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.
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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 life is through our entertainment. We’re very willing to be entertained by things that Christ died for. We’re very willing to laugh at jokes where the punchline is something that required the blood of Christ to atone for that. So, we can be very, very flippant with our entertainment. We can be entertained by things that are actually dishonoring to God.
So, as pastors, I think we have to think very carefully, very clearly about our entertainment. And very clearly about what we tell other people about our entertainment. Not that we should be hiding what we’re doing, but just, if we feel freedom in a certain area and I think you’d have a tough time arguing that the Bible says we can not watch any movies whatsoever, anything by Hollywood, anything by Bollywood must be out. But I think we’d find the Bible calling us to a high standard. There are areas we must not be willing to go, there are things we must not allow ourselves to see. There are things out there that are too abhorrent for us to think about, for us to bring into our lives, right. The Bible tells us to allow not even a hint. There are things there, it says, these are too vile for Christians even to think about, even to talk about. And yet, we’ll watch them in movies.
So, I think one of Satan’s great tricks is to get Christians to allow so much entertainment. To think that we have the right to entertainment. That it’s a necessary part of being human is to have three or four hours of entertainment a day. And then to allow ugly messaging into our hearts, into our lives, into our families through that entertainment.
So, movies themselves I think can be a good part of life. I think they can be enjoyable and can help us relax and can help us enjoy the world that God has made. But we just need to be so, so careful that we’re not compromising in our entertainment, that we’re not allowing Satan a subtle little foot hold into our lives, into our hearts, into our minds and slowly changing us just through our entertainment.