I always appreciate Tim Challies' thoughtful blog. Today's article is an absolute out-of-the-park homerun.
Read the whole article HERE
September 01, 2016
Stranger Things is a smash hit, the talk of Twitter and the toast of the town. Its story is captivating, its characters well-formed, its acting first rate, its tributes to the 80’s priceless. With so much buzz and so many friends celebrating it, I figured I’d give it a go. But this isn’t an article about Stranger Things. Not really. It’s an article about being a prude.
I’ve been told I’m a prude when it comes to movies and television. Here’s what that means according to the Cambridge Dictionary: A prude is “a person who is easily shocked by rude things, especially those of a sexual type.” If that’s a prude then I guess the shoe fits because I have a very low tolerance for sex and nudity in movies and television. For that reason I carefully screen them against PluggedIn, Common Sense Media, or IMDB’s parents guides. When I see there will be sex or nudity, I don’t watch it. It’s that simple.
Conscience allows me to make moral judgments where I do not have clear revelation from God
TweetWhy am I such a prude? It isn’t because I don’t like to watch movies and shows—I really do. It isn’t because I try to be holier than thou—at least I hope not. I am a prude because when I am exposed to sex and nudity on the screen my conscience immediately sends out signals. Andy Naselli and J.D. Crowley say that conscience is an internal early-warning system, “your moral consciousness or your moral awareness turned back on yourself.” Conscience allows me to make moral judgments where I do not have clear revelation from God (“Thou must not watch movies with sex” or “Thou mayest watch movies with sex”) or where I lack the spiritual maturity to properly understand the revelation he has given. In this way conscience is a gift from God given so I can obey him, even in those areas where I don’t have complete clarity.
3 IMPORTANT RULES
Naselli and Crowley offer three important, biblical rules regarding conscience: Don’t sin against your conscience. Listen to your conscience. Cultivate a good conscience. Those are rules to live by and I’ve attempted to do just that. I have attempted to cultivate a good conscience in the area of entertainment and hope it is consistent with God’s Word. I feel a deep fear of sinning against my conscience—I know that destructive and disqualifying acts of sin inevitably begin with what appear to be the smallest compromises against the warnings of conscience. And so I seek to heed my conscience, to listen for its alarms and to respond appropriately. “God didn’t give you a conscience so that you would disregard it or distrust it.”
I watched Stranger Things through to the end of episode 2. I’ll let IMDB describe what happens just before the credits roll: “A teenage main character is pressured into having sex with her boyfriend. The teen girl is shown undressing to her underwear while her boyfriend watches. Then the scene cuts to them in bed kissing frantically and pressing against each other.” It certainly isn’t the longest or steamiest scene in cinematic history, but it is exactly the kind of scene I have determined I won’t watch, that I shouldn’t watch. I hadn’t seen it coming because I had neglected to consult those sites. I didn’t think to with all the breathless endorsements I had seen in my mostly-Christian Twitter stream. That was my error.
Read the whole article HERE
September 01, 2016
Stranger Things is a smash hit, the talk of Twitter and the toast of the town. Its story is captivating, its characters well-formed, its acting first rate, its tributes to the 80’s priceless. With so much buzz and so many friends celebrating it, I figured I’d give it a go. But this isn’t an article about Stranger Things. Not really. It’s an article about being a prude.
I’ve been told I’m a prude when it comes to movies and television. Here’s what that means according to the Cambridge Dictionary: A prude is “a person who is easily shocked by rude things, especially those of a sexual type.” If that’s a prude then I guess the shoe fits because I have a very low tolerance for sex and nudity in movies and television. For that reason I carefully screen them against PluggedIn, Common Sense Media, or IMDB’s parents guides. When I see there will be sex or nudity, I don’t watch it. It’s that simple.
Conscience allows me to make moral judgments where I do not have clear revelation from God
TweetWhy am I such a prude? It isn’t because I don’t like to watch movies and shows—I really do. It isn’t because I try to be holier than thou—at least I hope not. I am a prude because when I am exposed to sex and nudity on the screen my conscience immediately sends out signals. Andy Naselli and J.D. Crowley say that conscience is an internal early-warning system, “your moral consciousness or your moral awareness turned back on yourself.” Conscience allows me to make moral judgments where I do not have clear revelation from God (“Thou must not watch movies with sex” or “Thou mayest watch movies with sex”) or where I lack the spiritual maturity to properly understand the revelation he has given. In this way conscience is a gift from God given so I can obey him, even in those areas where I don’t have complete clarity.
3 IMPORTANT RULES
Naselli and Crowley offer three important, biblical rules regarding conscience: Don’t sin against your conscience. Listen to your conscience. Cultivate a good conscience. Those are rules to live by and I’ve attempted to do just that. I have attempted to cultivate a good conscience in the area of entertainment and hope it is consistent with God’s Word. I feel a deep fear of sinning against my conscience—I know that destructive and disqualifying acts of sin inevitably begin with what appear to be the smallest compromises against the warnings of conscience. And so I seek to heed my conscience, to listen for its alarms and to respond appropriately. “God didn’t give you a conscience so that you would disregard it or distrust it.”
I watched Stranger Things through to the end of episode 2. I’ll let IMDB describe what happens just before the credits roll: “A teenage main character is pressured into having sex with her boyfriend. The teen girl is shown undressing to her underwear while her boyfriend watches. Then the scene cuts to them in bed kissing frantically and pressing against each other.” It certainly isn’t the longest or steamiest scene in cinematic history, but it is exactly the kind of scene I have determined I won’t watch, that I shouldn’t watch. I hadn’t seen it coming because I had neglected to consult those sites. I didn’t think to with all the breathless endorsements I had seen in my mostly-Christian Twitter stream. That was my error.
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