Philippians 4:8Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.
[Begin Rant]
OK, call me a crazy Christian conservative right-wing gun-toting whacko, but why in the world do we want to say it is OK to have our children, the next generation of Christians (or so we hope) fill their minds with stories of Vampires, the 'underworld', demons and magic? Whatever happened to filling our minds with the things of God and righteousness rather than the things of the world? Whatever happened to Philippians 4:8?
Why don't we encourage these things more, and work harder to protect our children and young and vulnerable believers from the attractions of the world which will prove to be distractions from Christ? Sure, we can debate the 'freedom in Christ' thing all day long, but why don't we instead debate commitment to Christ and His word, separation from the things of the world (2 Corinthians 6 and all through there)?
Psalm 14:2
The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
Are there any who seek God? Shouldn't WE be one of them? Our job is to protect our children shelter them from the ways of the world and raise them in the way that they should go, not show them the things of the world and all their attractiveness, let them read it, watch it, participate in it with all the other kids of the world, and then try to tell them to be separate from them? Sanctified? For that matter 'children' in a Pauline sense also means those new to the faith. We owe it to them to protect them and shelter them just as if they were our own children!
When I say that I shelter my kids, it is not to say that they do not know what it going on. Sometimes we watch the news together, read the papers etc. We talk politics, social issues of the day and all of that. BUT, when it comes from me or their mother, WE control the spin on the subject, and get to take them to scripture to back it up. My children are more prepared for dealing with the world BECAUSE they are sheltered.
Call me goofy, but I think it is more important we teach them at a very young age the intricacies of sanctification and separation from the world and its ways. People tell me all the time that you cannot shelter your children from the real world. My response is your right, I can't totally shelter them, BUT I SURE CAN TRY!!, and God makes it clear that we are supposed to. It used to be that it was only the lost and secular of the world that asked me that question. Now it is other believers and PASTORS who are asking!
With regards to Christian freedom Paul said that all things are lawful… and this seems to be where the people who want to relish in their 'liberties' and freedom tend to leave it. But as leaders we must always be willing to step up to the plate of righteousness and finish the verse, "but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify." Why as leaders are we debating what we can do and still be 'OK with God', when we should be challenging our congregations to live a Holy and perfect life, because "[HE] is Holy!"? Why do we not respond when people ask us about Harry Potter and his minions of Satan worshipping witches and say ~ RUN AWAY! And as fast as you can, and rather, fill your children's hearts with the love of Jesus, and the word of God! And yes, you read it right because I said it strong, I said Satan worshippers: If their power is not clearly identified as having come from God, there is but one other source. If they desire and love these powers, which they clearly do, and they do not come from God, they are loving the power source as well.
Our children do not need to be culturally 'relevant' to be liked and well adjusted. Scripture does not encourage us to teach our children the ways of the world so that they can avoid sin, but feel free to walk the tight-rope as close to the world as they can so that all the kids at public school will 'like' them… Rather it tells us to protect them, and to raise them in the ways of the Lord.
Someone please explain to me why liking, even obsessing over a series of books or movies, waiting hours, even DAYS in line to get the next book or movie ticket, whose main characters desire to have supernatural powers that come from the underworld is helpful to our kids?? And we wonder why the secular world looks at Christianity and shakes its collective head!
I just do not get it. We debate these things, we allow our kids to participate in them, even promote them in the name of cultural relativity, and then we wonder why our youth are falling away from the church. We wonder why we have such a high failure rate of our young adults keeping their faith when they run off to college. Are we all this naïve? Or just kidding ourselves to that we can be 'popular' 'cool' or 'rad' parents to our kids? Then again, maybe we are moving away from actively seeking and teaching our flocks to seek the Holiness that God desires and commands us to live out in our lives?
In a recent conversation a pastor friend questioned the direction of Christianity in America. His point was that it is not about debating freedoms, it is about a trend in Christianity that only we as leadership can change. The question should not be CAN I do/read/drink/smoke something, the questions should be what can I do to please God? What can I do to make my relationship with Jesus better? What things can I do in my life that will bring Glory to God?
- Are we bringing Glory to God by leading a generation of kids into a fantasy world of Vampires, witches, demons?
- Are we edifying ourselves and lifting up the body when we participate in watching and endorse films filled with nudity, sex, violence and filthy language?
- Are we furthering the Kingdom and growing our witness when we go to the bars to have "a beer" and a smoke?
- When we do these things are we helping (Phil. 4:8) the cause of Christianity? Are we Edifying (Phil. 4:8) the body and bringing glory to God?
Picture this: You're sitting at home and just got done watching a Harry Potter film or some R rated 'classic' like Basic Instinct or [insert sex, profanity and violence filled movie here]. Your smoking a stogie, finishing off knocking back a cold one, maybe two… and now that the movie was over, you breath out a large lung-full of cigar smoke and belch out the last bit of carbonation from your beer you just finished. Then, you look to your right and say to the guest in your home that you share a couch with that just happens to be Jesus Christ Himself and say, "Holy [expletive] man, wasn't that a [expletive] GREAT film dude!? Buuuurrrppp… By the way, I love you Jesus, and thanks for coming over tonight."
[awkward pause…] You guys can answer that for yourselves. The thought makes me wretch.
[End Rant]
This is a comment from my 15 yr old daughter... she doesn't have a blogger ID so she is using mine.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually a very interesting artical. I almost wasn't going to read it because I actually really like the Twilight series and I didn't want to endure another bashing artical on something that I personaly like. Then again an alcoholic wouldn't want to read another book on how alcohol can efect your life. It would make him feel guilty. But say that person wasn't an alcoholic, let's say he can enjoy a drink without loosing selfcontrol. Now, couldn't this apply to someone who can enjoy a book without it effecting the way they live and serve the lord. God made each of us to think and react differently, some of us have built a stronger immune to books, music, television ect. (I'm not saying "if you can endure pornography without feeling 'guilty', go ahead") what I am saying is, if you can, so much as to read a modest book with vampires and werewolves and have it NOT effect your love for the lord or your passion to serve God in a negitive way, well, I'd take that as a blessing, to be that strong that a novel about the "underworld" doesn't budge you. In some ways the book has every thing to do with the world we live in now. The story doesnt take place in an immortal relm, it takes place in Forks Washington, where we face our own "vampires" every day. Satan and demons are all around us "like lions prowling for their chance to spring" and we see in the book what taking that bite of the forbidden fruit can do, dammed to a world of darkness. She had a choice, she could go with her fleshly desire or she could go with what was said to be the natural path her life would take. She chose to eat the fruit. Mercy and grace, that is why these particular vampires have an a chance at heaven. Dispite what they are and the choices they've made, they try to live their "lives" the best they can not to fall in to their fleshly desires. just like us humans, sinners by nature but we try not to sin, fall in to our fleshly desires. This is my personal inturpritation of the book, Im not asking for anyones agreement, just to understand my point of veiw.
-Gretchen Jacobson
gretchen@jacobsons.org
(Part 1)
ReplyDeleteGretchen,
Thanks so much for taking the time to write! I do feel it is important for us as adults to keep open, honest dialog with the youth in America.
I hope that you did not feel condemned from your reading of the article as such was not my intention. My intent was, as a Christian, to write an article addressed to other Christians giving a perspective that for the most part has been lost on a society of believers: A biblical one.
You make some great arguments in your response. We do need to be aware of the world around us. It is good to have a handle on what is popular in culture. It is important that we have a foundational understanding of world politics, national events, social trends and, to use modern vernacular, what’s “hip and hop” with our youth. It is important.
As an example, you mention drinking alcohol and the freedom that we have in scripture to do so. I could not agree with you more. We certainly do have that freedom. And, as you stated, a person is in most cases, free to do so as long as they do not overindulge. I would agree with you on that as well.
However, when we view these things, these freedoms and liberties that we have in Christ as believers, we must not forget that with great liberty comes great responsibility. As Christians I think the current trend is leaning more towards what we can get away with in our freedom, rather than hoe we can bless God with our lifestyle. This is my main point. This is a spiritual trend that begun in the late 50’s has not reversed, and now sees Christianity trying to mimic society in the name of being ‘socially relevant’ rather than living a life in the world, but not of the world.
The bible makes it clear (and I used some scripture to point this out) that we should be thinking more about the effect of our liberty on others. When we say, ‘yes, I can read this book, yes, I can drink this drink or smoke this cigarette’ or whatever BEFORE we think, ‘if I do this, what effect will this have on a fellow believer’, we are putting ourselves before others. This is the exact opposite of the way Jesus lived His live, and commanded us to live ours.
You may be able to ‘endure’ reading a book or watching a movie without ‘losing control’ or having it stumbling you. I agree. But this is not the crux of the issue I’m arguing. We can discuss, debate and argue the freedoms we have in Jesus all day. There are of course good arguments for our enjoying our freedoms, and good arguments on limiting our freedoms. Both of them can be supported biblically. But there is a major difference, one that has been lost on the majority of Christianity in the argument I put forth on books and movies such as the Twilight series.
I’ll be the first person to admit that you will find no biblical passage that will dogmatically tell us that we should not be drinking alcohol. We know that Jesus and the disciples drank wine (almost certainly a fermented alcoholic drink), and that Paul even encouraged Timothy to drink for medicinal purposes. But, you cannot find any examples where Jesus or any God fearing biblical character was delving in witchcraft, the underworld or demonic entities. As a matter of fact, we are prohibited over and over to avoid such things in no uncertain terms.
[Caveat: The only example we see of a major biblical character getting involved in the demonic was Saul, who once chosen by God to be the King of Israel, rejected God, and sought to murder David time and time again. Upon Samuel’s death he consulted a medium to bring Samuel back from the dead to get advice. God, in Him omniscience allowed this to happen which angered Samuel and God. Saul and his favorite son Jonathan were dead the next day.]
But remember, Saul rejected God. And the only reason Saul was appointed King is because the people wanted to be “like the other nations”, they wanted to be ‘like the world’, they wanted to ‘fit in’ and look like all the other nations around them. By rejecting God, they got what they wanted, a nation in ruins.]
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(Gretchen Part 2)
ReplyDeleteAs Christians, we should not be taking freedoms in areas that god has plainly outlined as areas that we are to avoid at all costs.
I would also say that as we read or do these things in our Christian liberty, that we are not building an ‘immunity’. I do agree with you that god has made us all unique, and that the testimony He builds into our lives gives each of us unique opportunities to reach people for Christ. But I would not equate our ability to read a book or watch a movie that contains demonism, the occult and witchcraft to an immunity our physical bodies can build with regards to things like antibiotics or alcohol. One area is physical, the other is spiritual. The bible tells us to avo8id these things, so if we as consumer Christians feel like we have built up an ‘immunity’ to these things, I’d lovingly argue against that. What I would say is that what we have allowed ourselves to do is become desensitized to the evil that exists in this world.
I think you’d agree with me that witchcraft and demonic activity are things not of God. That being the case, so if we get to the point where these things that gain their power from the enemy and fight against Godliness no longer bother us, isn’t this an indication that something further is wrong? I think so. I think it is an indication that we have allowed ourselves to no longer be offended by the evils of the world. I think it is an indicator that we are more willing to bow to the pressures of fitting in at school or the world, rather than bow a knee to the Lord and ask His protection from these things in our lives.
I also agree with you that reading these books and watching these movies do portray a view of the world that we live in. Demons ARE real. Demonic activity is real through witchcraft, sorcery and all sorts of underworld activity that many in this world choose to entertain and participate in. But we do not have to partake of these things, or fill our minds with them to know that they are wrong for us, and to understand them.
Do you have to see someone get murdered to know that it is wrong? I’d say no. Do we have to watch people participate in pre-marital, or extramarital sex to know that such activity is wrong, and that the bible teaches against it. We do not have to participate in thievery to know that stealing is wrong, or to get caught to know what the consequences are. We know these things. I’d say the same thing with regards to the Harry Potter and Twilight series. We do not have to read what the world reads or participate in what the rest of our friends participate in to know that some of those things are wrong, are bad for us, are spoken out against in scripture, and that as Christians, we should not be participating.
Gretchen, you sound like a very smart young lady. You are certainly a strong young lady for writing your response and you must surely believe strongly in what you believe. As a Christian, I think we ALL (certainly myself included) need to concentrate more on being a light for Jesus, than working to fit in with our friends and the culture around us. If we did this, there’d be a lot more light in the world, and a lot less interest in participating in things of the dark.
....
(Gretchen, Part 3)
ReplyDelete....Christians have a responsibility not just to ourselves and to God, but to all the rest of the world as well. That responsibility is to make disciples of all the people Gods puts in our path. We will have a hard time convincing people to change, to become more like Jesus, when we as Christians spend so much time trying to become like the world.
I did not write this blog to condemn anyone. But I do hope that we and stop and think about what we are putting into our minds.
Let me close by asking you a personal question. This is not one that you have to answer, rather, just to ponder. When you read the Twilight books, do you spend and equal amount of time reading your bible? Are we all spending as much time filling our minds with God’s word as we are filling it with the world’s latest craze in books, or movies?
When Secret Service agents are trained to identify counterfeit bills, they do not show them all the counterfeits and have them look for those. Instead, they spend hours, DAYS just looking over and over at the real thing. If we want to be able to identify what is good and of God, we need to spend as much time as possible looking at the real thing. We need to know the characters in scripture as well as we now the characters of Harry Potter and Twilight. We need to anticipate the next book of the bible that we will be reading as much as we anticipate the next book in the HP and Twilight series.
Our trouble is that as a nation, we do not. We cannot wait for the next thing of the world to be dropped in our lap, when we should all be just as anxious to become more well verse with the things of the Spirit.
God bless you Gretchen! I hope this helps clarify some of my thoughts.
Tom, "As Christians I think the current trend is leaning more towards what we can get away with in our freedom, rather than hoe we can bless God with our lifestyle. " ...that is right on. -Jim
ReplyDelete