In my last post, I pointed to using the created world around you as a means of worship. Most of what I have been talking about prior to that, though, has been related to the media you consume, screen time, and stuff like that. While I think a large part of the battle in a healthier spiritual formation today is in flat-out reducing screen time, I don’t think that is everything. 

I listen to non-Christian music, read non-Christian books, and watch non-Christian movies/tv shows. In fact, I don’t watch much Christian television or movies at all. But I do try to be discerning about what I watch. 

When it comes to media consumption, here are some questions I ask in evaluating whether or not I am going to participate: 

1. Can I worship God with this?
2. Can I be amazed at His goodness, creativity, and beauty through it? 
3. Can I see the artistic skill, intellectual prowess, and emotional intuition present in the content that makes me praise God for these talents?
4. Can I be reminded of the horror of sin? 
5. Can I laugh without feeling guilty about it?
6. Can I see the beauty of sacrifice, courage, virtue, humor, integrity, and friendship? 
7. Does it contain sexually explicit content that is going to lead me to commit adultery in my heart? (Matt 5:28)
8. Does my conscience feel troubled after consuming it?
9. Do I feel spiritually sluggish, tempted, gross, or bored with God afterwards?
10. Does this story/song/show’s depiction of evil make sin look glamorous and praiseworthy? 
11. Does the arc of the narrative lead me emotionally to love something God hates, or hate something God loves? 
12. Does this blur moral lines so seriously that the *point* of the story is that there is no such thing as “right” and “wrong”? Would I feel less likely to be able to take the commands of the Bible seriously after consuming this?
13. Am I aware of the worldview being presented in this? Am I able to understand how it differs from the Christian worldview?
14. Does it help me think more deeply or is this making me less capable of thinking clearly?
15. Does it offer helpful commentary to understand problems of the day?

There are probably more questions. And not everything I watch has to check all of these boxes. Watching SpongeBob with my kids won’t necessarily offer helpful commentary on the problems of the day, but it will make me laugh and appreciate the wit and humor put into the show and the simple joy of friendship.

My wife and I recently watched a TV show about Chernobyl, the nuclear catastrophe from the 80’s in the USSR. The show was incredibly well done—everything from the writing, to the cinematography, to the acting was superb. The show had nothing to do with faith or spirituality. But it did depict the consequences of sin, specifically of pride, vanity, and selfishness as a state cared more about their reputation to the world than the lives of its citizens. You see men turn into jelly from walking into a nuclear fire; pregnant women becoming permanently sterilized; animals slaughtered by soldiers trying to contain the spread of radiation sickness; the air, trees, water— the very soil itself—permanently poisoned for kilometers. In so many ways, it felt like a dramatic display of the consequences of sin played out in Genesis 3—the ground, the women, the men, all cursed to death.

But the show also depicted courage as countless individuals knowingly sacrificed their lives to stop the spread of radiation and courageously expose the abuses of a reckless government, even at the cost of their own lives. While it exposed the ugliness of sin, it also pointed to the need for and beauty of virtue. The show was bleak, and at times felt hopeless as you saw the depravity of man play out in a colossal scale. But after every episode, I was left thinking: Praise God for the truth of Christ who makes us humble enough to admit our sin, to admit our faults, and who brings hope and healing for the world…Lord keep me from that pride, make me courageous, make me willing to sacrifice…come soon, Lord, redeem this world.

Also, the show was just excellently made. If I was amazed at the work of my garden,shouldn’t I be amazed at the skill and work and talent that was used to make such an artistically gifted production like this? What an incredible thing humans can do! And if this is what we can do, what then does that tell us about the God in whose image we are made?

Most of the time when Christians think about what makes a movie or song off-limits for them, they are thinking of a relatively thin set of moral checkboxes to tick: Is there nudity? Is there gratuitous violence? Is there profanity? Those are important questions! But what if we also had a framework for ruling something out of our media diet because it is poorly made? What if the Christian-based movie that has no swear words and a positive family message shouldn’t be watched because it is lame and trite and contrived and takes us further from, rather than closer to, the real world? Or maybe the reality-contest show doesn’t have any smut in it, but it does glamorize a kind of vain-glory and obnoxious attention seeking that makes humility and quiet seem strange, as if we all need to turn ourselves into a bedazzled peacock and act like the worse version of prepubescent selves to keep the camera’s attention on us. Why spend hours watching news that stirs anger in me, but gives me no realistic outlet to do anything about it?

The Big Idea

If you want to move the needle on your daily love and affection for the Lord you should…

1. Increase your time in consuming directly Christian content: Bible reading, prayer, church, etc.
2. Decrease the content that is spiritually destructive, that breeds worldliness in you.
3. Become omnivorous in your worship. Realize that there is no such thing as a spiritually neutral reality—all of life is meant to lead you into worship.
4. Be more scrutinizing of your media choices and only consume that which leads you into deeper love of God.