Lighthearted Entertainment

For many years, I often found myself finishing out the day too tired to really "think" about anything with any gravity. I would say my "brain was fried" after the day's events and just needed to "unwind" and "relax". So how did I do that?

TV. 

Yes, I know, it sounds like I am about to talk about the evils of TV and how no self-respecting Christian, who has honestly evaluated it in light of God's word would ever subject himself to such vain imaginations. But I am not going to do that.

While the above paragraph is true, instead I just want to take a minute and talk about how I view video entertainment now, after careful consideration.

Have you ever said, "There are so many good books to read, and just not enough time?" I certainly have. I have at least a dozen books, with book markers in every one of them marking some place I had to stop because I either fell asleep, or ran out of time and couldn't finish the book.

Laying beside my recliner while I write this blog is a book by William Gurnall, another by Douglas Wilson, one by his wife, and another by Bunyan: all with book marks, and a promise to finish them soon. Oh, and here is a small booklet by J.C. Ryle (I have actually read it before, but am reviewing it again as I need all the Ryle I can get.)

We don't have time for reading, because reading requires us to be "engaged" and we are too exhausted at the end of the day to even grasp a good book, so we opt for something else.

When I watched many of the old classics, and well known  "family safe" movies from hollywood, as well as Fox News, or Alton Brown on the Food network, I felt like I was making the "conservative choice" and was protecting all the various sensory gates such as my eyes and ears.

After taking a plumb line and checking all these shows by the word of God, I began to see them all very differently:
I was seeing unprotected women going out at night unchaperoned, busying themselves in the workforce competing with men, and more often than not, winning at work, and failing to be godly wives and mothers.

I was seeing inappropriate clothing, that I would never let my daughter or wife wear, but was perfectly accepting of what they had on in the show or on the news broadcast.
I was seeing families portrayed on film with zero generational vision, living for the "now", and doing it quiet nicely as I applauded their efforts to become more secular.
I saw men still acting like boys and refusing to accept their God given roles as husbands, fathers and business and church leaders.

I never saw the Bishop of a church sought out for counsel over any topic, I never saw Dad pray with the family or wife over any issue, I never saw repentance toward God for wrong doing and sinful activities, in fact, and please forgive me for slandering such an American Icon, but I saw Andy Griffith telling Opie to "not tell Aunt Bea" something because it would just be better if she didn't know. In other words, lie. It will all work out. And lo-and-behold...it did on the TV.

What happened to our "filter" system that would prevent us from watching something like I just described? How did we get to the point that this is considered "conservative" entertainment?

All one has to do is lay the "conservative" entrainment alongside the really "sleazy" entertainment, and the conservative entertainment looks really, really acceptable by comparison.

Again, we have not used the plumb line properly. Our foundation was wrong. Our standard was ignored. Thus if I use a crooked ruler to attempt to draw a strait line I will ultimately fail.

Until we start comparing our entertainment with an unchanging standard (God's Word) we will always make the conservative choice and still pollute our minds.

So now what? Do we trash our TV's? No, we renew our minds and control the TV instead of it controlling us. It is much like the circumstance that Luther faced when the town council was fretting over how to handle the drunkards in town. One man suggested that they simply "outlaw" any alcohol. Luther's response is classic and speaks to us today on the issue of TV: Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused.  Men can go wrong with wine and women.  Shall we then prohibit and abolish women? The sun, the moon, and the stars have been worshiped.  Shall we then pluck them out of the sky?

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