you'll have hospital themes where doctors and nurses are engaging in sex and occasionally treating patients or lawyer themes where lawyers are are engaging in sex and occasionally defending clients or cop themes where police officers are engaging in sex and occasionally stopping crime or ... well, you get the idea. Is that the kind of thing that we should find entertaining?
There are people on my television that I would not want to spend time with in my house. They are rude, cruel, mean, unkind, immoral, and all the time treated as royalty. Why is it that I invite them into my home as entertainment? Perhaps as ministry, but I'm not able to minister to the people on my television.
Is this wise behavior? Or do we need to rethink this? I have a feeling that we Christians will condemn behavior as sin on one hand while watching it as entertainment on the other. It may include porn, but even "family programming" has jumped wholesale to the dark side. And I have a feeling that this isn't likely a good thing. But perhaps that's just me.
11 comments:
While an interesting perspective, there is a flaw in the logic. Watching people have sex is not, in itself, a sin. The sin comes from the sexual lust that the watching inspires.
Porn in particular exists ONLY to inspire sexual lust, so it is very unusual to watch it without the intention to be sexually lustful.
When most people watch a story that involves people sinning, they are watching it for the story itself, not to inspire sin. For example, people don't watch the movie Clash of the Titans in order to worship false gods. They watch to see the the story about fictional characters interacting - and in this case, it involves false gods that are understood to not be real.
Would that it were true. I do, of course, disagree.
First, the Bible is quite clear. There are things that are to be private between husband and wife ("the marriage bed") and not shared with others. Sex, whether engaged in or observed, is designed by God to be between husband and wife.
Second, I'd love it if people didn't learn to worship false gods by watching Clash of the Titans (going with your example). But today's culture seems incapable of getting the right message or even differentiating between reality and fiction. Today's version of heroes, for instance, are not people of character, but reluctant, bad people put in difficult situations in which they're forced to act good. In the case of porn, it seems that almost no one seems aware of the fact that men don't actually act like that and women don't actually act like that and it's all fiction. Even in the case of crass fiction, there are those trying to practice conjuring after watching a Harry Potter movie and an incredible preoccupation with vampires and werewolves after the rise of vampire/werewolf movies, just as examples.
Bad people in a story doesn't constitute a bad story. (Obviously. The Bible is full of them.) What constitutes a problems in today's entertainment is what passes for good. When modern entertainment glorifies evil (and it does), that is a problem.
Is reading a book describing in words a sex act also sinful?
How about if you go ahead and decide that for yourself? And pornography. And other "entertainment" that I would consider unwise. (Because my claim was that we are engaging in behavior that was not wise by indulging in current entertainment, not about the sinfulness of TV.)
I was just wondering if you ever read the Song of Songs/Song of Solomon, which has a good deal of nudity and sex in it.
I think taking a legalistic stance towards depictions of sexuality, like legalistic stances on many topics, is the wrong way to go.
No, as you know I ignore wide swaths of Scripture ... anything that would go against my predetermined, entirely arbitrary set of beliefs. (And while I'm at it, I'm pretty sure your disapproval of legalistic stances is pretty legalistic.) No, no, I'm totally opposed to rules at all.
(End tongue in cheek)
Good to know you favor pornography, at least in some situations.
(Okay, now end tongue in cheek.)
This is something I have been thinking about for a while. I watch hardly any TV anymore because of the amount of pointless or just horrible content being passed as entertainment today. Even shows on what is considered educational or for kids uses content which is not appropriate.
I think it is even worse the amount of "Christians" who watch things of horrible character but think nothing of it. To a lot of people it truly is just entertainment.
However, as we have discussed before the word amuse has a different meaning then most people would think. Muse means to think. The prefix a from Greek means to negate.
When the entertainment industry amuses us they are causing us to not think. Whilst doing this imagine how many subconscious thoughts and ideas they are able to insert into our minds?
This is a subject that fascinates me, but one I'm still thinking through.
On the one hand, one could interpret Phil 4:8 as a zero-tolerance rule against any sort of entertainment that doesn't also enlighten and ennoble.
On the other hand, Mt 5:29 teaches self-denial only *IF* your eye causes you to sin.
It matters, the books and movies and music you allow into your head. But it ALSO matters, who's doing the reading: I found Fight Club to be a thought-provoking dark comedy about what C.S. Lewis describes as "men without chests," but I know that there were jocks who completely missed the point and started their own underground fight clubs.
I don't believe we're required to eschew the secular music of Beethoven for the sacred music of Bach and Handel -- or Shakespeare for Milton. And yet, even Shakespeare can be profoundly unsettling, as I can tell you from seeing a recent performance of the very violent Titus Andronicus.
Thoughtfulness on this issue -- and a willingness both to seek and to submit to God's will even if it's painful -- is the right place to start.
--
I would like to note one thing about plays and their modern descendents, the novel, the movie, and the scripted television show:
Our civilization can trace its roots to Jerusalem and Athens, and drama appears to be traceable just to Greek culture, not Jewish culture.
I don't think Jewish culture had sports or theater, though Paul did use the occasional sports metaphor. This doesn't mean that these are things we MUST do without, only perhaps that they are things we COULD do without and not be anymore culturally deprived than ancient Israel.
Mike, you talk about "the amount of pointless or just horrible content". I find it interesting that David said, "I will set no worthless thing before my eyes." "Pointless", indeed, is not recommended.
Bubba, I understand the dilemma. I have always been of the mindset that we ought to examine what we take in rather than either blanket-block or mindlessly take in. I tried to teach my children to do this. It doesn't stand me well with a lot of people when I begin to analyze the messages and content of the movie we just watched ("Hey! We just wanted to enjoy the movie!"), but I think it's helpful, especially with the Matt 5:29 concept in mind.
There is, unfortunately, a tendency in humans (and, since Christians are humans, in Christians) to simply absorb the input of the screen without analysis. They tell me that studies have shown that there is less brain activity when you watch TV than when you are asleep. We just don't want to think about it. I recently discussed with some friends the message of Fiddler on the Roof. "There was a message??!!" Yes, indeed! But they never caught it because they never thought about it. Conversely, most would never catch that they were being inculcated to believe that sex outside marriage is good, homosexual behavior is normal, religion is bad, and bad is good from their favorite television shows. I suppose, more than the existence of such shows, that (the lack of thinking) is the biggest threat.
Stan, it may be that carefully evaluating a work of art might go some way in innoculating one from its negative influences, but only if he compares the work against God's revealed truth. In that way, Phil 4:8 is being followed: by always keeping in mind God's truth, one can more safely navigate the claims of merely human works of art.
Myself, I remember being struck by the portrayal of fatherhood in Star Trek Deep Space Nine and in My So-Called Life, both from the mid-90's. Captain Sisko was stern but affectionate, and Graham Chase had become distant after his daughter hit puberty: I've determined which model to follow and which to eschew because I engaged them critically.
The human tendency might be to neglect the duty to be discerning, but I think a lot of culture encourages just soaking everything in. So much of what people learn from the culture isn't from arguments, it's from a mere pose of sophistication.
There's a book that came out last year -- Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books, by Tony Reinke -- and I've been meaning to read it. It's $3.00 in Kindle format, so I might grab it tonight.
It is interesting that it is only called pornography if it is pictures or moving pictures. And the courts have yet to decide what porn is. That aside, I have been studying porn since puberty. Yeah right. I’m 59 years old. Now I can watch a marathon instead of two minutes. Are there any instances of rape now? I don’t know how many people participate in porn. There is so much of it it seems like most of the U.S.
Anyway, have you heard of King Solomon? He had 700 wives, 300 concubines, and princes. I imagine he was keep quite entertained. It’s good to be the King? What about Jacob and Gideon and many others except Bishops and Deacons. The law in the U.S. makes us husbands of one wife at a time. That is fine with me. I can hardly handle one woman at a time. Perhaps it is the culture we are forced to live in.
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