Several months ago, in a discussion about Christian speculative fiction and where it’s heading, I suggested that “‘bad theology’ has shaped much of mainstream Christian fiction.” One aspect of this “bad theology” is the 
belief that reading “clean fiction” — and by this, Christians normally mean fiction without sex, profanity, excessive violence, occult themes, etc. — is better for one’s soul, more in line with holiness and godliness, than reading darker, more R-rated stuff.
“Clean fiction” is part of the toolbox of evangelical holiness and separation from the world.
So yesterday on Facebook I mentioned televangelist Pat Robertson’s recent claim that watching horror movies can invite demons into ones soul. My rather snide response was, “Of course, watching horror movies can invite demons into your soul. So can watching The Bachelor, Jimmy Fallon, and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.” Point being: Horror movies aren’t inherently evil; the devil is an “angel of light” and can use seemingly good things to deceive.
An undiscerning, undiscriminating, unbelieving, naive, morally confused mind is more a gateway to the demonic than are horror movies.
E. Stephen Burnett commented that Robertson’s response is typical of a bigger problem: “Christians pushing ‘white magic’ in response to ‘black magic.’ Burnett continued:
I believe Christians invite the work of Satan more often when they react to supposed devilish “black magic” work and therefore resort to “white magic” methods of protection to control their environments, protect the dynasty, promote fertility and agriculture, etc. …
…evangelical divination methods can include the “prosperity gospel,” prayer-as-mantra, that “prayer mat” that comes in the mail, listening to new revelation from voices, and even (I’m afraid this is going to be very unpopular) putting faith in manmade corporation-building methods to build churches rather than having faith in God’s Spirit to make our efforts bear fruit.
This got me thinking — which I will do out loud — and you can tell me where I’m wrong.
I think E. is spot-on in his assessment. There are many “evangelical divination methods.” Of course, we don’t see them as divination methods. Nevertheless, they are little different than the spells, counter-spells, protective spells, and iconography employed by many occultists. We just attach biblical jargon and imagery.
- “Pray this.”
- “Bless that.”
- “Stay away from these people, places, or things.”
- “Repeat these words and believe them with all your heart.”
- “Don’t watch, listen to, or speak that.”
I would include Christians’ penchant for — I could say “obsession” with — “clean fiction” as a possible “evangelical divination method.” In other words, we’ve come to believe that reading THIS as opposed to THAT, reading THIS word as opposed to THAT word, including THIS description as opposed to THAT description, makes a story more or less worldly or other-worldly, holy or unholy.
The problem with that approach is that it puts stories, more specifically words, in the category of… magic. We see the correct combination of words, or the exclusion of specific words, as possessing an inherent power, for good or evil. As such, Christian fiction is the “white magic” that counters the spell of secular fiction, which is “black magic.”
Here’s the problem: The word “shit” does not have magical powers.
The belief that keeping THAT word out of my story makes it intrinsically less worldly and more holy, is akin to white magic. It’s little different than the sorceress who believes that uttering THIS word invokes THAT power and refraining from THAT word prohibits THIS power.
Of course, there is a legitimate biblical basis for avoiding crap, and taking heed to what we read, listen to, and view. But just because someone reads Christian fiction, watches only “family friendly” films, or doesn’t curse, does not automatically make them any more holy, healthy, or happy than someone who doesn’t. In fact, the Bible warns that there may be a subtle danger in consigning ourselves only to what is “clean” (see: Pharisees).
In other words, reading “clean fiction” does not cast a protective spell over ones mind and heart. You still need discernment! In fact, the notion that “clean fiction” is actually safer and better for us might actually deceive us and distance us from God!
The desire to keep our minds focused on what is “pure, lovely, and admirable” is a great thing. Heck, it’s biblical! Nevertheless, that same Bible says that Satan disguises himself as an “angel of light” (II Cor. 11:14). In other words, Satan is more likely to deceive us with something that looks good (“clean”), than something that looks evil. Just because some stories are free of profanity, violence, and nudity, does not make them impervious to spiritual deception. In fact, the desire to read only what is “free of profanity, violence, and nudity” may itself be a spiritual deception.
Okay. So that’s my theory.
How is our rigid avoidance of profanity and R-rated content NOT superstition, a form of white magic that believes the absence and exclusion of specific words makes one more holy?
I think you have made a really great point here and actually did it in a way which can touch on several denominations when it comes down to it. Excellent description!
I’m a big believer in writing what you want to write and reading what you want to read and watching what you want to watch and listening to what you want to listen to. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some things which just happens to be better than others, but sometimes you actually have to read, watch or listen to something to be sure your own self.
And I do think the framing of words are important. There is a difference between the way Stephen King puts words together and the way Dean Koontz puts words together, yet they are both best-selling authors. Some people prefer one to the other for various reasons. I like them both my own self. But their styles do cause people at times to like one more than the other. And that’s okay.
The point I see you making is that we shouldn’t work so hard to only have certain things and avoid other things as if that’s going to “keep us pure”. The only sure way to keep pure is to have the daily walk with God through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit by reading the Word and praying. But if that becomes ritual rather than relational, it’s “white magic” and can be deceptive practices, just as you indicated about the way the Pharisees were.
There are definite demonic activity which still occurs today. We kid ourselves if we think otherwise. I am not convinced that Pat Robertson is correct in his assessment as he clearly formed that opinion back during the hysteria of the 70’s and 80’s and never learned the correct info which would have changed that opinion as it did others. Kind of like how some people still thinks D&D is witchcraft in disguise even though that has been completely debunked.
All in all, great post! 😀
I think you are right in as far as you lay it out.
I do think that for some people, a valid reason is they don’t want to subject themselves to it because they don’t like it. Garbage in, garbage out type thing. I don’t think that reason necessarily leads to spiritual deception.
But I would agree that focusing on avoiding that while ignoring the need to discern bad theology, no matter the presence or absence of such things, opens one to be led astray. It shouldn’t be treated as a magic bullet that ensures you’re safe, just as surely as watching a horror film doesn’t mean you’ll be inhabited by demons or Harry Potter will cause you to go join the Wiccans.
Mike, where do you come up with this stuff? “Clean fiction” is “white magic”? I realize what you’re saying about Satan appearing as an “angel of light”, and the motives of the Pharisees, but labeling “clean fiction” as “white magic” is just…bizarre.
Can you point me to some “clean” titles, written by genuine, God-loving Christians, with the power to undo a person’s Christianity? I’m not being sarcastic; I’d actually like to know, because I’ve yet to read anything “clean” that’s had a negative effect on me—nothing that I know of, anyway.
What do the negative, unhealthy symptoms of “white magic”, caused by “clean fiction”, look like?
I know of people who’ve never cursed, pick up the habit, by hanging around with those that do. What kind of magic caused that (okay, now I’m being sarcastic)?
The thing is this: if we’re to know people by “their fruit”, how will we be able to tell the good fruit from the bad if it’s all the same? Don’t Christians need at least a degree of peculiarity, so they can “somewhat” stand out from the crowd?
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;
(1 Peter 2:9 – KJV)
And what about the separating of the sheep from the goats? If we behave exactly as the goats, we may find ourselves herded right along with them.
The separation of the sheep from the goats is a different analogy for the separation of the wheat from the chaff which was also an analogy for what Jesus was talking about concerning what would happen when he comes back. When Jesus mentioned both of these he was talking about the same thing, and he also gave clear indication that it was not ours to do but his. He said to allow the chaff to grow up with the wheat until harvest time. When harvest time comes, then he will separate the wheat from the chaff, as well as the sheep from the goats. 🙂
Indeed. Some Christians must certainly be taught that there are circumstances for treating professing believers as if they were not (Matt. 18, 1 Cor. 5). But other Christians are far too quick to jump ahead of Jesus’s timing and separate the sheep from the goats now. You simply cannot do that, especially based on mere appearance, and especially over the internet. Church-discipline scenarios are carried out by elders trained in Scripture and in caring/guarding in personal contexts. To try to sort sheep from goats based on external characteristics alone — especially in areas where Scripture is silent and folks want to establish rules anyway — is simply not a Biblical way to discern. This “discernment” fails that test.
Hmmmm….the “guns ablazing was supposed to go up here. Not sure how it jumped. Trying again?
T.W., if I may speak for myself if not for Mike, I doubt he ever intended to imply that “clean fiction” equals “white magic” any more than horror movies could equal dark magic. In Deut. 18 and other passages warning against occult practices and imitations of pagan “divination,” the person’s intent is always what’s crucial. How can a noun-thing such as “clean fiction” or “horror movies” be a verb such as “practicing divination”? Rather, the intent of the person is what matters most. This counts whether it is an actual New-Ager using mantas, cards, whatever they do, to try to contact that dead for advice. It also counts for an evangelical hoping to get secret information from God about His secret will or hoping to use “the power of words” including Scripture and good Christian activities to provoke the Almighty’s blessing on your crops and dynasty.
Also, T.W., “peculiar” simply means chosen. God has “called out” His Church (the meaning of “church,” “called-out ones”). There is nothing further in that text about trying to add our own versions of “peculiarity,” though I know this is a popular concept among some Christians. The fact is, no matter how “peculiar” you think you are, someone can always call you a compromiser. Look at you, for example — you’re posting here on a blog. That’s a very trendy, non-peculiar, “worldly” thing to do. Notice I’m not accusing you. I’m actually trying to show that with this un-Biblical concept, someone can always come along and imply, or state outright, that you are not being “peculiar” enough — and completely ignore the fact that you may be posting that comment, or using FB, or even listening to a particular kind of music, with no other goal than to glorify God and help others.
But this must be according to God’s standards of holiness, not arbitrary rules about what does and does not count as “worldly.” Closely related here is the (mis)interpretation of passages such as 1 Thess. 5:22, in which God’s people are warned to avoid (in the good ol’ KJV) the “appearance of evil.” Many Christians believe this means we not only avoid evil, but anything that “appears” to be evil. This very attitude leads us down a false trail into anti-Biblical discernment. After all, as Mike pointed out above, Satan himself does not always appear to be evil! He can dress up as an angel of light! Satan can be just as active in the things we consider “spiritual” and untouchable, including those very rules we may think reinforce Christians’ “peculiarity” or separation from the world. Is it any wonder, then, that many evangelicals are led further down that undiscerning path into approving of false teachers of the prosperity gospel and even worse blasphemies, solely because the leader didn’t “appear” to be evil? The discerning Christian, basing how he perceives truth and lies on Scripture and not beyond surface-level appearance, is more mature.
And one more little reminder: you yourself obviously believe in some “mixing it up with the world” anyway. After all, here you are arguing the point in a discussion with professing Christians who believe differently. So you already show my your actions that the mature Christian can confront different people and different (or wrong!) beliefs, and come out unscathed. If you do not truly believe that, then you should exit the conversation now. But you’re here, and eagerly engaging, so clearly you don’t believe it.
Stephen, I’m 41 years old, and became a Christian when I was eight. My mother has been an ordained evangelist as long as I’ve been Christian, and she’s been a Christian even longer, so there’s no one here who can say something I don’t already know.
And I’m not saying that “all things” dark are bad, or that a person can totally remove themselves from it. But there’s no reason for a Christian to deliberately seek out hardcore, secular material, either.
It’s understandable that they’re times when there’s no way around it—such as being caught in a business deal or type of job (due to whatever reason)—but to intentionally steer in the wrong direction seems like a 2 Thessalonians 2:12 situation to me.
“There’s no one here who can say something I don’t already know.”
Do you believe, then, that faithful Christians can arrive at a point when they no longer need to learn from others? Or can they arrive at a point of sinless perfection, such that they are able to spend the rest of their lives mainly helping others to attain that same level of maturity?
Sounds like somebody needs to work on their teachability index.
Which is why, T.W., I ask what actual experience in serving God’s church — proving your service to other people through acts of love, deeds of faith, and exposition of God’s Word in real life — gives you the right to instruct on the internet. (Even if you had this experience, it does not support claiming that “you’ve heard it all” and therefore need not adhere to Biblical admonitions to reason with others in humility and grace.) As it is, you risk coming off as a simple rogue-internet-evangelist, about “evangelism” self-defined rather than the work of the institutional local church. Folks like that are a dime a dozen. They’re the equivalent of Christian men sitting around playing video games, destroying virtual enemies, as an easy substitute to actually engaging with and loving others in the real world.
It depends on whom it’s coming from…and whether or not what they say meshes with what I’ve learned other 33 years via God’s word.
After all, we’re to test the spirits….
When evil appears, flee! 😉
Tim, I can’t get into a detailed answer as I’m at work now. I would point out that you didn’t answer my main question: How is the belief that avoiding certain words and content is NOT a form of superstition?
Where in the Bible does it say it’s a superstition? If someone kind find a passage to back it up, I’ll reconsider.
And you never answered my question, either….
Can you point me to some “clean” titles, written by genuine, God-loving Christians, with the power to undo a person’s Christianity (via “white magic”)?
Tim, some Scriptures that would support my point would be,
1.) The numerous accounts of the Pharisees who relied on external forms of righteousness and ritualistic practices but were still roundly rebuked by Jesus.
2.) Jesus’ name being used superstitiously by the Jewish exorcists (Acts 19:11-17).
3.) The numerous NT cautions against a “touch not, taste not, handle not” (Col. 2:21-23) form of holiness.
4.) The stripping of inherent power in objects, food, things, etc. “Nothing is unclean in itself” (ROM. 14:14).
To your second question: “Can you point me to some “clean” titles, written by genuine, God-loving Christians, with the power to undo a person’s Christianity (via “white magic”)?”
No. Just like you couldn’t point me toward any horror films that invite demons into ones soul. In both cases, the issue isn’t necessarily the words or images employed as much as it is the person’s heart. In my opinion, some Christians are quite legalistic in their demand for clean fiction, to the point that it becomes idolotrous and harmfully escapist.
Also, you still haven’t answered my main question.
(1.) (Matthew 12:24) The Pharisees also accused Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebub. I don’t put any stock in what the Pharisees did, and neither do I consider myself one, regardless of what others may think. My point of view stems from my upbringing, which was not legalistic at all.
(2.) Those exorcists where using Jesus’ name of their own authority—the Spirit of God was not in them. Jesus Himself said, (Mark 16:17) “…In my name they shall cast out devils…,” a sign of what true believers would later do.
(3.) The passage you choose says, (Col. 2:21-23) “touch not, taste not, handle not”. The passage I chose says, (1 Corinthians 8:12) But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.” I’m not saying that all Christians are weak, but we need to consider the many new converts with no solid foundation in scripture; or who maybe missed solid exposer to the gospel at a very early age.
(4.) You used Romans 14:14. Romans 14:13 says, ” Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.” Romans 14:15 says, “But if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.” Both Romans 14:13 and 14:15 can be tied to 1 Corinthians 8:12.
I never said that horror movies could invite demons into ones soul, Pat Robertson did. Nor do I believe it to be true.
To answer your question: “How is the belief that avoiding certain words and content is NOT a form of superstition?”
Beats me, I’ve never heard the notion before…not until I saw your post. I don’t believe it one way or the other, though. This seems to be a matter of taste, and not everyone likes the same kind of food. I like Brussels sprouts; you may like asparagus.
Exorcists were, I meant.
“How is the belief that avoiding certain words and content is NOT a form of superstition?” Easy. It’s in understanding that media has the ability to influence our thinking. That isn’t superstitious; it’s just simple awareness. Also, look at it from the other perspective: how will the world perceive us if we write content that seems unchristian? Now, you could point fingers and tell me my writing uses the “f” word, etc., and some people perceive that as unchristian. And I won’t deny it. But I hope I’m teachable–that is, influenced in a good way by the words of other Christians (which is also not superstitious).
Jill, the belief that “media has the ability to influence our thinking” is not superstitious. I agree. However, wouldn’t you agree that people could take that to absurd ends, such as never going into a theater, refusing to read about characters who drink wine, or making a detailed list of words to censor from their hearing?
Sure. People are absurd. They will go to absurd extremes in either direction. But that doesn’t change the fact that media influences us. At the same time, I can think of examples in which it wouldn’t be absurd “never going into a theater, refusing to read about characters who drink wine, or making a detailed list of words to censor from their hearing?”
Perhaps. It just doesn’t speak to my question whether some avoidance of those things can take on superstitious dimensions.
You asked how it was NOT superstitious. I gave you a way. I already grant that there are superstitious people out there, but not everybody who avoids dark fiction or bad language or sexual content is superstitious. Frankly, I’m tired of my views being labelled as superstitious when they aren’t. And it happens all the time.
I wouldn’t consider your views superstitious. The point that I think Mike is trying to make is that anything can be used superstitiously, even the stuff that we would generally label “good”.
What it all comes down to, is what’s in a person’s heart. And, while that can come out in their actions and words, it is not our job to judge what’s in a person’s heart. That’s God’s job. Ours is to treat people in a loving manner, and based solely on their track record. It’s definitely easy for people to decide that, say, because I’m not interested in reading or watching sex scenes and will skip over them/fast-forward past them/look away during them that I’m a horrible prude, or that I believe that I can avoid sexual sin by avoiding sex scenes. Not so. I’m just not interested in taking that in. I don’t like how I react to it.
Where I do think blog posts like this one are important is in the area of teaching people that being holy isn’t about empty rituals and recitations, but about our heart constantly being transformed by God’s love. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “if I check off all the items in this list, then that means I’m ‘spiritual'”, just as much as the trap of “if I avoid all the items in this list, then I avoid being ‘carnal'”. Following God is about the heart first and foremost, never about the outward appearance.
Let’s all of us encourage each other to renew our minds, to follow after God’s heart, and leave the reading of the hearts of others up to the only one who even knows what he’s doing and seeing.
I’m just not sure why all this policing of other people’s motivations is necessary. Maybe sometimes it is superstition. Maybe other times it’s a personal choice made out of a plethora of reasons. Either way, it’s a personal choice.
The problem comes when people try to enforce their personal choice upon others. God gave us free will. It’s awfully ridiculous of us to decide that we can take from others a gift that God gave us all equally.
When folks know themselves, they know what affects them adversely and can avoid it. That’s one thing, and that’s wisdom. When someone else decides that it must be THUS for ALL based on their own weaknesses (or strengths), that’s an attempt to rob liberty. Some things we have been told not to do and we can impose it (not kill, not steal, not jump the bones of that married person). But there is an awful lot of legalistic thinking bout fiction. What cracks me up is that the ideal of “clean fiction” can fall into this pit of unrealistic depictions of what humans are–ergo, it fibs about the human nature that Scripture doesn’t fib about. And lying is bad. 🙂
This, Mir. Well said.
Years ago, when I was a new Christian (with a history of being involved in the occult – “white magic” ha ha,) I heard some believers say, “Don’t speak it!” when I said I was coming down with a cold. It brought back memories of my superstitious French grandmother who was obsessed with speaking certain words and avoiding the evil eye. I wondered how such superstition had wormed its way into Christianity and had a hard time understanding the name-claim folks. Still do.
Mike, interesting take on clean fiction in calling it white magic. So much of what folks in Christendom do, say, and believe comes from Christian pop culture rather than springing from their own heart, passion, and confident knowledge of scripture. In many cases, what Christians produce is imitation – a whitewashing of existing secular pop culture. Some Christians either consciously or unconsciously look at secular pop culture and the arts, and try to Christianize it, instead of creating something new, beautiful, inspiring, and deep – inspired by the Master Artist.
“Can you point me to some “clean” titles, written by genuine, God-loving Christians, with the power to undo a person’s Christianity?”
Sure. My own books. Even the Bible can be used that way. Not that any individual book has power to do that, Christian or not. But no book is without mistakes and no one author is going to match everyone’s expectation of what is Biblical or right.
That was an awesome response! 🙂
The very word, “Christian”, means to be “Christ-like”, not the other way around, and we’re supposed to “strive for perfection”—even though we’re not perfect.
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 3:12 –KJV)
Do you think Jesus would even consider reading material with that kind of stuff in it if He were physically present today? If you say yes, then that would make Christ imperfect. And we already know that He was/is the perfect Lamb of God; and He’s coming back for those without spot or blemish, as His word says.
First off, what “stuff” are you talking about? A very vague question there near the end of your comment. But let’s say for the sake of argument that you are asking if he’d read a book that has cursing in it. (You may be referring to something else entirely)
I’d say, probably so. He’d probably even sit down with the author and talk about the story written.
He hung around with sinners all the time and I am quite certain they weren’t “clean” with their mouths and it went into him by his ears.
You assume that by reading something “with that kind of stuff” it would make him imperfect.
Jesus said it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but rather what comes out.
He’d probably enjoy a good Stephen King novel, and I bet he’d really like the one titled Desperation. 😉
David…Jesus didn’t hang around the publicans and sinners to be like them, he hung around them because they were the ones who were “sick”, as He said, and in need of healing. The Bible never said Jesus went around mimicking them. Those people knew who He was; they could feel His very presence, His power, and His holiness, which is why everyone wanted to touch Him—so they could receive that healing.
Where did I say he was trying to be like them? Where did I say he was mimicking them? Stop it with your strawman arguments and respond to what I said. I’m off of this one.
You said, “He’d probably enjoy a good Stephen King novel…”. That means He would be a partaker, then, which would make Him like them.
A related question is where actual sinful corruption comes from: external sources or the human heart. Jesus answers this question very clearly in passages such as Mark 7. But I think it’s better to start with the “chief end of popular culture”-style question I’ve raised below.
You know, there may be just a few things you and I disagree on, Stephen, but I do love how you come out with guns ablazing, especially on the things we agree on. 😀
‘Tis all lovingly meant, brother. 🙂 Once I thought I had all the Rules for good Christian stories and culture well defined. That changes once you honestly listen to other Christians whose standards are different, yet they honestly claim to be glorifying God in these choices and they live lives of holiness and Godly honor. You either have to call them a liar and state that you know them better than they know themselves, in which case you turn into a domineering manipulator. Or you are forced to re-evaluate your “discernments” and your view of “discernment” itself. For the truly maturing Christian, who never, ever arrives at doctrinal and moral perfection, there is no middle ground: you either say “YOU LIAR!”, or you self-examine.
This is true. I think we’re still Friends on Facebook, unless FB disconnected us as it can be prone to do. Feel free to send me a PM any time, Stephen. There’s a couple of things I’d like to talk with you about which I wouldn’t want to hijack Mike’s blog over. 🙂
T.W., the challenge about what a Christian would read/watch/view/hear, etc., actually starts way before you’ve gotten started. We instead should ask, “What is the chief end of doing these things anyway?” You seem to have assumed the Christian already knows the chief end, the highest purpose for doing those things, and that therefore we can move on and assume worldliness, motives, etc. I want to challenge you to write out your reasons, and then I would love to engage you about those. But I also have this one condition: 1) You don’t know me. 2) I don’t know you. 3) This is the internet, not a local church governed by elders trained in Biblical teaching and discernment (although Mike here is a pastor). 4) Let us govern ourselves accordingly. I will not (yet! 😉 ) call you a legalist who sends hordes of non-Christians screaming from the room, and you will not (yet) call me a compromising pagan who is helping to make the church more like the world. We are both Biblical Christians in this room with a difference on a secondary issue. 5) Let us not use manmade “logic” in any discussion. Scripture and Scripture-derived reasons alone. For example, it may seem “logical” to you that Christians strive to be separate from the world in this-and-such an area, but if Scripture does not specifically prescribe that action, then at best you’ve added to it.
Make sense?
If so, let’s begin. Riddle me this: What is the chief end, the highest Godly purpose, of a Christian who uses such things as novels, movies, and music?
What kind of “novels, movies, and music” are you referring to: Erotica for novels, “Lethal Weapon 4” for movies, and Megadeath or Slayer for music—or are you referring to another kind?
Do you see my point, now?
I’ve only seen some of “Lethal Weapon 4”, when it came on TV, and I didn’t understand what they were saying due to all the vast bleeping.
I’m glad to clarify. I’m referring to any story/media thing. Anything at all. From the anecdote in a Biblical expositional sermon, to an evangelical motion picture such as Courageous, to the secular film. Any. Media Product. At all. What is the Christian’s “chief end” for using it?
Well, I’ll use movies, then. Since you’ve allowed me to group both secular and Christian content together, the “chief end” might depend on the viewer.
My experience may be different from another Christian, since it’s apparent that not all Christians are in “one mind and one accord”, as the Bible says we’re to be.
I’ve watched Courageous, all the way through, and found it edifying. I’ve probably seen Lethal Weapon 4 all the way through (as many times as it’s been on TV), but was distracted due to all the bleeping.
You can believe me or not, but many years ago, a guy asked me if I’d ever watched A Few Good Men.
I told him, yeah, I saw it one time on TV.
He said, “Aww, you didn’t see it, then.”
I said, “What do you mean?”
He said, “You didn’t see it. You missed all the good the stuff.”
I said, “Good stuff? What’s that?”
He said, “You know, the good stuff, the cursing, all the cursing.”
I simply said, “Oh. Okay, whatever you say.”
Legalism has nothing to do with it for me, either. I’m just sick of hearing or seeing loads of profanity. It doesn’t mean I go ballistic when someone utters a few here or there in a movie or program. But if they go ballistic with profanity, I go ballistic with the remote, or I’ll walk out of the theatre.
There’s nothing wrong with having enjoyment. I’m all for it.
All I’ve been trying to do is make a stance in favor of “clean” fiction, no matter the category. And I actually like reading “clean” fiction, because that’s just one of the reasons it’s so enjoyable. Throw in a favorite genre of mine, like horror and suspense, and it’s even better.
On another note: For eleven years, I worked around people who cursed like sailors. It didn’t rub off on me; I just got tired of hearing it. See, I was in a situation beyond my control, so that’s all I heard, day in, and day out.
Some wise investing got me out of that mess, however. I’m sure there’re many others who feel the same way—they’re just sick of hearing it.
This is it for me, however. I’ve enjoyed my stance on this matter, but I feel like I’m wasting my time. I don’t believe “clean fiction” is the “white magic” to ward off “unclean fiction’s” “black magic”. I believe “clean fiction” is for those of us who are sick of all the garbage.
R. L. Copple said it best, “Garbage in, garbage out.”
Good time to exit, because you haven’t answered the question a bit. (It’s more convenient to try to outguess “opponents,” a sure sign of mistrust and quiet desires to manipulate discussions.) Instead you’ve given a lot of anecdotes. We may agree that when megachurch pastors, compromisers, the guys on TV, etc., only “preach” with stories, then they are rejecting Scripture’s authority in life and substituting anecdoes. But that’s also what you’ve done.
The only possible “chief end” you mentioned was “edifying.” But there are many things Christians do that are not “edifying.” (Clearly this discussion you’ve started does not edify you; else you’d say.)
I’ll give a great big old hint. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, based on Scripture, mentions what the “chief end of man” is. Now, based on that “chief end of man,” what could be the chief end of any kinds of stories — or if you prefer a limited genre, of watching films?
I’ve answered that for myself about pop culture. All Christians must answer this question, and have the same answer. Otherwise we will drift along with worldly assumptions about holiness and discernment.
If Jesus were physically present today He’d either be rapturing us or setting up the millenial kingdom, depending on your eschatology. I don’t think we can use what He would do here now as any form of yardstick to live our life, because everyone would make Him into a practitioner of their pet cause. What He chooses to do is what God wants him to do.
The question would be “What does God want us to do?” and I think sometimes we spend way too energy on whether or not He wants us to consume a work of art over the commands we really should be worried about. If you’re worried about perfection, Jesus said in order for the rich young ruler to be perfect, he had to sell all that he had and follow Him. Whether we read a certain book or not seems really minor compared to that and the other commands.
I wish “shit” did have magical powers. My toes would run into a lot less furniture if it did.
I agree with most of your points, but your message is definitely limited to a certain segment of “Christian” fiction readers. Do remember there are readers who want “clean” fiction just because they find vulgarity and sex icky and just want to escape the world for a few hours without being disgusted. They don’t read clean because it makes them better Christians or more faithful or more safeguarded from evil.
I talk to such readers a lot. They read books in the same way some folks watch a movie-of-the-week. Entertainment. Period. They aren’t looking for great faith messages or discernment. They don’t want fiction to stir them up or make them think about great life issues.
This is the reason that Harlequin has brought back its “sweet” lines. No vulgarity, no sex, and no faith elements. Just a fun read without the icky stuff.
BTW, if you ever DO come across a word that’ll magically keep my toes from finding furniture unexpectedly at 4am, let me know.
First off, I like Ramona’s wit. Second, the sentiment of her post is spot on. I mostly read for escape, entertainment, what have you. Sometimes I’m in the mood for a clean romp of fun (in which the icky stuff is vetted for me), other times I want an in-your-face thriller (in which I know to prepare for the vulgarities to come). Third, the magic phase is stinky-pete! But if you say it after the toe jam, it’s too late.
Toe jam is perfectly fine when you add peanut butter.
“How is our rigid avoidance of profanity and R-rated content NOT superstition, a form of white magic that believes the absence and exclusion of specific words makes one more holy?”
It’s not done to make a person more holy. It’s done either because people aren’t willing to read things they find disgusting, morally offensive, or harmful, or because they want to see positive depictions of Christian things.
I think sometimes we get used to stuff and forget how transgressive it is to people who are not inured to it. Spec fic especially loves to cross the line twice, and even if you’re secure enough in your faith to read those things and not be affected by it, it still becomes part of your mental landscape.
Also, the positive things as reasons are often neglected. Like I want to read Christian fiction because people pray in it and aren’t made fun of or seen as self-righteous. I don’t think people get how rare it is to see prayer, or church attendance, or other things be covered even at all in the secular world.
I don’t think either of these can be seen as white magic. I grew up with that; things like Charles Capps’s confession doctrines treat Bible verses almost like incantations to a spell; repeat them enough and good things happen. I think there is a danger that fiction can be used to reinforce bad ideas the church already has; the whole “deliverance and spiritual warfare” thing was NOT helped by Peretti’s books for example. The Left Behind books too; they got ripped on because they revealed attitudes about the Rapture that aren’t healthy. But that’s not magic in your sense.
I agree with your other points though. Yeah, simply reading Christian fiction and immersing yourself in a subculture doesn’t make you more holy. Yeah, we need to be careful about the theological message sent in any work; a good example is George MacDonald, who is a Christian Universalist and a heretic, but was one of C.S. Lewis’s spiritual influences. I’ve rarely seen him taken to task. Just not the white magic part.
“…it still becomes part of your mental landscape.” I pretty much agree with the content of this comment, but this is especially what I wish more people were self-aware of.
Yeah. I’m not a hyper-purity kind of person, but there’s a lot of things that it can be hard to unsee in places you don’t expect it. Like you read Heinlein for his juveniles, and then suddenly come across his ideas on polyamory or free love in Stranger in a Strange Land or Friday.
Good answer, David. The degree to which some Christians argue for clean fiction, however, seems like more than just resisting what they feel is vile. It grows out of a theology or worldview that, I believe, is somewhat warped. I would agree that certain things are vile and evil and disgusting. But where I and the person above would disagree is the degree to which a story can include said elements and not be vile, evil, and disgusting. Appreciate the comment!
Thanks. Yeah that worldview could be the subject of hundred posts. There’s a lot of issues with how we all react to the predominant secular culture, and this is one of them.
You nailed it, Mike. “Bad” words do not have magical power, and avoiding them doesn’t make you holy.
As I read your post I thought about a conversation I had twenty years ago with another Christian. I showed him my imitation scarab, which I’d bought in the British Museum. I thought it was pretty–and that’s about all I thought about it. He, on the other hand, instantly formed all sorts of magical associations with it in his mind–Egyptian gods, demons, spiritual oppression–and suggested I might be in danger by just having the scarab, this inanimate object, in my house.
An extreme example of magical thinking, but I see milder forms of it among Christians who seem almost frightened of Christian fiction that strays beyond the bounds of the CBA.
And then you have to think of the classic quote of how science when not understood can look like magic. We should be wary of pointing our fingers and shouting, “Magic! Heretic!” just because someone is doing something we do not understand.
– Just a side-note there.
Wow! This post has touched on so many different topics, I hardly know where to start, so I think I’ll just jump in and hope my thoughts don’t ramble too much.
First, Mike, I thought you weren’t going to blog as much, yet over the last week or so, you’ve pumped out more posts than usual, have inspired a lot of lively debate, deep thoughts, and a troll whom you had to ask to go away. 🙂
Sorry, I’m rambling already.
Clean Fiction as White Magic
So, can Christians use “Clean Fiction” as white magic? I suppose it’s possible. There are Christians who are strongly into “word of faith” theology. I know some people who were horrified because my wife said, “Hi, Monkey,” to their daughter. They believed that addressing their daughter as “monkey” would make her actually make her one, or at least, act like one. I wish I could say that I am using this story as hyperbole. I wish I could say I am being facetious. But that really happened. Of course, they wouldn’t say that the words, “Hi, Monkey,” are magical. They would argue that because we are created in the image of God, and that God’s spoken words have creative power, our words also have creative power. They would say that if we accused them of using magic that we are verging on blaspheming the Holy Spirit. But, I won’t go there. In that sense, I suppose that if a reader is strongly believes that the words of the text themselves have some sort of power, the reader might be close to crossing the line of using white magic. However, who likely is that to happen? Especially with a novel. Most people who are into that theology usually don’t read novels, but books by the latest Word of Faith preacher du jour.
I believe that the main concern for most Evangelicals is that reading the content of some novels, music, or video games that show sin in a positive light will tempt them to sin, and the actual action of the sin would corrupt them. That seems to me be a different animal than using clean fiction as white magic.
What would Jesus do?
T.W. asks if Jesus would read that kind of “stuff.” Actually, I don’t know. Personally, I don’t like the “What would Jesus do” question because he could do many things without sin that might be sinful to someone else. He could hang around prostitutes without being tempted by them. He could eat with tax collectors, even though he was eating with food paid for with stolen money. He could cleanse the temple without giving into sin in his anger. So I know that there’s things Jesus would do that I wouldn’t. However, are there things he wouldn’t do that I would? My answer is I can’t answer that because Jesus is without sin. Whatever he does would be without sin. He could read erotica without sin because a) He already knows the contents, and b) He could read the material without it causing him to sin. So, it is a fallacy to justify what we can and cannot do based on what Jesus would do.
What is the chief end, the highest Godly purpose, of a Christian who uses such things as novels, movies, and music?
Stephen asks this. My answer is, enjoyment. Unless the activity is something scripture condemns, I don’t believe that we have to justify enjoyment by going to the Bible and seeing if there’s a verse that allows us to do it. We add seasoning to our food to make it tasty. We dress in comfortable clothes. We have heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. We have indoor plumbing. All these things are for our comfort and enjoyment. I think novels, movies, and music go into the same category. God allows us to enjoy ourselves. There’s verses in the Bible I could find to defend that position, but I don’t have time right now.
I think I’m done rambling.
Sorry, found some typos.
They believed that addressing their daughter as “monkey” would make her actually make her one….
should be
They believed that addressing their daughter as “monkey” would actually make her one
However, who likely is that to happen? should be However, how likely is that to happen?
I’m sure there are others, but I’ll pretend they’re not there. 🙂
Who says anyone is yelling heretic? I’m just trying to get someone to answer this one thing for me….
Can you point me to some “clean” titles, written by genuine, God-loving Christians, with the power to undo a person’s Christianity (via “white magic”–because it’s “clean”)?
Dude, no one is going to take you up on that misdirected challenge, and no one needs to, because no one here has claimed that a noun, such as “clean” fiction, has “the power to undo a person’s Christianity.” It’s about the motives of the person using the thing, not the thing itself.
That’s beyond question. So I’ll add another question for you: from where did you get the notion that anyone here said anything like “‘clean’ titles [… have] the power to undo a person’s Christianity”?
His point is more a general trend than specific titles. If you solely focus on consuming Christian works because they are spiritually better or more likely to make you a holier person, that’s close to white magic. It’s because you aren’t looking at the content of things, but the objects themselves cause virtue in the same way people think horror and stuff cause corruption without even opening the book. The book becomes a “cross in your pocket,” rather than evaluated on what it really says.
This also gives the content in the book a pass. I’d probably point to books that promoted patently false ideas for the Christian market, like many of the 80s-90s spiritual potboilers did. Dead Air by Bob Larson, or the Archon Conspiracy by Dave Hunt comes to mind. Books that seemed to make demonic possession far more commonplace than it was fed into the deliverance movement, which led to a lot of pseudo-christian behavior.
I don’t agree that many people interact with fiction that way, but I think I see his argument.
I would just advise that even with people that find demons under every rock we are kidding ourselves if we do not take demonic possession (and oppression) seriously and realize just how prevalent it can be.
Theologians such as Wayne Grudem argue that “demon possession” gives the unfortunate connotation that demons can actually mind-control human beings, sometimes even against their will. Grudem suggests it’s better to translate, and to speak of, “demon oppression” as David mentioned. Regardless, it remains absolutely true that demons, and Satan, while defeated deceively by Christ, are a formidable threat today.
Thanks, E. Stephen, I’m glad we are in agreement there.
Wolves in sheep clothing tend to look like sheep. Christians are not gonna be deceived by straight-up evil –although a few folks might have their lusts kindled by some “bad” books. But the worhip of certain pure women and even the overdone Amish romances have definitely fetishized legalism. Heck some of the strange ideas of good women that are found in christian novels can really put some souls — men and women– in bondage.
As I’ve always said, many Christian books don’t lead people to Christ. They lead people from worldly sin to legalism; they cause people to stop sinning and to start trusting in how righteous they are for believing in God and finally becoming good Christians.
As for whether Jesus would read secular fiction, Jesus knows everyone’s life and our lives are open to him. Our lives are way sicker and sinful than any fiction could be. Jesus doesn’t turn away from our sin or from the sin of people he met. We do know that Paul read secular fiction and some of our favorite quotes in the Bible are Paul quoting secular writers: “In him we live and move and have our being.” OR “We also are His offspring.” Or “Bad company corrupts good morals.” Interesting that Paul read a secular poem in praise of a false God, and equally interesting is that Paul tells us to avoid the wrong company by using a quote from the wrong company…so to speak.
Legalism is as demonic as any other thing, but it’s a legalism Christians often fall into. Paul and James talk about the wisdom that comes from below and Paul’s defintion of carnal would fit so many christians, especially the argumentative, judgmental ones.
On the whole I find Christians often mix up holiness with cultural etiquette/manners/propriety. There is also a sentimental love of sweetness and peace. Some Christians simply have no ability to deal with stress in fiction. Or stress in real life. And some Christians just don’t like thinking. So they lump stories about sex in the same category that they might lump stories about race. And some folks would consider a national geographic story with a naked woman as pornography. It makes them uncomfortable and they say “Christians shouldn’t write/see such things.” Being free from stressful scenes doesn’t make a book Christian. Being free from sex scenes or darkness doesn’t make a book Christian. Being unAmerican in its politics or story culture doesn’t make a book Christian. But many Christians judge Christian art by their own culture.
Like, like, a dozen likes and awarded Internets, Carole.
AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!
This. Yes.
Carole, Well Put! Thank you!
I believe, the majority of the Christian books (that I’ve noticed are legalistic), cause people to be so condemned by the sin consciousness in everything they do, that legalism takes hold. The law was designed to show man that there was no way possible to be perfect. They were comparing themselves to one another and there was no doing that.
The Bible says that whatever is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23). Do we always walk in faith? James 4:17 reveals that sin isn’t only doing things that are wrong, but it’s not doing what we know is right. Would any claim they are loving God and others as they know they should?
By these definitions, we all sin through the weakness of our flesh. It’s impossible to keep every sin confessed. Even if it were possible, that puts the burden of salvation on our backs. There wouldn’t be any peace or rest in our relationship with the Lord if that’s the way it worked (Rom. 5:1).
It’s true that we were all born sinners (Ps. 51:5) and had the nature of the devil working in us (Eph. 2:2-3). But when we came to Christ and received salvation, we became a new person in the spirit.
But now that Christ paid for our sins, past present and future, our spirits are 100% identical to His. It’s our flesh that has to submit to what was already accomplished 2000 yrs ago.
Our hearts are revealed in our actions.
It’s impossible, yes, to be perfect in our flesh. But we can limit things that can be limited (by our free will). We will hear cuss words. We will see things that we wished we hadn’t seen. But what do we do with it? We don’t feel condemned. We move on. We surround ourselves with people who love the Lord. And in turn, we can be a witness to those around us.
We fill our minds with His promises, and good influences. But we can’t be in bondage to the things we see/hear in this world. We, throughout our lives, should be filling ourselves with the Word, learning, understanding, and striving to be better examples. That way our fruit will reveal our ‘root’, and others will want what we have. But what we do, needs to be done in love, not self righteousness. When I mess up, I apologize and strive to do better.
I have a hard time finding good reading material for my teenage son. He loves the vampire books and anything involving magic. So, I came across this site while looking for fiction and non fiction books that he might be interest in. Alternatives that aren’t as damaging….
Still looking……
P.S. Some of my paragraphs above were from this site, FYI:
http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/redemption
http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/hardness_heart
http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/spirit_soul
Joy, our host, Mike Duran, admittedly doesn’t read Christian speculative fiction, so you won’t find titles for your son here. I’d suggest you visit the Speculative Faith library which lists Christian speculative fiction, both traditionally published (larger houses and smaller independents) and self-published. You can search by title, author, or age group, and there are tags to help you find the subject matter of your choice.
I’d recommend, from your description of what you son likes, that you check out Tom Pawlik’s books. His first, Vanished, is an award winner. These are not young adult books, though, but with your approval, may be the kind of book your son likes.
I don’t know how old he is or what else he likes beside vampires, but for “boy books,” I suggest checking out Jill Williamson’s titles. All of them. Some are aimed at a younger audience. Her current series, the Safe Lands, is dystopian fantasy aimed at older YA readers. It includes things like premarital sex and drug addiction.
Hope this helps.
Becky
Rebecca,
Thank you so much. He’s 16. I’m wanting to find books that are intriguing, but nothing like vampire/zombie/magic books. He only got into those when we put him into public school. REGRETTABLY! He’s been a different young man since then. It only took 3 months for him to get tired of mom and dad, and rebel in a big way. He’s been locked up (for drugs/violence) in a boy’s home since July of last year. The influences around him have been awful, to say the least – gang members, and young men who only know a life of crime, repeat offenders, even at 15-17 years of age. It’s not at all where we expected to be last year at this time….I’m shocked at the violent shows and movies that these ‘children’ are allowed, these immature ‘almost adults’ according to the law….They read the foulest books I’ve seen in a long time, and I’ve seen my share. The directors have said, ‘We can’t shelter these boys. They will see it when they get out. So, it’s up to them to make better choices, while in here’. Even though while they are in there, they have no choice but to watch what is in front of them. They can’t go to their sleeping quarters. The only place they have to go is ‘on the wall’ when they get into trouble, and are written up for an infraction (like wrestling or rough house behavior)….He gets written up a lot. He files grievances against workers who have broken the rules repeatedly, and insist on writing up the boys when they don’t follow rules. It’s very inconsistent.
I just want him to have something to look forward to that isn’t damaging. He’s been reading Divergent books, and watching Walking Dead. Although, back in detention hall, they watched Breaking Bad!!!
So, if I can find something that interests him that will help. And when he comes home, we can at least have more influence on him, and hopefully begin to mend our family.
I just looked up Jill Williamson. She sounds great. I’ll continue to follow this site as well. I bookmarked SpecFaith and Tom Pawlik too.
I’m also looking up some Bill Myers. Thank you so much!
Joy, I’m sorry to hear of the trial you and your family are going through. The books I suggested do sound like they might be perfect for your son. Vanished is one of the creepiest, strangest books, but it has such a shocking heaven/hell theme. Jill Williamson’s Mission League books are about a troubled teen who joins the Mission League instead of being shipped off to military school because he is always getting in fights.
If I can help you in any way, please let me know, either by leaving a comment at Spec Faith or at my own site (my name above is linked to it).
Becky
Becky,
LOL, I just saw ‘Becky’ at the tail end of another of your replies on Mike’s site. I came back here and realized I missed it the first time around.
Sorry about that.
I am, however, enjoying jumping around on different sites, and researching the authors.
Thank you again for your response.
Joy
Not a problem at all, Joy. I write using my full name, but my friends call me Becky, so I usually sign my comments that way. But I answer to either. 😉
Becky
Fabulous!
And yes, it’s been a rough year. But God is GOOD all the time!!! I’m excited to see what God has in store for his future. He’s got a plan. We just have to be quiet long enough to listen. lol
To Mike: I think everything you say here is basically true. However, there are indeed things that literature can do, such as: have emotional impacts, good and negative; train the mind to run down certain mental constructs; train the mind to use blasphemy under certain circumstances; etc.
To T. W. Johnson: And all these negative things about literature can also happen with your white magic clean literature as well. (Maybe not cussing) I cannot think of any titles in particular at this moment as I don’t read a lot of “white magic” books, but I have met Christians who believe in reincarnation; who believe there was out there some soulmate for them (extremely pernicious doctrine and toxic to real relationships with real people); who believe all the name it and claim it crap out there; etc. I’m thinking now of all the romance industry that trains people to have unrealistic expectations of love and dissatisfaction with what they ended up with. I’m thinking of the books that the writers may not have meant to convey, and yet did, the concept that we can work hard enough and good enough to earn God’s favor. I’m thinking of the books that use God’s name in vain by using Him as a character that expresses ideas that God never used the Bible to express.
I’m sure we all have a mental list tucked away somewhere of the types of books that teach wrong doctrine despite being “clean”.
I’m also sure none of us want to call out a particular book and then be sued for slander.
So much win, sister!
Hey, Carole, you beat my response by half a second. Everything you said in your comment is good and true. (And I speak as someone who still squirms uncomfortably through your sex scenes.)
I’ve read Stephen’s ideas at Spec Faith and have not responded, as far as I can remember. Reading this idea again, though, makes me think it’s probably time to voice an opinion. I think SOME people MIGHT treat a certain standard of morality as “white magic.” I think there’s a far greater issue though. I think people get theology and morality confused.
Just last week I met a woman raised as a Buddhist who is very moral. She’s responsible, kind, a good mom, encourages her daughters to pray, and believes “being good” is important. She also thought being baptized and going to church make you a Christian. She’s moral but her theology is far from Biblical.
In the same way, there are some stories that place good morality at the head of the class, not good theology. Is it “white magic”? Or is it a misunderstanding of what Scripture says about our relationship with God? Might not some people identifying as Christian think following certain moral constraints will earn them points with God?
A couple things confound the issue. Good morality is a product of a relationship with God. Not instantaneously, but in a progressive manner as we learn to obey His Word.
Also, good morality isn’t a bad thing to put in our fiction. I’d rather see a story that shows the destructive nature of a promiscuous lifestyle, for example, than one that glorifies it. For one thing, the former is more truthful and it is more beneficial.
The problem I have is false theology–saying something about God or about how we can have a relationship with Him that isn’t true. If people want to be silent about theology, that’s their choice. But if they choose to speak and confound morality with theology–intimating that doing good is necessary for salvation–then that’s a problem.
In short, I’ve long said “safe fiction” does not exist. All we read or watch demands discernment. Scrubbing a piece of fiction of anything “offensive” can still leave you with bad theology, but if you’re counting curse words or other moral offenses, you might be swallowing whole some false teaching.
Becky
Just to clarify, I have a greater love for fiction in which right and wrong are clearly portrayed, yet with all the excellent drama and high-risks challenges these contrasts inevitably bring. The story is simply better that way. But more importantly, this is the truth and example set by Scripture. Drawing clear lines between good and evil does not make the story weaker or less-realistic, but more realistic and a more-powerful story. What I was objecting to is people’s motive for opposing certain genres or stories that presumes magical “safety” in certain other Things. I think it’s closer to your critiques of “safe” fiction, Becky — either Christian novels or G-rated secular films that may include anti-Biblical content but get a pass because it’s “wholesome.”
The same could occur when critics of this approach excuse anything un-Biblical in fiction because it’s all for the “greater good” of promoting “realism” in fiction so that those (imaginary?) secular fans will like us.
My intent here, anyway, is to recall that some (not all!) Christians could place value in the Object itself, rather than in our right use of it according to the beauty and holiness we find in Jesus Christ as described in God’s inspired Word, the only perfect Story, the Bible.
The bottom line is faith vs. works, and confident applied wisdom vs. fear-based conformity.
Excessive dependence on outward displays of morality – we can call it works, legalism, white magic, pride, whatever you like.
It’s alive and well in Christian culture.
The popularity of a works-based denomination (Amish) fiction is just one example.
Whitewashing (Christianizing) secular pop culture instead of fearlessly creating our own inspired by our faith is another.
Imagine a scenario with me if you will.
Teenage girl is given a box of Christian romance novels. No one thinks anything of it, because they’re Christian, they’re Safe.
Teenage girl is a voracious reader and consumes twenty in a week.
In the books, girl meets boy, they dither a bit while spouting various amounts of Scripture, then go off into the sunset. Every time like clockwork by page 150.
Teenage girl gets a strong impression that there is something wrong with her because this does not happen in her own life.
This may or may not have happened to me. 😉
Now of course there is nothing actually “wrong” with books like that. And of course the same formula can be found in any romance novel, not just Christian ones. However, because these are touted as Completely Safe, there is no warning that they contain the implied message “There is something wrong with you.” And without a warning, that message can be swallowed whole.
It’s like the label “Christian” can be a magic wand that declares “Safe” and deactivates any otherwise applicable discernment. Thank goodness my own discernment regained consciousness and struggled to its feet, whack on the noggin notwithstanding. And I’ve never read a category romance since. 😛
I agree that Christians use divination methods much more than they realize…but clean fiction as white magic…I’ll have to ponder that for awhile.
Mike, Jesus also spent three days and nights in hell (oops, I just said hell, don’t stone me yet), but that doesn’t mean us mere mortals are capable of doing the same. He was, after all, part God, and part man. Obviously, He would’ve be able to do things we can’t, say things we probably shouldn’t, and go where we’re incapable of going without it affecting Him in the least.
Furthermore, He created Lucifer, and prior to it, knew he would turn against Him. He created the Tree of Good and Evil, and warned Adam and Eve not to eat of it. Isn’t it something, that their one act to question goodness and “cleanness”—has led the human race to separation from God by default?
My answer is no, we are not God. He survived the devil’s wilderness temptation without fail. He carried the wait of the world’s sin on His shoulders, died, and then rose by His own power.
When He returns, He’ll be returning for a church that is without spot or blemish, “cleanness”, so it is in our best interest, as Christians, to—yes—”strive” for that “cleanness”, and questioning the “cleanness” of Christian fiction, and attributing it to a form of “white magic”, in any way, probably doesn’t help our situation.
Some have brought Christian non-fiction into the mix on your blog, which was never the subject; and I probably wouldn’t care to read most of what’s out there today. I’ve never been an advocate of the prosperity doctrine, and I certainly would never endorse the charismatic kundalini movement, or Rick Warren’s new religion, chrislam. I’m digressing, though.
No, I don’t believe we “should” deliberately allow temptation as He did. Because:
(James 1:13-15 – KJV)
(13) Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
(14) But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
(15) Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
In addition, as someone else already stated (1 Corinthians 15:33 – KJV), “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners”, even if it did originate from paganism.
Jesus did say in (Luke 19:40 – KJV), “And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”
It doesn’t take someone with a four-year degree from a seminary college to understand the above passages—they’re plain and simple.
I actually have a degree, by the way, just not in theology.
I’m done here, though; and have defended my stance on the matter using sound doctrine from God’s Word.
(Hebrews 4:12 – KJV)
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Sorry, you really haven’t. A bunch of proof texts does not a concrete position or doctrine make.
Also, good news! There is nothing you nor I nor anyone can do to make the church a spotless bride! It’s all grace! It’s all by the power of the Holy Spirit! It’s all by the one who is in charge of the church at this moment, Jesus!
That’s good news. I’m glad he’s in charge, aren’t you?
Additionally, since God’s word (which is good) has power, as Hebrews 4:12, states, then yes, the flip side would have power as well—but you’re a professional dispenser of words, Mike, so you already know they contain power, which is why you’ve brought up the question of “cleanness” in Christian fiction to begin with.
Yes, words do have power, Stephen—Hebrews 4:12 just proved this. Whether dealing with fiction or non-fiction, Christian or secular, the words within in them carry power, to encourage or discourage, to heal or to hurt.
In addition, the Bible says that demons where subject to the very name, Jesus. Sure, there were those in scripture who used His name without authority, but that’s another issue. The issue here is whether words actually contain power…and they do—”in the name of Jesus”, these are words of power.
I’m going to start using that in online discussions from now on.
“In the name of Jesus, cease your babbling and answer the question!”
“In the name of Jesus, I command you to provide a sound doctrine from the word of God!”
Could be helpful and very powerful for responding to people online. AND it’s another good example of the “white magic” Christians tend to use to control or alter their environment. If I just say these magic words, something will happen! Well, no, not necessarily.
Hmmm, then maybe it really is “white magic”, huh?
Let me see, Jesus said, “Peace be still,” and the storm ceased. Words of power? I guess it depends on whether or not you truly believe it happened.
God said, “Let there be light, and there was light”. Words of power? What else would you call it? Wishful thinking?
The Bible says that God SPOKE the world into existence. You either believe it to be so, or you don’t. God could’ve dreamed it all up if He wanted to, but then again, we also know that God neither “sleeps or slumbers”.
You demonstrate a lack of discernment about the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God — and I fear you prove Mike’s (and my) point about the magical/mystical thinking that has infiltrated the theology of many Christians. Find actual Biblical prescriptions for thinking there is supernatural power in words like that, and power Christians can use, or else chuck it as false teaching.
You don’t seem to believe that Jesus literally “spoke” to the storm, either. Is it your view that scripture is merely figurative or symbolic? If that’s the case, then you and I have two completely different set of beliefs.
I have no idea what your denominational faith is, but I’ve been a lifelong Pentecostal for 41 years. I don’t believe in the newer, charismatic, Kundalini movement (which is mysticism) that infiltrated the Assemblies of God years ago. That includes the laughing, barking, and growling movement that Rodney Howard-Browne instigated. I don’t believe in the prosperity gospel, either.
And for you say that I “demonstrate a lack of discernment about the communicable and incommunicable attributes of God”, then that must mean you do. Are you insinuating discernment in those areas?
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
(Isaiah 55:8-9)
I don’t believe any human can discern God. All we have to go by is scripture, and the Holy Ghost, who is just as indiscernible.
TW, you’re all over the map with what you’re saying–the verses you use are yanked out of context and in some cases have nothing to do with their intention (see for example, “I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.”)
You use a verse that teaches God’s transcendence as if it was saying God isn’t knowable. What, then, did He mean when He said, “Let him who boast, boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord. (Jer. 9:24, emphasis mine).
If I remember correctly, you also said you wouldn’t learn something from this discussion. Well, I hope you do learn one thing: Jesus is not part God and part man (“He was, after all, part God, and part man.”) Rather, “In Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9) but “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7) Take all the verses about Jesus and you can’t come up with a theology that indicates some of Jesus’s nature was deity and some humanity. It isn’t in Scripture.
Becky
Becky:
“Taking it out of context”—that’s a blanket saying, which has proliferated like crazy, and has been overused on cable news when the opposition wants to commandeer an argument.
I’m quite certain I used the “rocks crying out” passage for illustration purposes, and it was originally meant to reply to something said on Facebook, but got posted here as well, when I was trying to focus my efforts here and there at the same time, though I don’t remember at the moment. Nonetheless, it was to show that “all of creation will cry out in praise” if we don’t.
Those who are Spirit-filled and “glorify God” are given the understanding of God’s (Jeremiah 9:24) “lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness”, while (1 Corinthians 1:18) “…the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness…”
The Bible is clear that the Spirit of God can reveal much to them who He indwells, but that still doesn’t mean we’re going to “fully know” the mind of God, to any great extinct. Here are more passages about “not knowing the mind of God”, though.
Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. (Isaiah 40:28)
“…there is no searching of his understanding”
(33) O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (34) For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? (Romans 11:33-34)
“…how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out?”
Look back on that post. I never said, “…wouldn’t learn something from this discussion”. I said, “…there’s no one here who can say something I don’t already know”. Just because I might know it, doesn’t mean I can’t learn. Let me also add ‘something I probably haven’t already heard’ as well—to be clearer, just so no one gets the wrong idea.
I don’t make this claim laxly. You see, I’m the son of an evangelist of over three decades, the nephew of an evangelist, and the grandson of two pastors (God rest their souls), of which one had well over four decades of being in the ministry, not to mention his additional years as a devout Christian prior to God’s service.
I’m no newcomer to Christ, either, with 33 years behind me, and an even longer presence of service in the church.
In addition, nine years of my childhood revolved around church, camp meetings, and old-fashioned tent revivals for nearly seven days a week, as ridiculous and unbelieving as it may seem. That was just nine years, but I didn’t stop going or serving thereafter.
It’s as if you’re correcting yourself here: first, you say, “Jesus is not part God and part man”, then you say, “(“He was, after all, part God, and part man.”)”. We should believe either that He was, or that He wasn’t—yea or nay.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
The meaning of the above passage is clear: “…the Word was made flesh…”
It seems that many of us here have divergent views concerning the literal, figurative, and symbolic interpretation(s) of the Bible. I, myself, am not a literalist. I believe in the amalgamation of all three simultaneously. Others may not agree, and that’s fine.
No Christian agrees 100% with every other Christian in the world when it comes to interpretation(s). That doesn’t make any one person completely correct, either—including me. No human can definitely understand—in totality—the literal, figurative, and symbolic meaning(s) of God’s Word, regardless of their assurance.
After I reply to one other person, I’ll be finished with this thread. I’m tired of explaining and defending my stance and beliefs, etc., and see no reason to do so any longer.
T. W.,
The quoted part, “He was, after all, part God, and part man,” was your words, not hers. She was simply quoting where you said what she’s saying you said.
The point is Jesus is not half man, half God. He is fully man and fully God, without confusion of the two natures, mixture, or separation. He is 100% of both natures/substances, etc. The verses you gave support that.
Not to sidetrack you. I know you are trying to bow out. You may not have meant that Jesus is part God and part man like Hercules is, but only that He has both fully. If you did mean that, then it is a Christology that puts the whole plan of salvation in question.
But that would be a discussion for a different place. I’m just suspecting you didn’t catch what Rebecca tried to convey, but you actually agree with her. Though I could be wrong.
Thanks, R. L.
You’re right, I was distracted and used bad terminology, so I do apologize—I hope Becky sees this, too.
No, certainly not like Hercules—I wanted to say that Christ is “100%” both—it just didn’t come out that way at the time. In the end, I confused myself with Becky’s quote of my confusion. LOL!
Yeah, I need to bow out now, though. I’ve worn myself down trying to keep up, while I should be focusing on other things.
I just come from a long-line of stubbornness, and feel compelled for some crazy reason to prove my point at all costs. And I seldom get involved in these types of discussions, but can’t seem to stop when I do.
“I just come from a long-line of stubbornness, and feel compelled for some crazy reason to prove my point at all costs. And I seldom get involved in these types of discussions, but can’t seem to stop when I do.”
I know that feel, man.
Becky’s right, though, that you’ve been all over the map. Doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement (as there is for any of us). And no, I don’t hold liberal views of Scripture. But we should also recognize that many of our beliefs about “the literal meaning” of a text are in fact foreign imports from our own traditional backgrounds and feelings. What I mean is that though surely Jesus had power in His Words, there is absolutely nothing in Scripture that says we also have this power. That’s the wrong kind of “mysticism” part. Jesus had the power, not words in and of themselves. And I can serve the same Lord with my charismatic brothers and sisters, yet I will point out when they seem to be buying into the wrong sort of manmade “white magic” when it comes to faith or words or the “word-faith” movement. If we’re talking about “good magic” to mean the miraculous power God uses to accomplish His own ends, then we’re fine. But if we’re talking about the kind of manmade “white magic” that’s condemned in Deut. 18 — the kind that people use to try to protect against the darkness, protect their families, and save their nations from invaders — that does not honor God.
It’s not the words that caused the storm to stop, but God’s power in Christ. The woman who touched the hem of Jesus’s garment was healed without Him needing to speak, and when Paul was bitten by a snake on an island, he just shook it off. I grew up charismatic too, and one of the things they are wrong about is that words don’t force or summon God to act.
Words do have power, but it’s due to the content of them, not metaphysical forces implied by saying the right ones. You can rebuke that cold in Jesus’s name all you like, but it doesn’t make you get healed-God’s power and His will does.
D.M.,
You said:
“It’s not the words that caused the storm to stop, but God’s power in Christ.”
Well, yeah, because Christ is God, the second person—if you believe in the trinity.
I and my Father are one. (John 10:30)
Also:
And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (Matthew 28:18)
Yes, answered prayer can arrive via quite mediation, but the same is true for the audible method.
Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. (Matthew 21:21)
“… ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed… it shall be done”
You said:
“…words don’t force or summon God to act.”
But scripture says:
If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. (John 14:14)
And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (John 14:13)
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. (Psalm 91:15)
You said:
“Words do have power, but it’s due to the content of them, not metaphysical forces implied by saying the right ones.”
But scripture says:
And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; (Mark 16:17)
I’m not implying metaphysical forces in this instance. Select words don’t matter, either. I merely echoed the words Jesus spoke at that time, such as “Peace be still”, because those were some available from scripture.
You said:
“You can rebuke that cold in Jesus’s name all you like, but it doesn’t make you get healed-God’s power and His will does.”
But scripture says that we have been given the authority to cure.
Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. (Luke 9:1)
Strong’s Concordance – nosos: disease, sickness
That wasn’t just for the disciples, either, it was for all-time.
1. Yeah, I made the distinction because of Matthew 28:18. Jesus is God the Son, but He mentions that His power comes from the Father. John 5:26-5:30. How does it go, The Father commands, the Son obeys, the Spirit proceeds?
2. I’m probably going to get hammered for this, but I think some of Jesus’s words in the new testament were hyperbole to prove a point. The context of that verse was the disciples marveling at how a fig tree withered, and I think Jesus was saying “If you have faith, you will do more marvelous things than that. I don’t think He literally gave us the power to throw mountains in the sea any more than He literally meant that it’s better to gouge our eye out to avoid sin and hell.
3. “But scripture says…” You kind of prove my point there. Mat 7:7-11 illustrates that God gives us things not because He is compelled to act when we ask, but because He is good and loves us. Or He acts in a way that His glory is made manifest.
The problem is with a “reminder” theology. If we can just remind God about those verses, suddenly He becomes sheepish and has to act. There’s some measure of compulsion in using verses like that in charismatic theology, and it’s not good. This is because God is sovereign, and our prayers don’t compel His action. If He doesn’t act, charismatics too often blame the asker next for not having faith or not confessing enough.
4. Yeah, we have authority in the name of Christ to do things. I just mean that the words themselves don’t have power. The seven sons of Sceva found this out the hard way.
5. But healing in this sense is mostly done for God’s glory. The point about the cold was that it’s not for trivial things and the promises of God aren’t to be abused.
There’s also a lot of Christian Science in charismatic theology. The idea that disease is something that can be corrected if the believer has faith enough or happens because the believer confesses the wrong things. While Charismatics don’t believe in them as illusory, there’s some worrying similarity between the two ideas otherwise.
I’m not a cessationist; I think it’s possible for God to heal as He wills. I just don’t think the Bible promises compel him to act in a certain way all of the time regarding physical suffering.
E. is right. We have way too many divination practices in the church. And almost all of this is a result of bad theology. We’ve got a weird notion of purity, that if we just avoid the garbage we will somehow either remain pure or become “more pure”. Doesn’t all our purity come from God? We’re still simultaneously saint and sinner, despite how much we scream to deny it. None of us are pure; our purity comes from God.
If ‘garbage in, garbage out’ is a static 1:1 thing, not only did Jesus himself take in all the garbage of the world, but then we’d be the most pitiful of people on this world for all the garbage we must expunge. You won’t find ‘garbage in, garbage out’ anywhere in Scripture. Instead, you will find verses that say a Christian’s life is one of repentence. You’ll find verses about grace. You’ll find verses about mercy. And you’ll see believers get dirty in this world and come out of it often as dirty…but utterly forgiven.
You are correct, Stuart, that mercy, repentance, and grace are needed to live in this world without being of the world. We will encounter “garbage” and but by His grace, there go I in a way not to be influenced by it.
However, you said:
That is not completely true. Yes, not those exact words, but the principle is clearly there:
Plus, the concept itself is self-evident truth. Not, as you say on a 1:1 basis (I don’t repeat a “bad” word just because I hear it) but if I listen to it enough it can start to sound “normal” and “everyone is doing it” sense, so over time I could start using it.
Likewise on other issues. Hang around sinful activities enough and they can become acceptable. You see this in the world all the time. Being I deal with marriage and infidelity in groups that are a mixture of atheist, pagan, Christian, etc., I hear and read the concept “man is not by nature monogamous.” Why do they think that? Because they experience the Fall as our “normal” state of existence. The fact is, by the nature God created us with before it was corrupted by the Fall, monogamy was natural.
This is why St. Paul says:
What Mike’s post really deals with is how we implement holiness into our lives, and goes back to the error of the Pharisees that Jesus accused them of:
It is true, as Mike says, that some believe and practice the avoidance of certain things in a legalistic fashion while ignoring matters of greater concern. And by so doing strain at a gnat while swallowing a camel. Traditionally called legalism, but he’s using the term “white magic.”
However, the converse is not logically true: that by eating the gnat, we avoid the camel. As a matter of fact, Jesus tells them they should have done both! Strain at the gnat and the camel. Their hypocrisy was not due to straining at a gnat, but by allowing the successful avoidance of eating the gnat to create pride. Such pride makes us feel better about ourselves, morally superior to another, so that we can ignore our heavier sins.
The fact is our holiness should affect how we live in this world. It should have a cultural manifestation that is “not of this world.” So far I don’t hear anyone arguing that it shouldn’t. Rather, that interpretations of what that should and does change may not be universal.
I was saved at 16 and became a member of the Nazarene Church. I went to college at a Nazarene institution, received a BA in religion, and pastored two churches before heading a different direction. The Nazarene manual had a nice list of dos and don’ts like not going to the theater, no dancing, no cussing, modest clothes, etc. Some of that has become more generic over time. Like I think now there is something about evaluating the influences of certain entertainments overall, rather than saying avoid theaters.
Others willingly take in the worst of the worst, believing it can’t affect them or their salvation.
There is a middle road. We can’t avoid a certain amount of garbage in this life. But how much of it is beneficial to go seeking out after? And if we do, is it sin or just not the best thing for us to take in? (hint: that depends on your heart.)
Let’s look at one example. The word shit has become a no-no explicative. I grew up believing only bad people said such things, including crap. We would have gotten in trouble from mom if she heard one of us say either of those words as a Southern Baptist PK kid.
But we could have run around all day saying poop and she wouldn’t have blinked an eye, even though they mean exactly the same thing. That’s hypocrisy for you.
Not only that, but whether you say poop or shit as an explicative about something you don’t like, it fits, because most people don’t like poop either. Same thing with hell. It’s a bad place. But to tell someone to go to hell is wishing damnation on their souls. Not a Christian attitude at all and contrary to God’s wish that all men be saved.
As my kids have grown up, the idea that crap is a bad word is foreign to them. It’s the equivalent of poop.
IOW, there are different interpretations of what constitutes “filthy language” not only among groups, but culturally over time.
That’s why I’m proposing we go with the Biblical cuss word: dung. “Dung! I’m not touching that!”
Cussing itself is generally not sinful (though I take exception with the F-bomb because it references something God created to be good, sex, in a negative and derogatory way), but it can be used in a sinful way.
Of course, going back to the point, hang around anything enough, it can start to reap negative fruit in one’s life. Some we can’t avoid, but neither should we test God by throwing ourselves off cliffs because angels will catch us. We should not presume on God’s mercy either.
Dung is not the biblical cuss word. That’s an interpretation choice chosen by a translator most likely under pressure to avoid “dirty words”. There’s always a filter in place we need to be aware of.
Saying dung is a cuss word was being a bit silly. I put snark in ankle brackets around it to indicate that, but of course the software saw them as unrecognized html tags and removed them.
That said, recognizing it is older English translation of the original language, they could have put shit in there to say the same thing. Not sure if that word was in use back in King James’ day. lol.
But anyone is free to start using dung as their explicative of choice. You’ll get fewer gasps while sipping coffee at a church functions.
“However, the converse is not logically true: that by eating the gnat, we avoid the camel. As a matter of fact, Jesus tells them they should have done both!” This. To the Tenth Power.
Thanks for saying that I wanted to say, only better.
I always appreciate it when R.L. Copple speaks, so I want to make it clear what I am going to say is not a direct response to him even though I am tagging it under his comment.
It’s an amazing thing to me how the “F-bomb” is one of those words which becomes so offensive when used above others. I’m not endorsing it’s use (and if this comment gets deleted by Mike later I will fully understand, so please Mike, if you have to delete this I’ll leave it at that and would appreciate still being able to post comments in the future as I am posting this for educational benefit), but I would like to point out how the word got started because so few know the origin. Even the wikipedia article on the word leaves out the origin, which surprises me since I heard this from more than just one person in more than one conversation.
It was a long time ago in this tiny village, and I can’t remember the country, but it was a small European one as I recall, where the word originated. The origin story, as you will see, became the basis for a very famous work of fiction.
Basically, if someone was caught having sex outside of marriage (I don’t know if it mattered whether they were actually married or not as long as it wasn’t their spouse) then they were given a very unique punishment. They were forced to carry around in the town square a big piece of wood on their shoulders with the acronym of F.U.C.K. on it.
What that acronym stood for was “Found Using Carnal Knowledge”. Over the course of time the acronym blended into the language of the people outside of the village although it was used sparingly and became a word considered “vulgar”.
Over the course of time the origin of the word was kept but some people didn’t learn this origin. Frankly, if it hadn’t been for the independent conversations I had with separate people I wouldn’t have fully accepted this as truth.
I’m sure you can see how this became the basis for the story of “The Scarlet Letter”. The writer of that couldn’t just use the “F” word by that point because it had long since became known as a curse word or profanity and still very “vulgar”.
So I do find it interesting how an acronym which was used to curb sexual sin and was offensive for the guilty party is now used as a word which people find offensive for different reasons.
I sincerely hope this comment has not offended anyone, and again, I am not endorsing the use of the word (even though I am quite guilty of the use of the word my own self), but I did want to let you know the origin if you had never known that before as I have always found it interesting.
Again, if Mike feels the need to delete this comment, I fully understand. I just hope he doesn’t feel the need to block me from further comments.
Word origins are always interesting. Thanks David for the info.
Of course, often word usage changes from the original context so that the original meaning doesn’t play into it much.
Merriam-Webster gives several definitions of verb and noun usage. The basic two meanings is the act of intercourse and “usually vulgar —used especially with the as a meaningless intensive.” Both labeled as “usually vulgar.”
I personally don’t get offended by it, but I don’t care to have a whole string of them in my readings, though I just read such a short story this week where the word was used quite frequently.
My objection is the denegration of what God created to be good. Hell isn’t good. Neither is shit. Those are valid negatives to use when you don’t like something. Sex is not supposed to be a negative. So I don’t care to use a word for sex as saying I don’t like something.
It is only evidence why our society is so messed up when it comes to sex. We’ve gone so far from what sex is about, most people don’t have a clue where to start looking for it, or even know that they should be.
There’s just one problem with that little story: some “tiny European village” is using English as their “scarlet letter”? Not buying it! Oxford English Dictionary says, “ORIGIN early 16th cent.: of Germanic origin (compare Swedish dialect focka and Dutch dialect fokkelen); possibly from an Indo-European root meaning [strike,] shared by Latin pugnus ‘fist.’ ”
But does it matter? The point is, society has dubbed fuck an offensive word for the sex act. It’s the same for shit versus pooh. Until use changes (and language meanings do change), these certain words have an offensive intent.
Becky
And of course the English language did not come from Europe but rather another continent.
StuartB, you said, “You won’t find ‘garbage in, garbage out’ anywhere in Scripture.”
You’re wrong. It may not say it in those exact words…however….
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
(Genesis 2:17)
Sounds like ‘garbage in, garbage out’ to me, because there’s nothing “good” about “death” unless your heart is right with God when it comes knocking.
And the thing you said about grace. Yeah, we have grace, but Paul cautioned us not to abuse the gift.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
(Romans 6:1-2)
Nevertheless, to everyone here, my primary argument is that we shouldn’t tamper with Christian fiction—regardless of genre (even horror)—to make it read more like, or identical to, secular fiction. The world has plenty enough of it already. If we take the Christian minority’s fiction away, by reshaping it too much, little will be left of an already scarce niche. As Christians, we need to retain at least a degree of defining virtues—else the world might say to us, “You have nothing new to offer me.” Sadly, it would be true.
Additionally, I want to make it abundantly clear for anyone who’s curious—yes, I like horror, sci-fi, and fantasy just as much as the next person, though for myself, I may approach the secular side with a little more caution than others. I don’t run and hide from curse words, though there was a point when I became sick of hearing it. I don’t want to come across as a “killjoy”, either, or for anyone to think I’m being rude. I’m merely stating my opinions on this matter, while trying to defend the current state of Christian fiction to the best of my ability.
It really doesn’t need a secular upgrade to make it more welcoming for non-Christians, because you may then lose its designated audience, while “maybe” gaining one that doesn’t even care. Is the risk worth it? Just leave it be, so when a non-Christian does happen to read a title, they’ll see a difference, and that difference may be what wins them over. If they get angry and combative after reading it, and decide to leave a bad review or something, then their being convicted, and said book accomplished its goal.
I’m not advocating legalism, either, by the way—for those who think otherwise. I’m merely being a proponent of “clean fiction”, and its merits. Christians aren’t the only ones who prefer it, you know. I’ve had plenty of non-Christian friends and acquaintances over the years that harbor distaste for profanity, etc.
Thanks for your clarity, T.W. With that in mind, I may need to roll back some of my earlier criticism that you’re simply another internet troll. Let me know. With this in mind, though, the “chief end” question becomes even more vital for us to answer about pop culture. Whether we like it or not — and oftimes I hate it — we will encounter Christians who believe differently about what’s best in pop culture than we do. And they are (despite our best efforts) completely immune to any of our attempts to tag them as simple antionimians are compromisers who despise holiness.
Not everybody who argues the unpopular sentiment and doesn’t prefer to soften his language is a troll. A troll is somebody who is argumentative/rude/combative about off-topic points.
No troll here, Stephen; I’m the genuine thing, from the old school of thought, which may be due to my topographical location—mid Florida. Who knows? Just please…don’t ask me to perform any snake handling, although there might be someone on here who’d like to slip me a bottle of strychnine.
I never did get around to answering your “chief end” question, though, so here I go, but it’ll be in the form of a question. Sorry, I can’t give you a better answer than the following.
If the “chief end of man” is to glorify God and enjoy Him, what is the “chief end of erotic fiction”? Would it glorify God as well; and what would He think of our enjoying it? It’s an extreme example, but also a logical one.
Since we’re supposed to do everything unto the Lord, how would we justify—to Him—reading erotica or a book full of blasphemies against Him. Show me the Godly glory in erotica, blasphemies, or vulgarities, because the two just don’t seem to blend very well. Then again, I’m sure we all do even the simplest things that don’t glorify God, in our everyday lives. We’re only human.
Glad to come to a better understanding about you. It helped when you quit citing evangelical cred (which, despite your intention, puts my spidey senses on high alert for trolls and would-be internet kingdom-builders) and started interacting. That’s cool. I hope it continues. And I hope Mike feels the same.
Nope, the chief end of someone using erotic fiction, inevitably, would be to sin. I doubt anyone here defends porn. But I understand the point coming up when some professing Christians out there do seem to want to defend porn … I guess … I mean, if they’re doing that, it’s not out in public, really.
Here’s the thing: if we limit the discussion to any implication that “the other guy is only using this to defend his sin,” we’re not going to get anywhere. At some point we need to start thinking with more of an eternal perspective. I’m afraid I raise the bar even higher when it comes to fiction and art of any sort. Some Christians ask, “is there anything objectionable in it”? That’s a boring question and at best renders the thing “neutral.” I don’t believe in “neutral” use and I do not believe in “gray areas.” Nor do I believe in “black and white” thinking! So at the risk of being confusing there, I sharpen the question and ask again: based on the answer to “what is the chief end of man?”, what is (read: ought to be) the chief end of man using any creative Thing such as a movie, song, novel, or artwork?
Well, thanks for allowing me to post like an insane person on your website/blog, Mike. I hope no one takes anything I’ve said too personally—it was never my intention to upset anyone. Your articles just get me all riled up at times. Now I have to go work on some “white/black magic” of my own. LOL!
I’m glad to see that some common ground was found in the ongoing discussion. That is always good to see.
I’d like to add some thoughts not expressed so far, and I’m not looking for a debate, just to bring things up from how I view things and to hopefully bring some clarification on what seems to be some confusion in some people’s minds. This may or may not work, and again I’m not looking to begin a debate.
One of the criticisms I’ve seen on here from a number of people is toward the Charismatic movement and things that go on there as if they are using “white magic”.
Just as T.W. was raised Pentecostal, I was raised primarily Pentecostal/Charismatic with a healthy dose of the other denominations as well. I’ve been a person that has spent a lot of time growing up reading the Written Word of God and praying to the Father in the name of the Living Word of God (Yeshua/Jesus) by the power of the Holy Spirit. I’ve experienced those week long camp meetings where people wave their hands in the air while dancing to the point I used to think their hands had become like a helicopter rotating around their wrists. 😉
I know the power of God and I have studied the Bible to have satisfaction in understanding the difference. I am not one that likes to “fake” it. The only time I ever was overwhelmed by the Spirit of God to fall down, it was actually the Spirit of God and not someone pushing on me to go down. Indeed, no one laid a hand on me. I’ve definitely experienced the “push” from humans. I don’t buy that fakeness and call them on it when it occurs as I am able to.
I also have been in services where the prophetic word is spoken and later see the results of it. This is Biblical and New Testament, so I take issue with people that want to criticize this move of God as if it is “white magic”.
I’ve even experienced the joy of the Lord to the point where I was laughing. It has been dubbed “Holy Laughter” and when this phenomenon became popular through Browne (he was not the first to have this occur at his meetings incidentally, it goes back a good ways over time) I saw the abuse of it as well as the genuine.
I do not understand the “barking” and “growling” and have never experienced it, but that aspect didn’t seem to last all that long as leaders realized that the enemy was trying to hijack a move of God with false evidence. Benny Hinn was one of the leaders which stated unequivocally “The Holy Spirit does NOT bark!”
I have been in the room where the Holy Spirit’s presence is so thick that people are shaking and dancing and moaning. They can’t even speak and when they do only unknown tongues come out. At some of these same meetings people have been miraculously healed by the power of God. I’m talking metal pins in people dissolving and being replaced by what is supposed to be there naturally.
I have seen videos of this “kundalini” thing and trying to compare it to what God is doing. All I can say to that is just as there is a difference between a prophet of God and a psychic, the enemy will always do his best to imitate what God is doing in order to discredit God.
This discredit and imitation goes back to the first temptation at the garden. Looking at Genesis 3:1b-5 (Concordant Version)
The serpent said to the woman: “Indeed did Elohim say, You shall not eat from every tree of the garden?”
(She then responded in a way which wasn’t exactly what Elohim had said)
The woman replied to the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; yet of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden Elohim said, You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it lest you should die.”
(Now that she has misspoken what Elohim had actually said, the serpent uses that to twist things further)
But the serpent said to the woman: “Not to die shall you be dying; for Elohim knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be unclosed, and you will become like Elohim, knowing good and evil.”
There are many ways to look at this temptation. It’s a multitude of temptations rolled up into one. But let’s examine it for a moment to show how unoriginal the serpent was. We will look at the entire conversation.
– “Did Elohim say” – And Yahweh Elohim instructed on the human, saying 2:16
– “You shall not eat from every tree of the garden” – “From every tree of the garden you may eat, yea eat.” 2:16 (God said they could eat from every tree)
– “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden” – “From every tree of the garden you may eat, yea eat.” 2:16
– “yet of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden Elohim said” – “But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” 2:17 (apparently the tree was located in the midst of the garden)
– “You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it lest you should die.” – “you must not eat from it; for on the day you eat from it, to die you shall be dying.” 2:17 (Elohim said nothing about dying from touching it, she added that, or perhaps Adam did when telling her what Elohim had said and she was quoting Adam)
– “Not to die shall you be dying” – “on the day you eat from it, to die you shall be dying.” 2:17 (taking what God said and reversing it to mean the opposite)
– “for Elohim knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be unclosed, and you will become like Elohim, knowing good and evil.” – So Elohim created humanity in His image; in the image of Elohim He created it: male and female He created them. 1:27 (Elohim had already created them like Elohim, there was no way they could be more like Him than they already were; they merely lacked some knowledge He had not shared with them yet)
I could do a similar break down on the three temptations Jesus went through after his days of fasting. I could also go throughout the Bible and give illustrations of this including the staffs turning into serpents with Moses and Pharoah.
The point here is that the enemy doesn’t come up with anything original, he only takes what God has already said or already is doing it and adjusts it to discredit God.
So comparing what God has been doing at some meetings where people have been seeking Him to this kundalini thing just shows that the serpent is still up to trying to discredit Elohim.
There is power in words, but it’s not just the “words” themselves. If we’re in a room together and someone says “Mike”, chances are Mike Duran will look up. His name was spoken and he wants to see who spoke it and if they have something worth saying to him. That’s power. It’s not “white magic”, but there is power there. He wouldn’t have responded if the name “Stephen” was said or “T.W.” or any other name.
And there is power in the Word of God, the Written Word and the Living Word (which amounts to the same thing, yes, as the Word is the Word is the Word). Where error occurs is when people begin thinking that merely by quoting something God has said and applying it in a way He did not intend that they are to somehow obligate Him to comply with what they are wanting. This is just the trick of the serpent again being played out through the humans doing it instead of himself. He wants to get the image of God to do his dirty work for him.
It is one thing to read the Bible and quote “By His stripes they were healed” and “they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover” and believe it to the point of conducting action because of it. God honors faith and He also has his own timing. Healing always occurs, we are not the ones to control God’s timing as to when we see it. This does not mean we should not act in faith and believe, and continue believing even when we do not see immediate results. Likewise, if the prayer of faith has been prayed then the person being prayed over should begin to move in faith to see what God has done. I, myself have prayed over people several times within an hour and seen a progression as each time they acted in faith and were able to do something they couldn’t do before even if not completely healed at first. I just kept praying as many times as they would let me and they kept acting in faith afterwards each time. So that is one thing.
It is quite another thing to read the Bible and quote “Ask and it shall be given to you” and then you ask for something God would not desire such as the destruction of someone you dislike. God will not honor that and Jesus gives us the illustration when he rebukes the sons of thunder when they wanted fire to come down and consume a town.
We all come from different backgrounds in the church. I can understand the criticism of when things are abused, as I am critical of that abuse as well and am wary of each new person on the scene, but I will not stand for criticism of what I have seen to be true moves of God in the Body of Believers.
I am not looking for debate here, just taking my stand and I hope that it is understood I am quite in agreement with the vast majority of the conversation here. I just had to make this clarification. If I need to clarify further I will as I can, but I am not here to debate this, so understand where I am coming from please.
I’m ex-charismatic. I was raised in a small Word of Faith church, and attended it on and off for like twenty years. I saw the laughing revival first hand in my own church, although we were spared the barking and stuff. The barking and things aren’t alien to the movement either; we were called Holy Rollers because there always was an ecstatic edge to charismatic practice.
The problem I had was that after awhile, the charismatic stuff seemed to be humans trying to make rules for something that is a mystery, and they’d do a lot of “in the flesh stuff.”
Like the believer who thinks she has a gift of prophecy. Problem is that over time, I saw that they didn’t really have a gift; they just liked to exhort people and encourage them, and their prophecies didn’t come true. Or having healing lines, and watching the husband of my mother’s friend constantly go up to get healed for a disability. Or the laughter; the problem was that it was hard to tell whether or not it truly was in the Spirit instead of just being a pleasant form of crowd-induced mass hysteria.
I don’t say this to rag on the concepts, but it seemed a lot of people were trying to claim and do things to force God to act, or because they liked the release of ecstatic experiences. We look at the past and even the present and wonder how people live on pillars or crucify/flagellate themselves. But its because even in pain, that kind of experience is addictive to the point of being almost a high.
I wrote in Mike’s original facebook post on horror that fundamentalists have problems at times realizing what is demonic oppression and what is just the physical mechanisms of their own body. The barking and laughing stuff is this but in a positive sense, and that’s why I say this.
I’m not also saying this to debate, but like your point on demonic oppression; you have to realize that some of us saw this abused heavily to the point of paranoia. I don’t doubt that God can choose to heal people through holy laughter, or that the Spirit can literally overpower a person and make them act that way. But I’m just very wary of those experiences now, because I’ve seen a lot of abuse and manufacturing of them.
I think you and I are more on the same page than we aren’t. It sounds like you are like me in that you recognize God working but also have seen where people try to cause it to happen outside of God’s will and without His leading or simply put, without them really having any understanding of what they are attempting to do. I’ve seen a lot of the same stuff you just described as well.
Yeah, growing up in that culture just makes me wary of things. I don’t say they can’t happen at all. But I think people are realizing that we have to be careful in how we approach the spirit of God, and I see a lot of charismatic denominations dialing back some of the excesses of past movements.
Yes, I have noticed them doing that as well. Unfortunate though as they are also tending to throw the baby out with the bath water to use that old metaphor. A good number of things that could be used appropriately aren’t even being done any more and a lot of times I get the feeling I could be in a church by any other denomination outside of the music. And even with the music a lot of other denominations are using the same songs just because they get played on “Christian” radio. It’s like the prophecy of claiming the Spirit of God while denying the power thereof, which causes them to be hypocrites since these same denominations used to say the same thing about other denominations.
Okay:
Stephen, D.M., David…I see what y’all are saying, and it seems as though we all pretty well agree on everything. At first, it was tricky to see where everyone was coming from, and the Internet doesn’t make it any easier to pick out a person’s feelings on certain matters.
Anyway, the word-faith movement and charismatic movement are actually foreign to me. Not that I don’t know of them…it’s just that the circles my family and friends followed for over thirty-something years and better had nothing to do with them. For the longest time, I’d never been to an Assemblies of God church, though my family did attend an older, old-fashioned one when I was in my teens. That particular one was more in line with the traditional Church of God, which I think, was rare at the time—or seemed to be, anyway.
I’m from the (dinosaur) Church of God, Pentecostalism background, when it was common to witness healing and miracles on a day-to-day basis—even expected. There were seldom instances of fakers back then, and they were much easier to spot.
It’s funny, but I just now remembered this one time, when I was probably seven years old, the Spirit of God had moved strongly in an evening service. People were scattered all about—some kneeling and praying on the pews, some in the aisles, some in the choir, and there was a large group at the altar. And, of course, being a Pentecostal church, things were happening that you’d expect, such as speaking in tongues, a person, wheel-chair bound, rising to their feet, for the first time in their life, some laughing, some crying, some screaming, and some just lying prone on the floor as if they were asleep or dead.
And there I was, just seven years old, staring at all these people, not knowing what to think, when this lady comes creeping down the center aisle, shaking and jerking, and screaming in a strange way that didn’t even seem to blend with the rest. Almost immediately, everyone else stirred from what they were doing and turned to stare at this woman with disturbed (almost frightened) expressions.
Well you can probably guess what happened next. Several large men seized her while she tired fighting them off (nearly doing it, too). That was my first experience being in the presence of a demon-possessed person—and it was a terrifying thing for me—especially at that age. It was nothing like the movies, either. It seemed worse, but in a different. Strangest part is, unlike some movies about demon possession, no cursing came out of her. She just said things…they were just so bizarre and eerie; and the occurrence lasted for a couple of hours before she was back to her normal self, all happy, and crying—yet calm—with relief etched on her face.
To add a little something else: somewhere around the same period, my father had a dream that this man, adorned in a typical suit of medieval armor, barged into the church through one of the side doors, marched over to the altar, and said, “The next time you see me, I’ll be coming through the front doors.”
My father told everyone at the church about his dream. Then, years later, after we had long switched churches, a new preacher took over the old one and destroyed it—but not before making all kinds of strange changes. My family and I didn’t know what was going on, either…not at that time.
Oddly enough, somewhere around then, I had this nightmare where I was standing probably about 10 yards or so from our old church, staring, transfixed, as this large, black cloud, descended on its rooftop. Then, the scene changed to inside, and as I stood in the center aisle, the building began to rumble, and the ceiling in the choir cracked in various places, allowing black ooze to enter.
Flash forward a few years after my dream and my parents decide to pay the church a visit, after some old friends (who had never left) invited us to a special event of some sort.
So what happens when we walk through the front doors? The first thing I see is that the choir’s ceiling was repainted black. The congregation was sparse, too. I’m talking about maybe fifteen people or so in a church that could’ve seated around a hundred (yeah, it was a small place).
Anyway, the sermon was horrid, dry, eerily monotone, and the Holy Spirit was not present—an all-around vast experience from the way things were during my childhood. After church, we ate out with those friends, and they told us about all the bad goings-on over the years that led to the church’s eventual demise.
Anyway, just thought I’d share a few unusual moments from my life for anyone interested.
Lastly, for you Stephen…about the “chief end” of fiction for entertainment purposes…well, let me see if I can do better this time.
Personally, as for writing it (which is something I do for fun), I suppose it would have to feel right to me—that somehow, whatever I’m working on, would, in the very end, have some kind of positive affect on the reader, and that in doing so, it would glorify God, even if only to a small degree. Of course, some projects are just for, or for a challenge, or maybe just to add extra content to a website/blog, to keep it fresh…and it might only be for informational purposes.
As for taking it in…well, to be perfectly honest, for me, it’s just enjoyable, and I can’t say whether it glorifies God in anyway, unless it actually does, like the new movie, “God’s Not Dead”, which should glorify God, because it’s meant to do so.
When my wife and I are watching one of the newer shows like “Grimm” for instance, I can’t say with certainty that it glorifies God, because I’ve yet to see any elements (save for one episode, and a brief mention here or there) that has anything to do with God at all. We just like the show.
Well…I still may not have answered your question, but this was my best attempt.
I hope everyone has had a nice, relaxing Sunday. Now I need to get back to driving myself to madness with my website.
I don’t know what you just described, but it doesn’t sound like Christianity at all, and I want nothing to do with it.
“I want nothing to do with it.” Me neither. I don’t understand how people feel they can discern the ‘true’ experience from the counterfeit. For all we know satan was yanking everyone’s chains in the church that day, making some people feel ecstatic, but then making this woman creepy…just to freak out and confuse a 7-year-old boy. I also find it interesting that many times when the Holy Spirit came upon people in the OT, they are left feeling distraught and even ill afterwards, not ecstatic.
I’m not convinced Azuza Street was from God either, which makes all of Pentecostalism and the resultant Charismatic churches suspect at best, at worst…a grand delusion. If you ask me, it’s all a hoax. The real thing exists, but I’m not convinced the real thing exists within this cultural climate, or if so, it’s very very rare. So yeah, I’m very against the ‘white magic’, ‘divination’, and all the other–what amounts to me as cr@p–within the institutionalized church. I wish I wasn’t so skeptical, I really do, but I have to go where my logic and discernment take me.
Back to “pure” fiction as “white magic”, I took a chance on a Christian romance type book thing, and while it’s entertaining, I felt troubled that after a scene of mild physical abuse (guy and girl, smacking, pinching, forcefully pinning down each other), the next scene shows the guy kissing the girl on the head and her heart “flutters”. She doesn’t understand her strange reaction. This offended me. I’ll keep reading the book to see where it goes, but if this is the CBA definition of “pure” I may have to pass. I hope it’s not all like this. I won’t make any official verdicts at this point.
Azusa street wasn’t the first time in history since the book of Acts that the Spirit of God moved like that. You may want to look into the Welsh revival as well for one of the many other examples in history.
If you are wondering how to discern from a true experience than a counterfeit I would refer you to the illustration I gave above of how the enemy will always do things very similar to how God does in order to discredit God. The way you can know the difference is whether the humans involved are giving God the glory or if they are claiming it for themselves. Most of my experience with the genuine is that they give God the glory.
Didn’t Evan Roberts have a mental breakdown as a result of the Welsch revival? Does revival cause someone to have a nervous breakdown? I haven’t studied it thoroughly enough to say it was the cause of his, but it’s suspect.
“The way you can know the difference is whether the humans involved are giving God the glory or if they are claiming it for themselves. ”
I totally disagree. This is not an accurate way of measuring. Well meaning people give glory to God because they think they are doing God’s work. That doesn’t mean they actually are. I’ve heard tales of people who became demon oppressed/afflicted/possessed by attending charismatic Christian “revival”. Personally, I’d rather just steer clear of it all together. If there’s a “revival” going on next door, you can bet I won’t be attending.
Evan Roberts’ breakdown was a depression at the decline of the Revival, not a posession/oppression event per se.
However, I do think that much of the attraction to the Welsh Revival was that a country historically religious and on the verge of shifting socioeconomic paradigms reverted to religion as its primary source of comfort during a time of general upheaval. I’m not convinced–I’m a historian of Welsh folklore and metaphysical beliefs–that the Welsh Revival was anything other than that.
Besides which, we had the Day of Pentecost. That was it. The Spirit is here. Revivals are exercises more in the manipulation via Mass Psychology of the vulnerable.