A couple of posts by the Gospel Allies caught my eye this week. The first, by Trevin Wax, wonders in a John Piper like manner, about the worldliness of watching movies.
I never subscribed to the fundamentalist vision that saw holiness in terms of cultural retreat or worldliness as anything that smacked of cultural engagement. I don’t subscribe to that position today.
But sometimes I wonder if evangelicals have swung the pendulum too far to the other side, to the point where all sorts of entertainment choices are validated in the name of cultural engagement. . . .
So, please don’t hear me advocating for a simplistic denunciation of Hollywood films. I am not. But I am concerned that many evangelicals may be expending more energy in avoiding the appearance of being “holier-than-thou” than we do in avoiding evil itself.
Yes, Paul used a popular poet of his day in order to make a point in his gospel presentation. Cultural engagement is important and necessary. But church history shows us that for every culture-engager there’s also a Gregory of Nyssa type who saw the entertainment mindset as decadent and deserving of judgment.
Is there justification for viewing gratuitous violence or sexual content?
At what point does our cultural engagement become just a sophisticated way of being worldly?
So if Wax is willing to question a believer’s participation in Hollywood’s products, why not by extension wonder about baptizing the modern metropolis as evidence of God’s kingdom coming? After all, Paul says nothing is unclean. And U.S. laws instruct us that Hollywood’s movies are legal. So too is New York City not unclean (nor is it holy like Jerusalem was), and the city is legally part of New York State (though residents in upstate New York bemoan it) and also belongs the United States. If Christians are doing nothing inherently wrong by living, working, or visiting New York City and its attractions, why doesn’t the same apply to Hollywood’s movies? Even better, if God is making himself known through major metropolitan centers like New York City of Sao Paulo, why can’t we in good neo-Calvinist fashion say that God is revealing himself through motion pictures?
The second piece was by Kevin DeYoung on the dangers of antinomianism:
People like John Cotton and Anne Hutchinson were arguing that we should not look for evidences of grace in our lives as confirmation of our election and justification. The antinomian impulse was one which maintained that good works were not necessary for salvation, that God delights in all Christians in the same way, that God does not see sin in the believer, that the moral law is no longer binding for Christians, that law and gospel are diametrically opposed in every way, that to strive after holiness smacks of legalistic effort, that we should not speak of spiritual duties or spiritual progress, that the subject of spiritual activity is not the believer but Christ. Clearly, antinomianism was much more complicated and went much deeper than a simple indifference to sin.
. . . antinomianism is not a phantom, a straw man, or an unheard of error in our day. Throughout history we see that the recovery of grace and the triumph of gospel-centrality are often accompanied by confusion surrounding sanctification and less than careful statements about the nature of obedience, the love of God, and human exertion. We need to know our Bibles better, our history, and our confessions.
By implication, what does this mean for participating in a denomination or a parachurch organization that does not show itself to be disciplined, that is, a church or body that does not follow its confessional standards or even disregards them? Isn’t the lack of discipline that comes with a mainline denomination or with evangelical lowest-common-denominator cooperationism “for the sake of the gospel” a form of institutional antinomianism?
I’d like to see Gospel Allie videos address these topics.
Old Life 
Antinomianism being just another form of legalism is me giving away the ending on this one.
Yeah, I’d watch their video too, D..
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A tease of lecture 3 from the above link, and then I’m back to my cave:
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Hardly. They even address baptism.
What they can’t address is ecclesiology in any substantive way. Better to say then, “institutional anti-institutionalism”
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Ted,
Hi there. Can you flesh out a bit what you mean? I actually believe the PCUSA has, in some sense, a better ecclesiology than the Baptist I was raised in (it was a converge worldwide church, previously called “baptist general conference”, all if which is John Piperism, interestingly enough).
In other words, for all my “amens” at swipes at the dudes who defrocked my church’s founder, they at least have a book of church order, even if they use it towards rotten ends.
Just curious, is all, for where you are coming from.
Take care.
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Wax – My question is this: at what point do we consider a film irredeemable, or at least unwatchable? At what point do we say it is wrong to participate in certain forms of entertainment?
Erik – Three things I don’t watch – Cruel horror movies, occult type movies, and porn. Why? I have no desire to witness cruelty, I don’t want to mess around with the occult, and porn – by definition- has no story or minimal story.
What Wax misses, however, is that we don’t have to find “redeeming ” values in everything, nor do we need to keep a scorecard of dirty words and body parts. Film, literature, and art reflect common things that we share with our fellow human beings (Christian or not). They don’t have to be anything more than that.
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O.K., I did watch “The Excorcist” a few years ago but that was for cultural-literacy sake.
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“By implication, what does this mean for participating in a denomination or a parachurch organization that does not show itself to be disciplined, that is, a church or body that does not follow its confessional standards or even disregards them? Isn’t the lack of discipline that comes with a mainline denomination or with evangelical lowest-common-denominator cooperationism “for the sake of the gospel” a form of institutional antinomianism?”
Amen! Very good and valid point. It is not at all mere coincidence that circles who give great quarter to the federal vision, lack of confessional standards, culture warriorism, and Pentecostalism/subjectivism feel a big need to uncover antinomianism. There is a hole in our holiness alright and it is most obvious in how many so called “reformed” folk willingly allow Federal Vision proponents free rides. I wonder how many NAPARC folks in the pew even really know what FV is and how insidious it truly is? I wonder how many have been instructed about the dangers of it creeping into the church? My impression is very few. I bet it is a tiny amount compared to the throngs who have studied up on spiritual disciplines and transforming the world through holy living and “being the gospel” to their neighbor.
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I love the fact that I’m (we are) free to watch any movie that we want. Including XXX if we so desire.
But, it obviously may not be profitable to do so.
There isn’t a whole lot out there that’s any good, in my opinion.
The old movies on Turner Classic Movies blow these newer ones out of the water…with some exceptions, of course.
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Steve, any movie? Passion of the Christ? Just joshin, I get you. But the WCF does say..
Peace.
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Aw, c’mon — sacraments, ‘clesiogy, and church government are small potatoes next to awesomeness and sovereignistic sermonizing. And conference gate.
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Saw “American Hustle” today and was kind of disappointed. Maybe 2 1/2 or 3 stars out of 4. Once the hype dies down I don’t think it will hold up all that well.
One thing that was irritating is that it took place in 1978 and the soundtrack included a bunch of “generic” 70s music, as if “Live and Let Die” (1973) and “Dirty Work” (1972), and “I Saw the Light” (1972) naturally fit in with “I Feel Love” (1977).
The screenplay was also a bit muddled. I think David O. Russell will be remembered as mostly mediocre, although he’s still only 56.
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dgh: what does this mean for participating in a denomination …that does not show itself to be disciplined, that is, a church or body that does not follow its confessional standards or even disregards them? Isn’t the lack of discipline that comes with… evangelical lowest-common-denominator cooperationism “for the sake of the gospel” a form of institutional antinomianism?
mark: A rather direct hit at DeYoung’s situation. And “situation” is important for those who teach assurance depending on your context. If your are too certain, they tell to stop looking out to Christ and look at your own life. But then on the other hand, in other situations, when you are in despair (or on your death-bed) the neonomian message does not sound so good.
If you looking at your self, then look to Christ. But if you are looking to Christ alone, then you need to look also at your life to see if you are really looking to Christ. A guy could get whip-lash.
It’s a funny dialectic that fundies have. On the one hand, “secondary separation” from those who are friends with those who watch Woody Allen movies. On the other hand, an agnosticism about baptism and church which leads to ecclesial antinomianism. We believe what we tolerate….
For the really important fight against the naturalists, all the supernaturalists line up together on the same side. Machen himself was not innocent of doing this kind of thing (Chrsitianity and Liberalism), but at least Machen didn’t attempt it institutionally.
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Mark, to me, Machen rung a bell when others were unwilling. The result is the church I find myself going to in about 12 hours. The co controversies through which our religion has trod are fascinating history, from the council of Ephesus, to Martin Luther, to Machen. In What is Faith, Machen has a great line where he talks about how one is saved,calling it the great “individualizing power of faith.” It’s a great line.
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I like Machen also, especially when he speaks of the necessary separation of “a true Christian church, now as always, will be radically doctrinal. It will never use the shibboleths of a pragmatist skepticism. It will never say that doctrine is the expression of experience; it will never confuse the useful with the true, but will place truth at the basis of all its striving and all its life. Into the welter of changing human opinion, into the modern despair with regard to any knowledge of the meaning of life, it will come with a clear and imperious message. That message it will find in the Bible, which it will hold to contain not a record of man’s religious experience but a record of a revelation from God.
Machen: “In the second place, a true Christian church will be radically intolerant… The intolerance of the church, in the sense in which I am speaking of it, does not involve any interference with liberty; on the contrary, it means the preservation of liberty. One of the most important elements in civil and religious liberty is the right of voluntary association…Now, a church is a voluntary association. No one is compelled to be a member of it; no one is compelled to be one of its accredited representatives. It is, therefore, no interference with liberty of a church to insist that those who do choose to be its accredited representatives shall not use the vantage ground of such a position to attack that for which the church exists. . .
Machen: “when I say that a true Christian church is radically intolerant, I mean it presents the gospel of Jesus Christ not merely as one way of salvation, but as the only way. It cannot make common cause with other faiths. It cannot agree not to proselytize. Its appeal is universal, and admits of no exceptions. All are lost in sin–none may be saved except by the way set forth in the gospel. Therein lies the offense of the Christian religion, but therein lies also it glory and its power. A Christianity tolerant of other religions is no Christianity at all. . .”
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That message it will find in the Bible, which it will hold to contain not a record of man’s religious experience but a record of a revelation from God.
Amen!
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All are lost in sin–none may be saved except by the way set forth in the gospel. Therein lies the offense of the Christian religion, but therein lies also it glory and its power.
Amen!
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I have hard time believing that intercourse (albeit filmed) is something a believer can ingest and call it “liberty”. I get “body parts” but sex is a whole separate issue. Especially when a body is presented in a sexual way. Scripture treats sinful intercourse in a different way than it treats all other sins.
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So, by implication, Oldlife.org thinks it’s ok for Christians to watch porn.
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Alexander, confessional Christians regard the moral law as binding. Fear not. We have a commandment, and even a cathchism answer to your question.
As for oldlife.org, who knows. We’re all just nobodies with Smartphones..
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It’s on our website under What We Believe. Now some quack I’m sure may try to change the meaning to allow for pornorgraphy somehow for Christians. But I dont believe my church allows for such nonsense. Such would be grounds for peaceable withdrawal by yours truly.
So yeah, fear not, friend.
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Alexander, your conclusion is full of charity, not unlike my sophomore concluding that because I say no to a particular R rated movie this I consider her a second-grader, or when I say yes to that R rated movie I am a hypocrite. Neither are true; it’s the hard and often thankless work of raising kids. But when doing liberty there are categories called prudence and judgment, and there are gray areas and subjectivity. In defending liberty, nobody is approving of what is illicit.
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Alexander, exactly — a website that has agency.
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Andrew: I’m glad to see you referencing the LC. I was beginning to think the Reformed over there had forgotten about it.
Zrim: Surely the answer would be to not watch R rated movies? Surely being denied the “artistic expression” of such movies is better than being seen as a hypocrite and thus, by extension, making the Christian faith appear hypocritical? There are times when, because of our fallen state, Christians cannot help being seen as hypocrites; there are times, however, when we choose to be hypocrites.
Dgh- I was just curious that, after one regular poster claimed Christians had the liberty to watch pornography and another said the only reason he didn’t was because there no plot, there was no response from you condemning such positions as the tank antinomianism they are. This is, after all, your blog and thus you are responsible for the content on it.
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Alexander, in case you didn’t notice, I let most comments go through. This is a conversation, not a ministry.
I even let yours through.
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Alexander, my point was that some R rated movies are permissible for my sophomore and some are not. If she claims I am a hypocrite for saying so, it’s only because she wants a blank check for any and all R rated movies. But if parental prudence is king (as opposed to cookie-cutter Hollywood formulas and labels), then not so much. By the same token, it’s also not license as those with legalist tendencies might suggest.
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AB – I was just curious that, after one regular poster claimed Christians had the liberty to watch pornography and another said the only reason he didn’t was because there no plot, there was no response from you condemning such positions as the tank antinomianism they are. This is, after all, your blog and thus you are responsible for the content on it.
Watching pron is allowed only if your mother and Pastor are sitting on the opposite side of the room staring at you, and you don’t find that a turn on.
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