A faculty member sent me this link and asked me to give a response. So, here is the link and here is my response. I'd love to have people critique it!

http://www.christianitytoday.com/tcw/2006/005/7.42.html


Is it possible to read, watch, interact with a text that is clearly unbiblical? Of course. Paul does it on Mars Hill, Daniel does it in Babylon, we must do it by reading the Q'ran or occultic texts if we wish to understand them. The difficult question becomes, can we interact with them as a form of entertainment?

I believe that is the problem with how Christians interact with media today - we have come to view media's purpose (film, TV, music, novels, etc.) solely as entertainment and not as an exercise of the intellect and will. And I think that has been disastrous although nobody wants to bring this idea into the debate. Take an example. About a year or two ago I watched the movie Fight Club. Rated R, scenes in it that were pretty bad but it was a film that was extremely well done and an important one in our current cultural climate. It was this generation's Cool Hand Luke - a narrative apologia for existentialism. Did I "enjoy" watching the film? Yes. Not because I was "entertained" but because I was engaged with the ideas in it because this was a film with powerful ideas in it. That, I think, is the critical difference. If I were to watch a film like Fight Club with the sole intent to have mindless entertainment, then it is wrong. But when it becomes a vehicle for learning how to engage the themes and respond to them truthfully, it can be a good thing.

A simplistic explanation that could probably be elucidated more, but I think one that merits fuller discussion within the church. The entertainment/intellectual/will split is a bad one. We are in bad need of a theology of recreation/entertainment because the de facto one that we typically operate from isn't working.

Anybody else have thoughts? Would love to hear them!