Television shows and movies are like sermons. They teach. They illustrate. They exhort. They persuade. The productions that possess a conviction beyond profit have a truth they mean to impart, an impulse they mean to cultivate, a reflex they mean to train.
They do not offer their outline, show their main text, or state the proposition to be defended. Instead, they use the backdoor of imagination to influence: they tell a story. Their stealth makes them dangerous. They aim at man’s belief without alarming man’s reason. They tiptoe past the watchman and shape our innate sense of things. Highly trained actors and actresses are their preachers.
So, when we sit and guzzle from the hydrant of Hollywood, a group notorious for putting dark for light and light for dark, why do we expect so little consequence? We can be catechized hours on end in what the world believes, loves, and sells but think we emerge unharmed because “the story isn’t real.” Such a one might as well say, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing: ‘They will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.’”
The messages are predictable.
To be happy, you must stay true to yourself.
Sleep with whomever; live for whatever; just do what brings you joy.
Good and evil are social constructs. Villains are made by others’ sins against them.
Christians really are the most uninteresting, hypocritical people in all the world.
There are no demons, angels, or miracles; there is no heaven or hell.
There is no God who is coming to judge the world in righteousness.
Jesus Christ is irrelevant — except as a swear word.
“Worldliness,” writes David Wells, “is that system of values which in any culture has the fallen sinner at its center, which takes no account of God or his word, and which therefore views sin as normal and righteousness as abnormal” (No Place for Truth, 215). Is this not the very definition of much entertainment today? So many of our movies and shows feed worldliness. They provide cover fire for beliefs that place man at the center, value sin as normal, and mark righteousness as comical or offensive.
Rom-Cons
Or take the common messages about men and women. How long would you endure the company of someone who sat down next to you on the couch and said the following?
Men are complete idiots. They’re hopeless until civilized by women. . . . Women are as strong as men, as fast as men, as assertive and as equipped to lead as men — often better, in fact, at being male than men. . . . Despite what Christians say, love is love, no matter whom you love. . . . The marriage covenant is binding only as long as it is convenient. . . . Women spending their lives at home is a tragedy. . . . Modesty never gets the guy. . . . Raising kids is one of the most oppressive parts of human existence. . . . You’re a total loser if you’re still a virgin.
Yet, after you tell such a one to leave your house, do you sit down and push play, allowing the better-looking, smoother-sounding celebrities to spend the next two hours artfully burning the same script into your heart with little to no awareness? You sit down to binge a show as long as a month of sermons, teaching the opposite of the Scriptures, offering you a vastly different world and worldview. And then we wonder why our marriages look oddly like the world’s, why the guy you want to date looks little like Christ, why our families’ affections for eternity are blunted, why the Bible’s teaching seems so unfair and out of touch, and why Christ and his kingdom seem so strangely distant and unreal.
Singles, are you waiting for a spouse who will say, “You complete me”? Women, are you searching for a husband who will be little more than your helper — unyielding support for your dreams, your career, your goals? Do you admire women in shows who boast of being liberated from the home, free from the demands of children, and scoff at the very idea of being submissive to a husband? These women revile God’s word and would make you a fool if you follow them (Titus 2:3–5).
Men, are you catechized by movies of spineless men, mere putty in the hands of their wives who rule over them? Or, grabbing your pitchfork in revolt, do you escape the domestic passivity of the modern dufus onscreen into shows, movies, or social media accounts of playboys and thugs telling tales of how amazing their lives of fornication, bastardizing children, and physical prowess are, while also attempting to teach you about nobility and self-discipline? These worthless fellows put rings in noses and will run you off a cliff if you let them.
Rotten Tomatoes
I think we can learn from past generations who did not drown in our diversions. I have often dismissed preachers of former times when they bewailed the theater. They accused the playhouse of corrupting society and exporting vice and irreligion. When preachers hurled lightning bolts at theatergoing, I gave it no more than a nervous laugh. It seemed overdone.
However, I wanted to know why they protested, so I recently read a treatise against the theater by a clergyman in the nineteenth century. According to Hiram Mattison (1811–1868), the ancient pagan moralists, the early church, and the church of former times all joined together to protest the theater as a “school of vice.” He asserts of the theater,
During all its history, it has ever been an evil institution. The ancient Pagan moralists condemned it — the early Christian writers condemned it — modern Christian writers and ministers almost invariably condemn it! It is evil in its matter, and evil in its manner!
It is a school of profanity and irreligion! It is a moral and social blight wherever located. Its actors are generally people of bad reputation, dissolute and immoral — and its affinities are all for corruption. Its supporters are to a large extent tipplers, gamblers, debauchees, and prostitutes. It has never been known to do any good, while it has ruined tens of thousands. It is utterly incapable of being reformed or becoming anything better than a moral pest-house in every community in which its loathsome existence is tolerated.
And yet (enough to make angels weep if they had tears to shed) there are found professed Christians who patronize, and thus sanction and approve by their presence and financial support, this God-dishonoring and soul-destroying curse!
He adds qualifications but remains clear in his indictment. Now, theatergoing then and moviegoing today are not entirely analogous, but his rebuke lands with force upon much in our at-home streaming services. He charges a leading play of his day:
Aside from the profanity that leavens the play, what but evil can come of it? Vice is a pleasant thing. Licentiousness is commendable. True religion is condemned. All the good deeds are done by bad people — and all the bad deeds by good people. . . . If the work of Jesus was upward — then the work of this play is downward. Choose which gospel you will embrace.
Few mainstream television shows and movies escape the spirit of this censure. Remember, bad company ruins good morals. Befriend gangsters, prostitutes, con men, buffoons, adulterers, murderers, blasphemers, and the like, and expect to be changed for the worse. “Just give them the screen,” Satan tells his demons. “We will see how long they last.”
Devouring Ourselves
I discovered recently that snakes are known to unintentionally kill themselves. As it goes, whether due to confusion or hunger or stress, the snake swallows its own tail and proceeds to move up its body until it grows exhausted and dies. Does this describe many of us? Are we stressed, unhappy, spiritually starving, and so we sit numb on the couch, devouring our own souls with mindless entertainment?
The point is not to never watch a movie or a show or a game. A play proved to be sweet to my soul this past year (David by Sight & Sound Theaters). The point is this: never be unthoughtful about your entertainments. Let the world turn its brain off and return to its stories; you cannot. Most programs, we admit, are probably not helping us much to heaven. Former generations of Christians seemed more aware of this and more ruthless against worldliness. They asked each other, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4).
Christian, do not allow another to lead you away from the good, true, and beautiful. Choose which stories you will embrace, which gospel you will believe, and which sermons — God’s or the world’s — will shape you most over time.
Desiring God