Christians tend to lump movies, books, and music into the category of “media choices” and use the same barometer for all of them: If it's produced by a Christian company, it's okay. If it's produced by a secular company, it's not. This is absolute bunk, to put it mildly. It's not that simple, as much as we might want it to be.
With
movies, I am more interested in WHY a particular movie contains
violence, profanity, etc, than whether or not it contains those
things. In general, I am not opposed to movies that dipict violence
in order to make a point, such as “Hotel Rwanda,” “Mississippi
Burning,” or “The Devil's Arithmatic.” I firmly believe that
older children and teenagers should watch such movies when their
parents decide they're old enough. In showing them these movies, we
are not glorifying violence. We are showing them what can happen
when humans inflict it on each other.
I do
have a problem with violence just for the sake of violence. I got to
a point where I felt like CSI falls too close to this end of the
spectrum to continue watching it. With a lot of the action/adventure
movies out there, it's kind of a tossup where they fall on the
spectrum. I take it on a case-by-case basis.
Other
than the examples I just gave, I don't feel the need to get into more
specific details about what movies and shows I've chosen to watch or
not watch, because that's exactly my point. I'm not you. I don't
know for sure what's okay for you and what you need to avoid. We
need to own our own choices, and that may mean that two sincere
Christians come to two different conclusions in a given situation.
