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Defending… Twilight?

On his blog, mega-church pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington, recently dubbed the popular book and film series “Twilight”  as “sick, twisted, evil, dangerous, deceptive, and popular,” also calling it “for teenage girls what porn is to teenage boys.” With the franchise’s final installment, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 2, now in theaters, the timing is perfect.

For the most part, I agree with Driscoll’s cautionary tone and general exhortation for Christians to be discerning of pop culture and to teach our kids the same. My problem is how reactionary and simplistic Driscoll’s approach seems.

For instance, he lists several recent accounts of teenagers obsessed with the Twilight series who’ve gone so far as “biting, cutting, drinking blood—sometimes while having sex.” Troubling indeed. But how different is this from any fanatic reaction to various pop cultural commodities? There will always be those on the fringe who go overboard in their devotion to a genre or try to mimic some celluloid nuttiness.

Driscoll concludes,

As a father to a teenage girl, I find it devastating to simply read the most popular web pages that come up when searching for “teen vampire.” There, girls the same age of my 15-year-old daughter are talking about “awakening,” which is their word for converting to paganism (like the Christian word “born again”). In a perverted twist on Communion, their sacraments include the giving of your own blood by becoming a “donor.” This is entirely pagan. These storylines offer eternality without God and salvation; in the place of Jesus’ shed blood, girls and boys shed their own blood to be awakened to their own salvation of a new spiritual way of life filled with sex and occult behavior.

Can Twilight be a gateway drug into the occult? Absolutely. But how is this any different from the fatherless boy who turns to gangsta rap and crime, or the loner who obsesses over Heath Ledger’s Joker or derives strange delight from torture scenes in the Saw series?

Or the Christian woman who believes Redeeming Love is practically divinely inspired?

Pop culture in general is a shadow of the heavenly and hellish. Light and darkness tango therein. Which is why I agree with Driscoll about discernment. However, even the most good and sacred of items can be idolized and turned pagan by our twisted natures.

And things not-so-pagan can mistakenly be labeled “unclean.”

So while I concede the need for discernment, Driscoll’s approach to Twilight and the YA Paranormal Romance craze in general, seems more shrill than actually… discerning.

 

Yes, YA’s turn toward erotica and the occult is extremely troubling. But isn’t there more nuance involved than just pronouncing Twilight as “pagan”? This smacks of the same blanket condemnations that have gotten Harry Potter banned from church libraries and exiled Gandalf into the wasteland of godless sorcery. It’s the same knee-jerk reaction Christians have to anything magical, undead, or paranormal.

This is NOT discerning.

No, I haven’t read the Twilight series. Nor do I plan on seeing the films. This post is not meant to justify mediocre movie-making or condone paganism. The YA paranormal trend already troubles me. Teenagers are vulnerable and need to learn discernment. And the Evil One is out to deceive people and portray evil as good. Nevertheless, are we really helping by throwing out blanket condemnations?

Mark Driscoll’s call for pop cultural discernment is spot on. Nevertheless, his condemnation of the Twilight series seems more reactionary than discerning.

Your thoughts?

{ 46 comments… add one }
  • Kat Heckenbach November 20, 2012, 7:33 AM

    Well, anyone who knows me knows I’m not a fan of Twilight. I think Edward’s behavior is stalker-like and creepy. And Bella is a spineless whiner. And the writing….

    BUT, Bella and Edward wait to have sex after they get married, and the Cullens don’t drink human blood. So the stuff teens are supposedly doing because of those books is rather backward to the message of the books. How do you blame a book series for kids doing the opposite???

    And I agree with you wholeheartedly about reactionary vs discernment. Too many people just believe what they’re told and don’t investigate for themselves.

    • Katherine Coble November 20, 2012, 9:31 AM

      Yeah, I was scratching my head, too. The teen vamperotica scene is really more of a child of True Blood and that show on network tv. Vampire Diaries? I can’t tell them apart anymore.

      The Twilight girls just want their men to wear body glitter spray.

  • R.J. Anderson November 20, 2012, 7:51 AM

    Oh, for the love of little green apples. Can Christians please stop jumping all over every single fictional franchise that becomes popular just because it is popular?

    I’ve read TWILIGHT and it wasn’t for me, and I agree with many of the informed criticisms that have been voiced about it (Bella is a blank slate, Edward’s behaviour is controlling and borderline abusive, etc.). But to charge what is essentially a 1950’s style “fainting female finds manly male, marriage and baby ensues” romance with being a gateway to violent sexual practices and blood-worshipping paganism is absurd.

    Not to say that I don’t believe books can have an influence for ill as well as good, but TWILIGHT is such a sanitized treatment of vampires (they don’t wither and burn in sunlight, they sparkle! The good ones don’t feed on human blood, they only hunt animals!) that I really find it difficult to take seriously the idea that they serve as an enticement to orgies and the occult.

    For one thing, Edward staunchly refuses to engage in sex with Bella until they’re married, and one of the frequent feminist objections to the series is that it exalts abstinence, motherhood and self-sacrifice to an “unhealthy” degree. For another, AFAIK neither Bella nor her vampire boyfriend (nor her werewolf would-be boyfriend) are described as being involved in any kind of pagan religious practices or worship rites. (Admittedly, I haven’t read the last three books of the series, but I’m certain that this element would have come up in at least one of the multitudinous reviews I have read of said books, if it was there at all.)

    Anyway, this kind of hysterical, uninformed fear-mongering about every cultural phenomenon that comes down the pipe only makes Christians look ridiculous. There are certainly children’s novels and teen novels out there to be concerned about, and to intelligently argue against from a believing point of view (Philip Pullman’s gorgeously written but blatantly atheist and blasphemous GOLDEN COMPASS trilogy comes to mind). But to do so, we need to be informed and aware of the actual content of the books we’re criticizing instead of relying on hearsay, and we need to stop treating a few wacky outliers (seriously, this is the first time I have EVER heard of these so-called teen vampire rites Driscoll goes on about) as a serious threat to our teenagers’ spiritual well-being. If a teenager uses TWILIGHT as an excuse to go over to wild sex and blood rituals, then they were headed that way anyway, and would have gone there even if TWILIGHT had never existed.

    • Christian November 20, 2012, 7:16 PM

      The first book in the His Dark Materials series, “Northern Lights” (or “The Golden Compass”) was enjoyable and well-written. The second, “The Subtle Knife” was well-written but had more of an agenda and the third, “The Amber Spyglass” wasn’t pitiful nor ‘gorgeously written’. The agenda was clear – it was atheistic propaganda. There was not attempt to even disguise it as story. But yes, the third book is far more harmful to non-Christians and new/baby Christians than Harry Potter, and especially Twilight, will ever be.

      • R.J. Anderson November 21, 2012, 10:29 AM

        Agreed, or at least agreed by reputation; I was referring to the first book, not having bothered to go on with the second and third. But I’ve read other books by Pullman that assured me he is a very talented author technically speaking, even if his moral worldview is depraved.

        • Christian November 22, 2012, 2:51 PM

          R. J, I’m not going to disagree with you on that point.

  • Morgan L. Busse November 20, 2012, 8:30 AM

    It would seem better to me for parents who are concerned about Twilight (or other popular teen novels out right now), to read them, or even read them with their teen and discuss the issues. Rarely do I dismiss a book by the claims of others instead of reading it myself. The only one that actually comes to mind is Fifty Shades of Grey. And it that case, when I read what secular bloggers had to say (and their shock at the sex in the book), I felt no need to read it for myself.

    It is better to teach our children discernment, because someday we won’t be there to tell them no. They need to learn that themselves.

    As far as Twlight, I read the whole series. No occult stuff, hardly any blood drinking. Not the best example of abstinence (I don’t know any teen male who could kiss as much as they do and not go further). But not as bad as people are making it out to be. There are worse YA novels out there, with a whole lot more sex and occult stuff, but because they are not on the best seller list are not coming up on blogs.

  • E. Stephen Burnett November 20, 2012, 8:47 AM

    Mark Driscoll has some very “fundie” attitudes toward media. He flagrantly judges books by their covers. (Spoken rapidly …) I’m-no-Twilight-fan-but calling for Biblical discernment does not equal practicing it. Rather than relying on Scripture and Biblical freedom (and acknowledging people’s capacity for their own sin), Driscoll has repeated the naive and fear-based errors of other Christians, and accused the books’ author of getting the ideas from demons. (Last year we touched on this, including a link to the same video.)

    Ironically, Driscoll himself has actually practiced, and even encouraged others to practice, a form of divination, of the pornographic variety. He himself has shown he is too vulnerable to dangerous and un-discerning mysticism. Sadly, I no longer trust him to practice Biblical discernment, and feel I must caution others about his views.

    • E. Stephen Burnett November 20, 2012, 9:20 AM

      (Minor yet necesssary correction: that was actually posted in 2010, not last year.)

  • Melissa Ortega November 20, 2012, 9:08 AM

    In my view, these sorts of baseless rants are why young people are fleeing the church. What on earth does this guy expect to find when googling “teen vampire?” All of those things that he found are disturbing but how on earth he immediately links them to the Twilight series which never shows any of those things or is bizarre. His whole argument can be boiled down to “this book has a vampire in it and the cover is black with these hands holding an apple which MUST represent sin and lots of really silly teenagers like it so it has to be bad.” This is really insulting to the intelligence of many I know who have read this series.

    The bigger problem is that Twilight DOES have issues that require discerning judgment (none of them have to do with encouraging kids to be a vampire), but he’s not even getting to those more crucial things – he shuts the whole dialogue down with a sort of redneck, crayola logic that screams “I’m really lazy and anxious to judge!!” It reminds me so much of all the rants about JK Rowling writing real spells into Harry Potter. WHAT??

    In short, regardless of the merits of the Twilight series, this right here is a fine example of a Christian bearing false witness against his neighbor – and therefore discrediting himself (and those who forward and repeat his rants with similar laziness) as a viable witness of TRUTH and Light.

    To this day, I have not seen a single review of the Twilight series that nails the series’ attraction or its dangers accurately. Too bad, since it has done more to shape young minds in the last five or six years than anything other than maybe Harry Potter.

    • E. Stephen Burnett November 20, 2012, 9:19 AM

      Melissa, I might suggest Amy Timco’s four-part Twilight series review as one balanced, on-target contender. (We edited it into a single article, titled The Twilight Saga: Breaking Down.

      Twilight DOES have issues that require discerning judgment (none of them have to do with encouraging kids to be a vampire), but he’s not even getting to those more crucial things – he shuts the whole dialogue down with a sort of redneck, crayola logic that screams “I’m really lazy and anxious to judge!!”

      Exactly. And this is why anti-Biblical, imposter “discernment” based on emotions and made-up laws are so perilous. Driscoll doesn’t look like our popular image of a “legalist” — he doesn’t wear a suit, doesn’t insist on hymns, and enjoys pop music and MMA fights. Legalism is in one’s heartfelt and taught beliefs, not appearance. So is failure to practice truth even about popular “bad guys,” as you say:

      This right here is a fine example of a Christian bearing false witness against his neighbor – and therefore discrediting himself (and those who forward and repeat his rants with similar laziness) as a viable witness of TRUTH and Light.

      Exactly. Just last night family members and I were discussing this. A relative had needed to quit listening to a popular and otherwise very Biblically-discerning Christian radio host because he had told (or repeated) flagrant lies about the Harry Potter series. The main character sacrifices humans and “goes around killing people,” he said. That would be annoying enough, yet he refused to retract that plainly false statement about the books’ contents. That was the worst — a refusal to respond when someone calls you on plain fact-error. All that mattered to him was that The Books Were Bad (and therefore any statement about them goes).

      In that respect, then, it is not a book series that is actually inspired by the father of lies, is it?

      • Melissa Ortega November 20, 2012, 9:31 AM

        Thanks, Stephen! I did read most of Amy’s posts, though not all. I admit, I still didn’t see what I feel are the main issues of the series or the most accurate representation of its attraction to readers. I love Amy – as you KNOW! – but I do, in fact, keep waiting for someone to hit the nail on the head. Her understanding of the series and mine differ the same way that she and I differ on other things. ; )

        And yes, I am utterly embarrassed by the fact that so many Christians are the first to spread plain old LIES about people without a second’s thought. They just emotionally react to content, hit “forward” or “like” or “share” and don’t bother to fact check. Then, when they do find a contradiction, the reaction is just as you said “but it’s okay to spread lies about somebody we don’t like!” Grrrrrrr.

  • P. J. Casselman November 20, 2012, 9:12 AM

    There is a flip side to the obsession teenagers have with the paranormal. It is an indication that they haven’t bought into the secularism and atheism sounding from all corners of the western world. Ricky Gervais, Bill Maher, Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens are far more frightening than some bloodsucking sparkler. These are a sample of the men who use ridicule as a means to stamp out faith. Belief is laughable and religion is the cause of all the world’s woes, according to these men. Twilight, Potter and other supernatural fantasies don’t help the Christian cause, but they do show a longing on the part of readers for something other than the empirically determined universe. Building on that longing is the modern evangelist’s challenge.

    • Katherine Coble November 20, 2012, 9:30 AM

      If you think Harry Potter doesn’t help the Christian cause you haven’t talked with one of the hundreds of thousands of Christians who love the series, one of the thousands who came to a deeper faith through reading the series or one of the many who found Christ after reading about Harry’s Christ-like sacrifice.

    • Mike Duran November 20, 2012, 5:17 PM

      P.J., I also believe that our culture’s continued interest in the fantastic and the paranormal is, in a generic way, evidence of our spiritual longings. We yearn for a world bigger than the one we can see. Of course, those longings can lead us into evil. But the desires themselves are not.

      • Melissa Ortega November 21, 2012, 7:33 AM

        So true. In this vein, Twilight also seems to me to be a symptom of revolt against ideas gone too far. I think, above all, it represents nearly an anti-feminism response to the hyper-feminist movement in which men are scolded for doing any polite thing for a female – for even recognizing them as women past the point of physical comparison. And I think it is a part of the wave of theo-fantasies that have sprung up just as the “God is dead” crowd has reached a fever pitch.

        Pendulums tend to have an equal and opposite reaction to the initial, opposite pull.

        Young women, having now been told for thirty years that they would be much happier if they were treated (only) like one of the guys, are suddenly obsessing over a sparkly outcast whose manners and extensive vocabulary hail from the era of heightened protocol and education. Edward Cullen is really just initially an emo Mr. Darcy/Heathcliff/Romeo. The vampire thing is really just the literary gimmick that makes his existence in the current post-modern world halfway believable – in much the same way that James Bond exists in order that certain cars/gadgets’ existence may feel more believable. (they haven’t figured out yet how to make his girlfriends believable)

        People often long without knowing what they’re really longing for. Literature more often reveals our longings than creates them. (caveat: of course there are exceptions)

        Personally, I think all this Twi-fandom would be irrelevant if more young women just watched Dr. Who.

        • Jenni Noordhoek November 21, 2012, 11:32 PM

          I’m doing my part to get more girls to watch Doctor Who instead of Twilight… XD

          (And occasionally I’ll bring up Buffy as I’m heavily in favour of the “Buffy staked Edward” meme going around the ‘net. There’s content issues in Buffy, of course, but the characters and writing are good. Plus the vampires burn instead of sparkle… that’s always nice.)

  • Katherine Coble November 20, 2012, 9:28 AM

    Do not put me in a position to defend Twilight because I’m not going to.

    But what I will say is that Driscoll is really very misogynistic in his approach to pretty much everything, but even moreso in his approach to anything erotic or pseudoerotic. I find it very telling that he’ll jump down the throat of the series that appeals to girls/women, calling it awful and every other thing but then give actual SERMONS titillating to boys/men that praise oral s 3 x and tell women to pull themselves together.

    Driscoll is my brother in Christ; he’s also a provocateur with a clear anti-woman bias. His rant on Twilight will ring awfully hollow until he starts criticizing sports teams for having scantily-clad female cheerleaders on the sidelines.

  • Bobby B November 20, 2012, 9:35 AM

    Anyone who’s spent a lot of time listening to Driscoll knows he’s big into the spiritual side of things, particularly demons and occultism. Not a criticism, just an observation. He also went after Avatar (the movie) in a well-publicized video. Fascinatingly, he’s a huge fan of UFC and other such traditionally “manly” activities. It just shows all of us have our little pet peeve things that we harp and harp on while other things get a free pass.

    It’s funny, I work at a Christian college and some folks think things like Harry Potter and Twilight are akin to the Antichrist, while younger staff and students sneak off to go see the movies. I know a Christian gal, very sincere in her faith, who is gaga over Twilight.

    Some of it, I think, comes down to a matter of conviction. Some don’t have a problem attending R-rated movies; others feel they shouldn’t see them. Just insert any cultural controversy, from drinking alcohol to breastfeeding, and you’ll find Christians on opposite sides. In my opinion, this is one of the big reasons the Bible speaks more to the heart rather than any individual action.

  • Kessie November 20, 2012, 9:49 AM

    I’ve read all four Twilight books, and this kind of knee-jerk fist-waving makes me roll my eyes. Twilight is about the safest paranormal romance out there. Edward and Bella don’t get it on until they’re married. A casual stroll through the YA paranormal section of Goodreads will show you girls and guys wildly mating with whatever fantasy creature walks on two legs–angels, demons, fairies, vampires, werewolves, you name it, somebody’s written it.

    People only shriek about Twilight because it’s popular. Really, it’s tame compared to what else is out there.

  • Linda November 20, 2012, 10:00 AM

    Having been engaged in the demonic realm, where we are not supposed to go, opens the doors for Satan’s role in leading your life down an evil path. You become trapped until renounced and forgiven. God doesn’t condemn divination and other forms of occult issues in the Old Testament for nothing. It’s dangerous and forbidden. More warnings need to be out there.

    • Bobby B November 20, 2012, 10:56 AM

      Linda, you do bring up a good point: there are others who have a more first-hand experience with the spiritual realm and this can make things like Harry Potter and Twilight much more than simple entertainment diversions. My wife grew up in Africa and has FAR less tolerance for anything magic-related than I do. She’s seen people actually use magic, spells, so on. We here in the West are much more tech-savvy and intellectually minded (I did not say more intelligent) so magic, vampires, etc. are to us much more about mythological fables than having any basis in reality. But it is good to always keep in mind that there is a spiritual realm, it can interact with ours, and what to some is mere entertainment is to others a serious gateway to demonic activity.

    • R.J. Anderson November 20, 2012, 11:36 AM

      I think we all agree with that, Linda, but as far as I can recall TWILIGHT does not contain any references to demons, divination, or the occult. So wouldn’t it make more sense for Christians to warn against books that actually do portray occult practices in a positive way, than to jump all over a series which makes no mention of the occult at all?

  • Jill November 20, 2012, 11:07 AM

    Let this be a warning to you, young people. As innocent as biting, cutting, and drinking blood seem to you, it often leads to sex. And that’s bad. Really bad.

    • Jill November 20, 2012, 11:11 AM

      p.s. just making a sorry attempt at irony–not mocking anybody

      • R.J. Anderson November 20, 2012, 11:46 AM

        Well, I laughed. 🙂

        That being said, one of the things I do often point out to people who complain that Christians are more upset by sex than violence in teen novels is that Christian parents are most concerned about the behaviour they’re afraid their kids are going to emulate. So if the hero goes around chopping the heads off bad guys, well, that’s kind of icky, but they’re not really worried their kids are going to take up the sword and murder their annoying schoolmates. On the other hand, if the book portrays sex in an enticing way, there seems a very real danger that their kids might get stirred up to try it out as soon as they get the chance.

        I don’t think that’s actually true, mind. But I think that’s the reasoning, and it’s not entirely illogical or self-contradictory.

    • Katherine Coble November 20, 2012, 12:57 PM

      I cannot stop laughing.

      Really.

  • Jesse Koepke November 20, 2012, 12:13 PM

    Forgive me for joining the conversation late, but it seems to me, Mike, that your point is Mark shouldn’t be so aggressive in his condemnation of Twilight because there are other things that are bad, too. But I don’t see how that invalidates the argument against Twilight. You acknowledge “Can Twilight be a gateway drug into the occult? Absolutely.”, “Yes, YA’s turn toward erotica and the occult is extremely troubling.”, and “I agree with Driscoll’s cautionary tone and general exhortation for Christians to be discerning”—but then you say he takes it too far.

    Plus, it appears Mark has in fact does his homework and isn’t writing a “reactionary” post. It’s been several years since Twilight came out, his article quotes several articles, and he has thought and talked through the subject with his daughter. There are of course gray areas in discernment and Christians tend to want things to be black and white, but I bet Mark would agree with that and if asked could offer a more nuanced view on Twilight (and all those other bad things). But then, he wasn’t writing a post about all those other things. He was writing one about the dangers he sees in one particular subject.

    With all respect, your post seems to be the more reactionary.

    • Katherine Coble November 20, 2012, 1:00 PM

      It maybe several years since the books came out. But the Last Movie Of The Series just came out over the weekend, so it’s a trending topic. Doubtless that’s why BOTH Driscoll and Duran–both very traffic-aware–decided to write about this particular topic right now.

    • D.M. Dutcher November 20, 2012, 2:44 PM

      He hasn’t done the research though. If anything it’s almost nostalgic because people like Dave Hunt and Texe Marrs were making similar claims and similar mistakes about pop culture in the 80s. I think I still have Marrs’s book “Mystery Mark of the New Age” at home. They tend to follow the same script.

      -Well meaning if sheltered pastor happens across some pop cultural artifact or subculture that startles him.

      -Pastor, who is completely outside the culture in general, starts to collect incidents of it that support his view. He does this without any understanding of the genre or culture, and without any artistic or historical context.

      -Pastor links them all up, makes a sermon or a book, and suddenly X is a gateway to the occult.

      If Mark did do the research, he’d realize that sanguinarians and other vampires existed long before Twilight, and are a tiny subculture in general. You don’t become part of an extreme subculture by reading a mass market Mormon Vampire book any more than if you watch Bela Lugosi in Tod Browning’s Dracula. You have to be isolated to the point where you not only adhere to it in order to build some kind of identity for yourself, you are willing to ignore tons of warning signs and your own conscience or worries just because you are desperate for understanding or human contact.

      But those kind of pastors aren’t really up to a hard, honest look about things, because it might mean they have failed or their parishioners have failed at engaging their children or even helping them to be content. So it’s easy to just say “Don’t read X, because X causes this!”

      I’m not saying there isn’t a time to say “Don’t read X!” But Driscoll misses the point badly, and it makes me despair a bit because it feels like we haven’t learned anything in twenty years.

    • Mike Duran November 20, 2012, 5:34 PM

      Jesse, I don’t object to Pastor Mark, or any Christian’s, concerns about Twilight, YA, or really any pop cultural offering. What I’m concerned with is his lack of giving tools for discerning. Just telling me it’s pagan does nothing. People say the same about Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Harry Potter. WHY is Twilight pagan and evil? Is it because of the reaction of some of its fans? Is it because of its indiscriminate popularity among teen girls? Is it because there’s vampires? In my mind, none of those things make the film (or novels) evil in themselves.

      Hebrews 5:14 says, “solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” The role of the pastor is not to tell me what’s good and evil, but to, through Scripture, help me to “distinguish” the difference. Frankly, Driscoll sounds little different from the Pentecostal preacher who says wearing makeup, going to the movies, and smoking cigarettes is evil. Am I just supposed to take his word for it?

      • Jesse Koepke November 20, 2012, 6:48 PM

        Ah, now THAT is a great point, Mike. I totally agree with that. Thanks for clarifying.

  • Timothy Stone November 20, 2012, 3:46 PM

    I tried to keep up with the comments, I really did, but I’m afraid I only read those of friends or authors I’ve read elsewhere before. Full disclosure: I’ve read the books, and while I did enjoy the story in general, the bad parts make me cringe so much that I doubt I’ll ever read them again. I almost regret having done so.

    I would say that those who have pointed out *Twilight*’s ACTUAL problems and it’s actual (though few) “good parts” are spot-on, so I won’t reiterate those parts. I will say that along with Edward’s stalkerish behavior, there is another troubling aspect for girls, which is Bella’s character. She is absolutely one of the most selfish, self-absorbed female character in all of literature. She is whiny, (excuse the language, but it fits) bitchy, cruel to everyone around her, and is viewed as the one in the right! She gets angry when a friend doesn’t like her anymore after she drags her off into a seedy part of Seattle, and they nearly get hurt. She uses several boys whom she knows have crushes on her, but hey, that doesn’t matter, and neither do their feelings. Only SHE does.

    But all of the criticisms in previous comments and in my own comment get back to Mr. Duran’s point. We are not being discerning in how we treat these areas. We are being knee-jerk, unthinking, and we are committing BLASPHEMY in my opinion, but embarrassing the name of Christ.

    I had a tiff that caused an online acquaintance to never speak to me anymore, that nicely encapsulates this problem. They didn’t like my assertion that condemning *Harry Potter* as “demonic” was a lie. Apparently, the elements of HP that are magical make it “Satanic” somehow. I pointed out how Arthurian legends, LOTR, Narnia, and *That Hideous Strength* must be “demonic” as well. Then I made some jab that we’d better watch out for that evil devil-worshiping CS Lewis. They didn’t appreciate my snark.

    The whole point is that we do so, so much damage to the cause of Christ (as others, including Melissa, Stephen, and Mr. Duran noted), as well as our own spiritual lives, when we propagate lies and rumors about things. Another story. I only got into HP shortly after Basic Training in the Army. I had heard numerous condemnations of how evil and “demonic” it was, including what I know now to be outright LIES (the Ouija board myth, anyone?) In Basic, I had an unsaved friend who trained with me in the same platoon. Despite his unregenerate state, he was quite kind, and he respected and defended me and my faith to some others who tried to tease me and mock me about it. I pray they all find Christ (including him). He told me how the rumors of HP I had heard were lies, and encouraged me to give the books a try. I knew he would NEVER encourage me to read something that would violate my faith, so I believed him and gave them a try. On reading them, I realized how great they are, they teach moral lessons, and I have been PISSED at many Christians for their lies since then.

    Look, there can be some bad parts to criticize in any work. The “uniformly, unredeemable evil” of Tolkien’s orcs, of Robert Jordan’s Trollocs, etc. Or in HP of the attitude of vengeance that even the heroes practice (including Hermione’s permanent scarring of that one girl who betrayed the DA, which Rowling DEFENDED as proper and something we apparently should approve of), etc.

    Now, I would say that none of the above in the last comment equal the problems in *Twilight*. They have much, MUCH more good than bad, whereas the series of sparkly Draculas is the reverse. The point is that the occult, demonic crap, so on, IS NOT a valid criticism of ANY of the franchises mentioned in this comment.

    • Jessica Thomas November 20, 2012, 7:06 PM

      There’s a “Ouija board myth”?

      • Timothy Stone November 20, 2012, 7:39 PM

        Yes Ma’am. I had heard back in the early 2000’s that they used Ouija boards to help find answers. I kid you not. I actually respected some of the folks (don’t respect them much now for spreading baseless rumors) who told me that, so I listened to them. Now, I’m really mad I did.

  • Timothy Stone November 20, 2012, 3:59 PM

    By the by, I have seen enough violence, fear, and suffering. I hate violence unless it is necessary, and I DESPISE the enjoyment of violence or suffering. We should NEVER enjoy such things. So I kinda already call Mr. Driscoll’s priorities into question. That and the fact that his method of “getting real” on issues of Christianity and sexuality are just titillating, irresponsibly handled, and “pornographic” as is any paranormal “romance”. He’s a hypocrite.

  • Heather Day Gilbert November 20, 2012, 6:10 PM

    I usually fall on the conservative end of the spectrum here, but here’s my thoughts, as a mom of a teen. I always read controversial books first, figure out the worldview, then decide if the content is something my kids could handle. Honestly, Twilight is more for older teens, if not adults.

    BUT I couldn’t help but notice how sex before marriage was forbidden, the baby was called a BABY and not a fetus, and the life of the baby was important. And marriage was the happiest state of all. I’m sure these are Mormon ideas, but I did appreciate that emphasis.

    Honestly, I dislike the Hunger Games even more than Twilight–people are forced to kill, and they’re not just killing BAD GUYS. I think the worldview in that is a bit more messed up. But still.

    Bottom line. Parents should read books in question FIRST (or watch movies first, etc), before handing off to children. Different things are going to freak out different people. For me, Twilight was tame. But then again, I’m a married woman.

    • Heather Day Gilbert November 20, 2012, 6:11 PM

      (Oops. Here ARE my thoughts. My writing brain is shot. Trying to finish a book by December.)

    • Christian November 20, 2012, 7:58 PM

      While I wouldn’t give children The Hunger Games books to read, I think there are some thought-provoking themes explored therein and the basic premise (children/teens killing other children/teens as tribute sacrifices to appease the higher-ups) is never encouraged or seen as a good. The stories make use of outrageous and disturbing ideas (the Hunger Games are a hybrid of ancient gladiator battles and reality TV) to help wake up the reader to the dark realities of war, amongst other things.

  • Jessica Thomas November 20, 2012, 7:04 PM

    Just from listening to the clips and reading his comments that you cited, his reaction doesn’t seem all that knee-jerk to me. He addressed several books, not just Twilight. Yeah he could’ve gone into more depth about how to discern evil within the books themselves, but maybe that was a different sermon? I dunno. I guess I don’t have a problem with some Christians sounding the warning bell.

    Now what I do have take issue with is Driscoll and his wife holding hands all lovey dovey on stage while they tell other people how to run their marriages. That annoys me. Stop with the hand holding already. That’s laying it on too think…

    • Timothy Stone November 20, 2012, 7:48 PM

      Ma’am, I think that the point is that if you want to sound a potential warning bell, then so be it. Intentions are important, yes, but sometimes they aren’t enough to excuse bad actions. Elihu was scolded by God, not taken to the woodshed like Job’s three friends were, since his incorrect view was not as dogmatic or driven by pride as theirs were. But, he WAS still scolded. Elihu’s statements were still wrong at some point, and his sincerely innocent intentions didn’t change that.

      Similarly, Driscoll’s statements bear no relation to what *Twilight* is about, so he is rumor-mongering and lying. If he himself read, or else went to a site that has a good review of it with criticisms of the books (heck, there are even SECULAR sites that hit the troublesome and negative aspects well), and restricted his comments to those, he’d do well. Otherwise, he’s perpetrating the *Twilight* version of the HP “Ouija board myth”. And to spread false rumors and lie (even if unintentionally), especially if you can find the truth out, which he easily could, is a sin.

      • Jessica Thomas November 21, 2012, 5:54 AM

        Yes, he could have said, “but Twilight’s not as bad because of this, this, and this”, but I think his point was it’s part of the trend toward the paranormal, so it potentially bears some of the burden of pointing kids toward the occult. And to be fair, he can’t teach how to discern *everything* about the occult in 1 sermon. This is just one sermon. I’m not a huge Driscoll fan from what little I know of him, but I’m willing to cut the guy a break on this one.

        • D.M. Dutcher November 21, 2012, 10:50 AM

          I can’t cut him a break, because I know from personal experience how Mark’s mindset affects people culturally. Replace “Twilight” with “Dungeons and Dragons,” and it’s the exact same argument I had to deal with as a kid 20 years ago. Whenever D&D, or too often fantasy in general (even including Lewis and Tokien-Lewis was bashed a bit for what he said in The Last Battle about Tash) the constant, knee-jerk response was that those things were doorways to the New Age and the Occult.

          That idea was often even more pagan than the actual books or videos. It was magical thinking; just having a copy of D&D in the house was enough to overpower your child’s meager spiritual defenses and set him on the road to ruin. Music often subliminally altered them too-remember the whole controversary about backmasking? When they did try and crack open the covers, they cherry-picked things out of context and made sweeping, assertive claims that were absurd to me even as a child.

          This wasn’t just a matter of a few fundamentalist churches. These ideas in the 80s became a full-fledged Satanic panic, and many people made their careers on stoking it. Some even lied-the christian comedian Mike Warnke used to claim he was an ex-satanist before Cornerstone magazine debunked him, and people like Bob Larson and Jack Chick have and still do make careers on this.

          Trying to play the occult card really only hurts us, and we can’t fall back into old, destructive patterns.

          • Jessica Thomas November 21, 2012, 1:16 PM

            “That idea was often even more pagan than the actual books or videos.”

            How’s that?

            I was school-age during the 80’s so it’s a bit of a blur. I do recall the uproar over heavy me’al (said with an English accent), but I never liked that junk anyway. And in college, the guys who were into painting little D&D-type figurines did tend to have…well…issues. (Just my observation, never did an official random sampling.)

            I guess my issue is…show me someone who is addressing the occult influence in today’s media in a way you (or others, or Mike) deem an appropriate manner rather than telling me this one guy is off his rocker. That seems kind of knee-jerk but in the opposite direction.

            And, I do think it’s safe to say children often have meager spiritual defenses, even Christian parents do, so at what point do we say, enough of this junk, it’s dragging me and you, and our kids, and our church down. Are we allowed to say that at all, or do we get branded “shrill” and “over-reactive”?

            I’m going through a phase at the moment, by the way, thinking these things through for myself to extricate past New Age influences from my worldview, which I’m learning were many. For instance, what the heck was my college English colloquium doing reading The Celestine Prophesy, tooting it’s horn, telling us how great it was. And I was gullible enough to assimilate some of it.

            Last night I read “The Light That Was Dark” in one sitting. Warren Smith takes what most would probably consider an extreme position on New Age infiltration into the church, but he makes (what seem to me to be) valid points about the general lack of discernment in today’s American-style Christianity. At what point do we become the blind leading the blind, or are we already there to some extent. Don’t have the answers, just the somewhat random musings.

  • D.M. Dutcher November 21, 2012, 2:47 PM

    It’s pagan in the sense of ascribing spiritual power to books. There’s a difference between a book that just has bad ideas or is improper to read and one that exerts occult influence. In the former, it’s what the book says that needs to be addressed. In the second it’s what the book is, or what effects it causes unrelated to its content. I think the second is more a pagan thing. The book as vessel for spirits rather than ideas.

    There are plenty of bad ideas in a book like Twilight, and there are things that a good critic can make you aware of that can make you think on what you are reading and whether or not it aligns with the Christian faith. I can’t really list many critics offhand. I know sites like acculturated and others often deal with pop culture, but a lot of Christians don’t seem to want to criticize it as embrace it totally or condemn it. E Stephen Burnett who has posted here is one of the few believers I know willing to engage reading at a deep critical level, as a thing to do for the glory of God.

    If you are looking for a narrative of how Satan is controlling the secular media, and ways to bulwark yourself and your family against that, I can’t really say much. If this is so, very few of the books seem to have any conscious aim to do it, and what Mark says in his post has little to do with Twilight as a book at all, as opposed to an influence. If you are worried about spiritual influences, well, prayer and submission to God’s will is all any of us can do for that.

    • Jessica Thomas November 21, 2012, 3:12 PM

      I wouldn’t say “worried” so much as “becoming more attuned” and seeking the proper balance between being wisely on alert versus looking for a demon behind every bush. I’d say, most of us in the U.S. err on the side of not being discerning enough versus being demon paranoid. But I can easily see how people go off the deep end crying “satan, satan, satan” all day when that time would be more wisely spent spreading the good news.

      Last year around this time, I read “When Satan Calls” by Bill Scott. In it, he tells the story of a time period in his life when he was trying to help a young lady who was very deep into the occult. He allowed her to stay in his house, and as a result his house became “haunted”. After she moved out, he thought it would go away, but it didn’t, and eventually he traced it to some occult paraphernalia she’d left under her bed. When he removed the things from his house, the “haunting” ceased. If you decide to trust Bill Scott’s account, this is rather puzzling. At least it was for me, because I’d never thought of “things” holding that kind of spiritual power. So is it a pagan idea, or is it just how the occult world works sometimes? I dunno.

      I’ll stop playing “devil’s advocate” now.

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