Fiction, Truth, and the Gospel

One of my students last year wrote her final paper on why Christians should exercise discernment in their media involvement.  We had a lot of loooooong conversations about discernment, and she really had to work hard to address a common objection about fiction in general -- the "it's just a story, it's not real" objection. 

Just taking Twilight as a case study... one of my issues with Twilight is that young girls don't need someone telling them that that's how love is supposed to be -- that there's a guy out there who's perfect in every way, who's your soulmate without whom your life is utterly meaningless, and that its ok if that guy wants to hurt you as long as he has self control.  And that when a guy ignores you and barely speaks to you except with apparent hatred, it means that he's just seething with lust.  And that it's ok to string a decent guy along until you decide that you do want to be with your perfect sparkly soulmate after all. Teenage girls already are so prone to thinking all that.  It's already programmed into their little texting, MTV (do kids even watch MTV anymore?), Jersey Shore, Bieber-obsessed worldview.  They don't need an adult to confirm it, they need lots of adults to correct it!

I have some pretty big issues with the weirdo Mormon theology that's EVERYWHERE in the books, but the relationship stuff is my major practical concern.  I don't really have much of an issue with adults reading them, since they're more experienced and discerning, and can tell the difference between fantasy and reality.  But girls who are 13, 14, 15, when they're just left to read the books on their own with no one talking to them about the issues it brings up?  Not so much.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not the type to go, "ZOMG it haz teh witchez/magic/fantasy BURNNNNN IT!"  I mean, I did read all the Harry Potter books.  ;)

But I do think as Christians we have a responsibility to ask questions.  And the question isn't, "Does this movie/book/whatever depict a world without evil or darkness or moral complexity -- a nice, shiny, clean, Precious Moments world where everything turns out just dandy?"

We need to ask questions like, "Does it portray evil as evil and good as good, or does it pretty up evil or trick us into thinking something evil is really not so bad?  Does it show the reality of the battle between good and evil?  Is it realistic that sometimes evil seems to triumph?  Does it show human character honestly -- that we're all messed up by sin and make mistakes, even the heroes of the story?"  Again, that's worldview stuff we're talking about here.  "How does the author view life? humanity? love? sex? relationships? purpose?"


For example: I think American Beauty is a absolutely brilliant movie, and that Christians ought to watch it (if their consciences permit, of course).  It's rated R, it depicts adultery, drug use, deception, violence and lots of other truly evil stuff.  But it also shows, vividly and poignantly, the meaninglessness of a life apart from Christ.

Stories are powerful.  We're shaped by them and they impact us in a way that just straight teaching might not.  So we have to be discerning, even about fiction -- maybe even especially about fiction, because it can affect us without our even being aware of it.  I think about how I feel after I watch a movie -- even the fluffiest, silliest, most blatantly unrealistic romantic comedy can change my mood.  It can make me feel dissatisfied with my life, frustrated that I'm still single, annoyed that some sexy leading man hasn't come and swept me off my feet (well... yet... ;p).  Stuff like that affects our hearts.

I mentioned American Beauty.  It's really good, but what keeps it from being "capital-G Good," is that it offers a counterfeit solution to the problem it presents.  It says, "Life is ultimately meaningless.  If you can find meaning in the meaninglessness, you're one of the lucky ones."  We know as Christians that that's not true, that true meaning and purpose and hope are available, and found in Christ.  But just like American Beauty, every story -- from comic strips to epic novels to TV shows -- offers some kind of "answer" to the life's problems. 

Only Christians can offer the real solution, the Grand Story into which all of our little stories can be fitted by the Great Author of the universe.  But a book, a movie, a TV show, whatever -- all these things are only good inasmuch as they can point their readers toward God's truth.  Stories have the power to prime human hearts to see the emptiness of life apart from Christ, like American Beauty, or the reality of the battle between good and evil, like Harry Potter, or the brokenness of a fallen world and our often-futile attempts to fix it, like Sherlock Holmes, or the inherent beauty and preciousness of human life, like Children of Men. 

Ultimately, we have the freedom in Christ to read, watch, or listen to just about anything.  And we have a responsibility to use that freedom wisely.  So, read Twilight or watch Mad Men or listen to Katy Perry or whatever.  But do it with your eyes and ears wide open, and do it like a Christian.

Some Actual Thoughts For A Change

Currently on my bedside table are the following: alarm clock, lamp, water glass, and two books.  One book is Bridget Jones's Diary and the other is John Owen's The Mortification of Sin.  I fully expect to wake up some morning to find that the two have spontaneously combusted in the night.

I started reading The Mortification of Sin well over a year ago, before it got shuffled around somehow and pushed to the bottom of a pile and sadly neglected.  (Side note: I started reading it while sitting at an airport bar waiting for a flight.  Picture me with a beer in one hand and a Puritan Paperback in the other.  Classic experience.)  I picked it up again recently and have been amazed and blessed by Owen's strongly-worded caution to those who bear the name of Christ not to deal lightly with our besetting sins.

Chapters 10 ("Seeing Sin For What It Is") and 11 ("A Tender Conscience and a Watchful Heart") are particularly rich and full of godly counsel.  Here, a segment from chapter 11 that merits being quoted at length:

Look on Him whom you have pierced, and let it trouble you.  Say to your soul, 'What have I done?  What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on?  Is this how I pay back the Father for His love?  Is this how I thank the Son for His blood?  Is this how I respond to the Holy Spirit for His grace?  Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, and the Holy Spirit has chosen to dwell in?  [...] Do I count fellowship with Him of so little value that, for this vile [sin's] sake, I have hardly left him any room in my heart?'

As is typical with those dear old Puritans, the counsel Owen urges on his readers is emotionally stirring, grounded in the Gospel, and intensely practical.  Incidentally, I find this to be a great weakness in a lot of modern devotional writing, which tends toward one or two of those three characteristics.  Consider this snippet:

Do you find corruption beginning to entangle your thoughts?  Rise up with all your strength against it, as if it had already started to overcome you!  Consider what an unclean thought desires: it desires to have you immerse yourself in folly and filth!  Ask envy what it aims at: murder and destruction are its natural conclusion!  Set yourself against it as if it had already surrounded you in wickedness!

Or this remarkable reflection on the transcendence of God:

Labour to limit your pride with these considerations: What do you know about God?  How little a portion of His majesty!  How immense He is in His nature!  Can you look without terror into the abyss of eternity?  Can you bear the rays of His glorious Being?  I consider these meditations of great value in our walking with God, so far as they are consistent with our filial boldness in seeking Him at the throne of grace through our Lord Jesus Christ. [...] To Moses was revealed the most glorious attributes that He can reveal in the covenant of grace, but even these are but the 'back parts' of God!

It's definitely kicking my butt.  And I'm just now over halfway through.  Eep!

Criticism

Some days I wish I lived in the pre-internet age.  Or was Amish.  Or something.  Days like today, when I see a beautiful quote from a respected, wise, older brother in Christ, and then I see someone else, someone who claims the name of Christ, making snap judgments and hateful accusations about that man's character and doctrine.

Friends, we have to learn -- I have to learn -- to temper our words when we're on the internet.  We must.  The commands of God not to entertain accusations against an elder without corroboration do not cease to apply online.  I'm convinced that a great many Christians are experiencing personal stagnation in their growth in Christlikeness because they constantly allow bitterness, anger, self-righteousness, lovelessness, and pride to gain a hold on them in the comments sections of Christian blogs.  How often do we see characteristics and actions  that belong to the realm of death in people who call themselves by the name of Christ?  Gossip.  Slander.  Malice. 

How foolish!  How our enemy must laugh with twisted delight when we use God's language for the Devil's purposes.

Without Facebook

OK, seriously, we have gotten into hugely lame territory with this one, I get it.  But I had a bit of an epiphany about this and I wanted to share, because I'm part of a generation that's obsessed with that kind of feel-good, self-aggrandizing, narcissistic stuff, and this sentence has taken a weird turn, and SHUT UP YOU DON'T KNOW MY LIFE.

Anyhoodles.  Last night I was reading a review of Joanna Newsom's latest album.  Incidentally, I cannot make up my mind whether I think Joanna Newsom is crazy, or a genius, or just so totally insufferable and pretentious and into herself that she gets her kicks inflicting her atonal wackitude on all us unsuspecting plebes, or what.   Reading the review made me think of my friend Shiloh, who was nice enough to let me stay with her for five whole weeks when I was in Australia two years (!!) ago, because she had "The Bear and the Unsuspecting Plebe" or whatever Joanna Newsom's last album was called.

If I hadn't given up Facebook for Lent, I would have posted the link to the article on her wall, and said I was thinking about her.  Instead, oh my gosh you guys, you know what I did?  I prayed for her instead.  I know, super holy, right?  Yeah, totally not about that at all.

Here's the thing about social media and blogs and all that stuff.  What a distraction.  I mean, don't get me wrong: instantaneous communication is really cool.  I think it's kind of incredible that my friend Miranda told me that our friend Kate had given birth to baby Alex within hours of the event (on my birthday!), when that same communication would have taken weeks just a couple generations ago.  But because I can click over to google chat right now and talk to people on three continents the second they pop into my head, I often forget that God often gives us those moments of suddenly thinking of someone so we can learn to be faithful to pray.  I'm hoping that prayer -- not sending links or "liking" or commenting on wall posts or whatever -- will be my first impulse by the end of Lent.

The Last One Today, I Swear

A dear friend called me this afternoon to ask how I was doing.  See, I emailed her late last night to ask her to pray for me about something, and being a sweet and thoughtful sister in Christ, she called to check up on me.  I laughed and said I was fine, and that, honestly, I'd hardly thought about it.  Praise the Lord, right?  Right!

Well, let me tell you that it wasn't because I'm some paragon of self-discipline and was able to overcome by the sheer force of my holiness.  (Side note: if I ever DO say anything like that, stand back, because there's a ten-foot kill radius when the lightning strikes.)  It was because I've been seriously distracted by the grace of God today.  Woke up pumped to gather with God's people, had my socks knocked RIGHT off by the word preached and applied, watched the Cardboard Stories video I just posted, read my best friend's testimony, cried intermittently all day, praised God for Alfred Hitchcock movies while I watched Notorious, and hardly had a moment to focus on my "issues."  It's been a really, really good day.

And look, here's the thing that I think I haven't been getting lately: it's not that my "issues" don't matter.  They do.  They're real.  They matter to me and they matter to my loving Heavenly Father.  And I don't need to do some Buddhist and/or Hipster thing and detach or transcend or whatever.  I just need to see Christ more vividly than all that other stuff.  

Pain?  It's not an illusion.  Frustration?  Disappointment?  Not always idols, like some well-meaning Christians like to insist.  But man, I keep thinking about the lyrics to that song -- "the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."

My stuff, my pain, my frustration and disappointment, I'm still working through it.  I'm still bringing it before the Lord.  But I was reminded today that my "to-think-about" list needs to include a whole bunch more of God and his grace and his Son and his provision and... and ALL that amazing, eternal stuff.  Everything else is still there, it just needs to move way down the list.

When My Plans Fall Through, or "A Little Bit of Oversharing"

This last week or so, dealing with a non-functioning computer and my subsequent inability to keep up with the new blog, has been an interesting microcosm of what my life often looks like.  I plan, and pat myself on the back for coming up with such a brilliant scheme to exalt myself, and imagine what it will be like when my perfectly-conceived plans come to fruition, and then the Lord in His grace kindly tears down my idol of being admired and respected.  Whereupon I typically scramble to rebuild, and the Lord and I go through the process until I finally get it through my thick skull that He will be worshipped alongside no one and nothing else.

 I am twenty-eight.  If you think that ten years ago I thought my life would look like this, you probably need extensive counseling.  I figured I'd be living overseas, married, with a couple of kids, happily cooking meals for my growing family by now.  Instead, I have most of a Master's degree in Theology, I own a little condo, I teach Humanities at a tiny Christian school, and I am, most definitely, still very single.

God is good.  He is teaching me to live a "quiet and peaceful life in all godliness and holiness," knocking down my idolatrous and self-aggrandizing plans, reminding me of His grace and sufficiency.


I guess this is just a reminder to myself.