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Entertainment and the Lordship of Christ
“Then I saw in my dream, that when they were got out of the wilderness, they presently saw a town before them, and the name of that town is Vanity; and at the town there is a fair kept, called Vanity Fair. It is kept all the year long. It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is lighter than vanity, [Psa. 62:9]; and also because all that is there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity;
This fair is no new-erected business but a thing of ancient standing. I will show you the original of it.
Almost five thousand years ago there were pilgrims walking to the Celestial City, as these two honest persons are: and Beelzebub, Apollyon, and Legion, with their companions, perceiving by the path that the pilgrims made, that their way to the city lay through this town of Vanity, they contrived here to set up a fair; a fair wherein should be sold all sorts of vanity, and that it should last all the year long. Therefore, at this fair are all such merchandise sold as houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures; and delights of all sorts, as harlots, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not.
And moreover, at this fair there is at all times to be seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every kind.
Here are to be seen, too, and that for nothing, thefts, murders, adulteries, false-swearers, and that of a blood-red color.
Now, as I said, the way to the Celestial City lies just through this town, where this lusty fair is kept; and he that will go to the city, and yet not go through this town, “must needs go out of the world.” 1 Cor. 4:10. The Prince of princes himself, when here, went through this town to his own country, and that upon a fair-day too; yea, and, as I think, it was Beelzebub, the chief lord of this fair, that invited him to buy of his vanities, yea, would have made him lord of the fair, would he but have done him reverence as he went through the town.”
You may recognize this as a portion of Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyon. Vanity Fair, which stands for the world and all it offers, also offers pleasures and delights, games and plays, entertainments and diversions for our amusement. Are we free to utilize such entertainment? If we define entertainment as something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement, how are we as Christians supposed to think about entertainment?
Let’s try answering a series of questions that might help us get at the overall answer to this issue:
Did God create us to enjoy pleasure?
Genesis 2:8-9a, “Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.”
- A garden is an ordered form of growth as determined by the gardener, which order brings delight to the gardener and to those who experience the garden.
- This garden contained things “pleasing to the eye” – Our eyes are able to read form and color, and certain shapes and colors bring a response in our brains of pleasure. God created us this way.
- There were trees that were “good for food” – God made us so that not only do we get satisfaction from filling our stomachs with nutrients, but He gave us taste buds and olfactory nerves that enable us to gain pleasure from what we eat.
Did God create us for pleasure? ____Yes_______
Can pleasure lead us astray?
Genesis 3:6, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
- Though there was nothing wrong with enjoying the pleasure that God afforded in the garden, He had strictly forbid them from eating of this tree. She and Adam were not satisfied with the pleasure God had given them from all the other trees.
- Because they believed that this tree would give them self-rule apart from God, they chose this pleasure above loyalty to God.
- We are capable of greed when it comes to pleasure/entertainment (not being satisfied with what we have) and of substituting a lesser good for the greater good, choosing God’s blessings above God.
Can pleasure lead us astray? ____Yes_______
What dangers lurk in our relationship to entertainment/pleasure?
- Fear that leads us to deny ourselves any pleasure or entertainment lest we lose God’s love.
- Pride that leads us to deny ourselves pleasure or entertainment as a way of making ourselves better than others.
- Avoidance of pain that leads us to try to cover hurt with pleasure.
- Indulgence in pleasure or entertainment as a substitute for real relationship with God and others.
- Allowing pleasure/entertainment to tempt us to indulge in sinful behavior or disctract us from what really matters.
Genesis 4:17 Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech.
19 Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. 21 His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play the harp and flute. 22 Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron.
25 Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” 26 Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh.
At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.
Cain’s descendents were responsible for creating some very helpful tools, important practices of animal husbandry, and beautiful ways of expressing the heart through music. This reflected the creative mind of God and His image in even fallen human beings. This is not to say that Seth’s offspring were less creative, but they brought a balance to the world with their emphasis on spiritual realities. This is what ultimately matters!
Only people who know the Lord have a legitimate reason to enjoy entertainment!
- Unbelievers are destined for a Christless eternity and should be the most depressed individuals on the planet, with no concern for diversion or amusement but only for a way out of their predicament.
- Believers are able to be truly happy because, despite the failures of this life to measure up to all we need it to be, we have a relationship with God and share His eternal life. Diversion or amusement is consistent with being already safe and happy.
- Believers ought to utilize entertainment, not as a way to become happy, but as a way to demonstrate the abundant life we already share with Jesus Christ.
- It should be our servant, not our master;
- our expression of joy instead of our source of joy;
- a means to building relationships, not a substitute for relationships;
- an evidence of our holy view of life, not an indulgence of our selfishness.
Movies as Entertainment
The sun was setting as our small bus bumped along a Vietnamese highway. Then someone began to sing. We were in the middle of a four-hour drive between buon Me Thuot and Pleiku, having just endured a day of formal meetings with government and church officials, meetings as necessary and exhausting as tilling a garden that has been long neglected.
The singer was our guide, Hoang Cong Thuy, secretary general of the Vietnam-USA Society, an organization with close ties to both the Vietnamese Communist Party and the government. The cliché “he is a small man with a big heart” was invented, I’m sure, after someone met “Mr. Thuy” (as he is called). Unfailingly cheerful, even though he had to endure the quirks of eight evangelical pastors, three businessmen, one nonprofit diplomat, and one skeptical journalist, he worked to keep our spirits up. So during our drive, he grabbed the microphone of our little bus and began belting out a Sinatra tune. A cappella.
It was a joyful noise, as one is wont to say about earnest musical efforts. And it inspired equally modest talents on the bus to join in. One of our party – a man in his retirement years – gave a rendition of Elvis, followed by a bold fellow crooning from the repertoire of the Monkees. Then the Vietnamese sang their national anthem, and we followed with ours.
As Amy Rowe, one of the intrepid travelers, wrote in her blog, “It doesn’t get any weirder than Baptists and Communists singing karaoke together in a van driving through the middle of Vietnam.”
Yes, but weird stuff like this is at the heart of religious freedom efforts in Vietnam. It is the sort of thing that is making a difference for Christians there.
[Christianity Today, May 2007]
Should we watch movies? If not, should we read books? Should we look at paintings? Which kinds, only Christian books and paintings? Should we listen to music? Could we do without watching movies? But should we? If we do watch movies, what should we watch and why?
Through a Screen Darkly, Jeffrey Overstreet (film reviewer for Christianity Today magazine):
In a state of childlike attention, we are vulnerable to shocks both pleasant and discomforting, both instructive and damaging. We are open to revelations that change us. Receiving our attention, the artist bears some responsibility to behave with integrity, to serve the work and craft it with excellence, but even he may not anticipate what his arrangement of light and shadow will reveal. It’s possible we will glimpse the glow of glory, truth that cannot be reduced to a simple paraphrase, glimmering through the screen darkly.
It’s been my preoccupation for decades to experience those moments when an artist, intentionally or unwittingly, pulls back the veil of the everyday and gives us a glimpse of a wilder world than we had previously known…I’ve found redemptive insights and moments of piercing brilliance in places that I’d been told were off-limits to conscientious moviegoers…I have a strange compulsion to sit down between Christian culture and secular society, trying to help them understand each other – and, ultimately, God – better through a shared experience of art. The more I apply myself to this, the more I realize that this compulsion grows from having learned that my own assumptions were wrong and my view too narrow. Now I want to understand more and apprehend beauty wherever I can find it.
I once read an email from a moviegoer who claimed he dedicated his life to God because of something he saw in Herbie and the Love Bug.
…art enlightens us. It reflects our mistakes, our flaws and our pain back to us so that we must acknowledge them and find hope to move beyond them.
God repairs us through creation and through art.
Christ’s incarnation teaches us that spiritual things and fleshly things are not separate. The sacred is waiting to be recognized in secular things. Even those artists who don’t believe in God might accidentally reflect back to us realities in which we can see God working.
“If thine heart were right,” wrote Thomas a Kempis, “then should every creature be a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and vile but that it showeth us the goodness of God.”
When Does Art (Movies, Books, Music) Become Dangerous Entertainment?
- When you don’t have the maturity to recognize and discriminate between good and evil.
- When you are more drawn to the art because of its titillations than its message.
- When experiencing the art leads you into sinful behaviors.
- When your experiencing the art leads others into sinful behaviors (Romans 14).
If a depiction of evil causes us to sin, by all means, we must respond to our conscience and withdraw until we have become stronger. How many of us are humble enough to admit when we are what Scripture calls “the weaker brother”? But if we can look at evidence of sin, consider its consequences, and resist the temptation to imitate it, this can lead to wisdom and resilience.
If we are shocked by something as common as a spoken obscenity, it may reveal more about our distance from people in need than it does about the person who blurted out such coarse language.
There are those who think we should remain fearful children. They strive to convince us that exposure to corruption will contaminate us. They cultivate contempt for those who have the strength and maturity to move about in dangerous places. Before we go out on the beach, they burden us with reminders of all of the possible threats that might be waiting there. Educating ourselves to danger is an essential part of maturity, but if we dwell on such threats, we will complicate our enjoyment of freedom and blessing. If we proceed with caution, open to the possibility of revelation, we never know what treasures we’ll discover.
…entertainment. It’s a word used broadly to represent serious art, frivolous play, video games, dancing, singing, comedy, tragedy and various “adult” diversions. In this book, when I refer to entertainment, I’m talking about films that are intended as a sort of casual pleasure or temporary escape. Entertainment doesn’t require us to invest much intellectual energy in the experience. It’s performing for us…whereas higher forms of art will offer experiences that are beyond price, and sometimes even costly to avoid.
The best entertainers appeal to healthy appetites. Moreover, they challenge us with something more than we expect.
But for the purposes of this book, when I refer to art, I’m keeping in mind…a rule that most artists have heard a thousand times: show, don’t tell. Or, as William Carlos Williams urged, “No ideas but in things.”
When an artist narrows his craft to telling us his opinion or perspective, the audience responds by accepting or rejecting that message. But when an artist shows us something, he or she is participating in the work of incarnation, making something manifest that is open to our own interpretation…artists refuse to settle for standard fare and avoid explaining their work. The trust each one of us to have an individual experience and develop a unique relationship with the work.
Henry Miller once wrote, “Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself.
About the Author Randall Johnson
A full-time pastor since 1979, Randall originally graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary (ThM) in 1979 and from Reformed Theological Seminary (DMin) in 1998. He is married with four grown children and a pile of epic grandchildren.
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