Living From Sunday 2 Sunday
Living From Sunday 2 Sunday
The Sinners Controversy: Christians and Cinema
When Hollywood releases films like "Sinners" that don't align with traditional Christian values, how should believers respond? As someone who loves movies and uses them for self-care, I've watched fellow Christians condemn others for simply enjoying a well-crafted story.
The outrage surrounding "Sinners" exposes a deeper issue within Christian communities – our tendency to transform personal convictions into universal judgments. Scripture offers us guidance through Paul's words: "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful." This reveals the crucial difference between discernment and judgment. When we understand that most entertainment isn't created with believers as the target audience, we can approach media consumption with wisdom rather than fear.
What makes this conversation particularly challenging is how it mirrors the Pharisees' mistake of elevating human interpretations to divine law. True spiritual maturity allows us to recognize our personal boundaries without projecting them onto others. Some content may genuinely harm my spiritual walk while not affecting yours. Instead of condemning fellow believers for their entertainment choices, we should focus on that transformative relationship with God that renews our minds and hearts. Remember, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" – listen when the Holy Spirit convicts you personally, but be cautious about assuming that conviction applies universally. Ready to approach faith and entertainment with more grace? Subscribe now and join this vital conversation about living authentically Christian lives in a complex world.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Living from Sunday to Sunday podcast. I am your host, pastor B. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I truly believe that today's episode will be the best 15 minutes of your day, because real change happens 15 minutes at a time. So do me a favor Like, share and subscribe to the podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure that you like this video. Hit the notification bell and subscribe to the channel. That way, anytime that a new episode is released, you can be the first to know. All right, so today's episode we're going to talk about All right. So today's episode we're going to talk about the movie centers and we're going to talk about the response to backlash that a lot of Christians have heaped upon this movie and like what is the proper Christian response? Right, what should we do?
Speaker 1:Let me first say that I am a movie head. I love movies. The movie medium is one that I personally use for self-care. I get into movies really easily. Action movies are kind of my go-to thing, but I use the art and the medium of movies and storytelling as a part of my personal wind down time and so, because of that, that is my thought process many times when I go into a movie, and so this particular movie Sinners. It was a phenomenal movie in the sense of storytelling, in the sense of character development, in the sense of buildup, climax and payoff. The movie was awesome.
Speaker 1:But a lot of what I've seen in the discourse since this movie was released was that people who are Christians, people who are believers, we shouldn't be watching this movie. Right, and I have a couple of thoughts on that. But my first point is this most movies, they aren't made with Christians as their target audience, aren't made with Christians as their target audience. The majority of movies aren't made with us as their target demographic. So, in terms of entertainment, in terms of value and enjoying this particular medium, is it possible for us to like? Do we have to only watch Christian content in order for the marketed themselves to be biblical? Again, many of the companies that we frequent on a daily basis, many of the products we buy, the cars we drive, their business model, their CEOs, their presidents don't have true biblical leanings and goals. And so if we choose not to, if we don't want to participate in anything that has a worldly point of view, it is going to be very difficult for us to live with the same level of comfort that we do every single day. All right, and so there is this thing called Christian liberties. Right, there are things that Will they won't send us to jail but there are things that we have to have Discernment about. But we have to have discernment about, but we have to Right.
Speaker 1:So there's a couple of scriptures that I want to kind of look at. First Corinthians, chapter six, verse 12. This is what it says. This is all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. What Paul is saying here is he's saying that there are things that Our culture says it's fine, but for me and he specifically uses the word me, for me I know that by partaking in this particular legal act, it may harm my walk with God.
Speaker 1:What I think happens a lot is many times we take our personal convictions and our personal things that really impact us personally in our walk with God and we want to bash other people because of our personal convictions. And there is a question that I wrote because I think it's something we have to really, really be careful of how can we keep discernment from morphing into judgment. Right, because, again, there are certain movies and certain movie scenes that I personally will not watch. Right, and it can be. In some of my favorite movies of all times have scenes that I have to turn my head or I have to fast forward if it's streaming or something. Right, because I know that there's certain scenes, certain types of content that is harmful to my spirit, but that does not ruin the entire experience for me. I just have enough wisdom to know what I can handle and what I cannot handle. Right, and so if we're not mature enough to understand that everyone else may not be at the same level as we are, then we kind of project our convictions on other people and then we call it judgment or we call it righteous holy condemnation and really what it is is there are things that even that the Bible is clear about.
Speaker 1:Again, there are things that the Bible is clear about in our personal walk that some of us struggle with and some of us don't. Right, and we lose that. It gets really, really muddy a lot of times whenever we project our personal discernment and we call it gospel gospel. That's the issue that the Pharisees ran into is that there were many, many man-made laws and man-made interpretations of the law that they blanketed as the gospel truth and held people accountable to these rigid rules and these rigid guidelines that didn't really line up to what the scripture was actually meaning and actually saying, and so I think that's where we can get into trouble, right? And so then you have the other scripture here, romans 12.
Speaker 1:And to write this is a famous scripture. This is do not be conformed to the, to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, right Testing that you may discern what the will of God is and what's good and acceptable and perfect. More time invested in developing our relationship with God, versus trying to critique and categorize other people and calling them evil and calling them demonic and calling all of these things based on our personal convictions. I think we just have to do better. We have to be very, very cognizant of that, because in the movie Sinners, there certainly were messages of things that may not have been appealing to the Christianian audience or to the christian eye. But again, what did you expect? This was not a movie that was um geared and targeted toward us. There is no um spiritual vindication or spiritual empowerment in this movie that wants to celebrate Jesus Christ. That's not what this movie is about.
Speaker 1:Right, but again, I look for great storytelling, I look for amazing action. I am involved in the character development and so in this particular movie it did it for me right. It had everything that I wanted in a movie, right, and so I personally enjoyed it. Many other people who love God and who appreciate their relationship with God they enjoyed it as well. Right, and again, my biggest thing is just the judgment. Right, and saying people are going to hell because they're walking this way. Right. We do that way too often. As believers, as people who say that they love God, as people who say that they love God, we condemn people to the worst parts of hell just because we disagree. Just because we disagree. We just have to do better, because I honestly wouldn't want to live a life, even though I live in this world and this is Brian talking.
Speaker 1:Most Christian-centered content does not present life in a rugged way. Most Christian-centered content is not relatable because the trials, the circumstances are very watered down, not everything, even in life. Not everything even in life faithful to Jesus Christ. Not everything works for your good at the end of every story, right, and you know, again, that's a personal thing, right, pure Flix, angel Studios, those things for me don't really do it, right, but I know that there are people who don't want their movies or their TV shows to have a bunch of cursing in it. I'm okay with that, that just doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1:And so if we focus more on our personal development with God, our personal walk with God, and strengthen that, then if someone has other issues and other complaints and other different points of view to scripture, if it's not illegal and it's not immoral, it's not really that big of a deal, right? You know, for years the church and even in the movie at the beginning preacher boy, his dad, doesn't want him to be a blues singer, and this is a traditional historical thing, especially in the black culture he doesn't want his son to be a blues singer because he sees the blues music as devil worship, as devil music. Right, and it's a misinterpretation of the truth. But it was based on the information that they had back then. Right, they called a lot of things that were different and that were not Bible-based, they called it demonic, and that's something I know I grew up with, right, and I guess, because I've grown up that way. I just have a different point of view, because everything that they say was demonic was not, and many people who they say were holy and for us to look up to were not even as holy as they said. Right.
Speaker 1:So work out your own soul salvation with fear and trembling. Right, if the Holy Spirit convicts you and tells you not to do it, you, my friend, my brother, my sister, you need to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey the Holy Spirit. Right, there is no condemnation to those who love Jesus, for those who are called according to his purpose. So I don't want you ever to feel condemned into doing or not doing anything, because that the condemnation is not of God. But If the Holy Spirit tells you not to do it, don't do it, because I can.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to tell you the book against god in a book, book against the holy spirit, right. But the holy spirit convicts me of other stuff, just not most movies. And if there is a movie that I underestimated because that's happened too, where I thought a movie was going to be about one thing and it turned out to be about something completely different and it became more than what I could handle I turned it off right. So, yeah, just be thinking about that right. Watch how we decide to decide to handle our brothers and sisters, because it matters. It matters. Thank you so much for listening and tuning into today's podcast. I truly believe that this is the best 15 minutes of your day. Make sure that you like, share and subscribe. This podcast is available everywhere where they can be found Good Pods, apple Podcasts, spotify, those places. Subscribe and until next week we'll see you.
