Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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I first encountered The Lord of the Rings during the loneliest year of my childhood. My family had moved, my friends had been left behind, and I was lonely. The one friend I did make that year was an avid fan of the books and pleaded with me to read them. I did so and quickly got swept up into a world that transported me far beyond my problems. That was the first, though certainly not the last, time I …
We live at a time of great public immorality, a time in which the only thing that is shameful is shame itself. Immorality is synonymous with entertainment and the basest sexual perversions are flaunted on-screen for all to see. Television shows compete among themselves to explore and transgress any boundary. The very things that marked a respectable man a few years ago mark a bigoted or repressed one today. Society is so saturated with immorality it is impossible to prevent …
At a recent Ask Me Anything event in India, I was asked if I felt Christians often disconnected their entertainment choices from their faith, especially in the area of watching Hollywood and Bollywood films. Here is my response. Transcript Do you think that Christians often disconnect their entertainment choices from their faith? It’s actually a really good question and I think one of the big areas of compromise into the Christian life. One of the ways compromise comes into our …
The more time you spend reading history, the more you see how things that are considered normal by one generation are often considered scandalous by the next. The moral laxity of one age often gives way to the moral clarity of the one that follows. I’m convinced an area of moral laxity among today’s Christians is entertainment, and especially the general apathy toward blatant sexuality and nudity in our movies and television series. But perhaps “apathy” isn’t quite the right …
Scandal after scandal has broken over Hollywood and, for perhaps the first time, we are all seeing what goes on behind the lens. And now I think it’s time we, as Christians, had a talk about Tinseltown. You can watch this video in YouTube or Facebook formats or scroll down for the transcript. Rush Transcript These have been some dark days for Hollywood. I’m not talking about box office receipts. I’m not talking about Rotten Tomatoes reviews. I’m talking …
Today I’ve got a new episode of The Art of Godliness for you to listen to. Through this episode (and all the others before and after it) Paul and I hope to provoke you obey God in leading a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This time we focus our thoughts and conversation on entertainment, and especially the entertainment Christians enjoy through pop culture. We hope you find it helpful! Recommended Reading “I Don’t Understand Christians Watching …
Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, is like any other business leader in that he is constantly challenged with the question of competition: Who is the competition, and what do you plan to do about them? He was asked this question a week ago during the regularly-scheduled Q1 earnings call, and his answer is both fascinating and a little alarming. One investor asked about Amazon in particular: How will Netflix stay ahead of Amazon and their growing library of Prime videos? …
Regular readers of this site will know that for some time I’ve been writing articles under the banner of “Sex on the Silver Screen.” These articles grapple with the morality of scenes of nudity and sexuality in film and television. While there has been a long association between sex and the silver screen, only in recent times has it become almost a foregone conclusion that a new film or television series will display it. Meanwhile, more and more Christians are …
We must be the most entertained generation in all of human history. We take entertainment as our inalienable right. If we work hard during the day, we assume we have earned a few hours of amusement at night. Actually, we can’t even make it through the day without at least a few distractions—a couple of web sites in the morning, some quick YouTube videos at lunch, sports radio on the drive home. The evening hours are for Netflix, of course, …
The past few weeks have brought quite a number of interesting letters to the editor. These are letters written by readers in response to something I’ve written. I hope you enjoy them! Letters on Sex on the Silver Screen The first few letters deal with the few articles I’ve written on the subject of sex and nudity in movies and television shows. I really enjoy your perspective on a wide-variety of topics. I currently work as a screenwriter and an …