Archive for category: Bible

Game of Thrones. Is it the gloves off, gruesome, grim and gristly opiate for the masses – or the fantastical story that grapples with the true complexities of human experience? Is it right for a Christian to watch it for entertainment, or perhaps missional research – or should they steer clear of it all-together?

Could this be a random cracking of the whip? Like Sabrina prompted last year, Deadpool three years ago, or Harry Potter ten plus years ago? It’s topics like these which become convergence points of fixation from both the heavy-grace (everything is permissible!) and heavy-law (not everything is beneficial!) extremes of the evangelical wings.

These debates create new heroes and villains, they scratch some deep itches, and they rehash the prohibition controversies from our protestant histories. They can also be quite sad.

We do love a good ‘what should we eat, drink, wear, watch, play, read, listen-to’ dispute, don’t we? I wonder if we would just get bored without them – what would we do without a pointy wedge issue on what we should consume? Paul said, ‘do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink’ (Col. 2:16), and Jesus said, ‘do not be anxious… is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?’ (Mt. 6:25). It’s almost as if they knew, go figure.

Without these debates, we might have to actually talk about Jesus more directly, which oddly makes us squirm just a little more than is entirely decent.

The gauntlet

A few weeks ago, British Youth for Christ National Director Neil O’Boyle wrote a post on relativism and our media consumption titled ‘why youth workers shouldn’t be watching Game of Thrones’ (GoT). The big take away was to respect the enormous amount of responsibility that comes when leading young people. It’s all too easy for them to take our actions as their permissions.

That’s a hard-hitting challenge that needs to be grappled with at every level of leadership. That’s the responsibility that any parent or leading adult has for the development of young people. Neil said:

‘I’m sure by now I have jarred you. I didn’t mean to. I guess all I’m asking as influencers and culture setters is: Are we inconsistent? And are our inconsistencies unhelpful to a younger person’s walk with Jesus?’

Even if we’re someone who likes to binge-watch Baywatch while chain-smoking – tell me we heard that? We want to fiercely pursue holiness and invite young people to join us on that journey, even if it means giving up something that we like. What Christian among us really wants to challenge this idea – isn’t sacrifice and humility at the very centre of our faith after all?

Cards on the table – I know Neil. I’m one of the 50-80 youth workers he mentioned in that article that benefits directly from his rich experience and considered example. Full disclosure: I think Neil is a ledge.

Sure, Neil’s article didn’t solidly settle in too many places. It was, after all, a gentle challenge on a hugely sticky topic. I’m suspicious that the title was actually an editorial addition, rather than Neil’s original? (Correct me if I’m wrong, Emily!). I think this is really unfortunate as that title colours the whole post, and it changes the way it reads – especially if you already have a strong opinion on the show.

The reaction

In response, Youth and Student Pastor, Alan Gault essentially wrote what is known in journalism as ‘a takedown piece’ in order to counter Neil’s view. It was a little blunt. If all I had got to go on was the tone of the two pieces, then I’d warm to Neil’s and recoil from Alan’s. The real issue though is that Alan’s article didn’t grapple with that central gut-hitting challenge from Neil about our inconsistency.

Instead, Alan reached around Neil, and clung to the title ‘why a Christian shouldn’t…’ Alan said, ‘I find the majority of reasons given by Neil to have their own problems and I find his blanket ban unnecessary.’ Which reasons and what ban? Other than the title, GoT is only mentioned once in Neil’s article, and just as an example of a much wider issue.

Alan battled a monstrous, legislative ‘They’, and caricatured Neil (as representing this force) as putting down a ‘blanket ban’ rather than carefully considering what he really wrote.

Relativism is a cultural phenomenon which goes far beyond simple moral subjectivity. Neil was calling us to consider our example to those we lead in the middle of such a vulnerable and uncertain culture. This wasn’t legislative, it was, however, a deliberate challenge.

I believe that Alan wrote a reaction to a strawman, rather than a response to an idea. It may have galvanised the GoT-loving side of the fence, and rattled those who abstain, but I don’t think it promoted any real dialogue outside the respective echo chambers.

As Christians we need to talk and listen to each other with generosity. Without this there’s no edification or building one another up in Christ happening at all. Before we get to the content then, let’s start with respecting that we’ll know each other in heaven, and disagreements should come with brotherly affection.

The thing behind the thing

What’s a shame about this is that I think Alan was on to something. Once you concede he wasn’t really responding to Neil, there were some real nuggets of gold in his post.

Alan was trying to make us think about grace. We can’t legislate people into the Kingdom, nor can we set strict universal boundaries over our growth – especially when triggers may be very different for different people. Alan reminded us about the wildly varied contexts that are involved in individual walks, the complexities of messy lives, and the primacy of the promptings of the Holy Spirit in the changing of those lives. He encouraged us to think upon the Jesus who hung out with the dregs of society. Fab! This too deserves to be grappled with, and I imagine Neil would heartily nod along with all of these things.

If Alan focused on these pieces and wrote that post convincingly, I think it might have added to the conversation here – and iron would have had a chance to sharpen iron. He didn’t, however, and it hasn’t.

What was the problem?

For me, the main issue is I think Alan’s post accidentally cheapened the Bible in favour of entertainment. I’m sure he’d be horrified that I thought that but let me explain.

Alan identified passages in the Bible that contain explicit and graphic sex and violence. He said we shouldn’t, therefore, use sex and violence alone as a reason not to watch similar content in GoT. Some of these passages were implied rather than graphic (Noah and his son from Gen. 9:18-27), and others were metaphoric rather than explicit (Song of Songs throughout). None of them were qualified or discussed and all of them needed to be given in context.

If I was marking Alan’s post as an undergrad theology paper (which it wasn’t), then I would push him quite hard on proof-texting. He selected a group of somewhat random passages that contain what he said was gratuitous sex and violence and then presented them together with false cohesion.

Ek. 23:20, for instance, needs to be read in light of Ek. 14-23: The storyline is the adulterous woman (Israel) and the lover (God) against adulterous lovers (other nations), the issue being idolatry and worship (23:49). Song of Solomon is a dramatic and intimate exploration of the love of God and the worship of His people. The Conquering of Canaan sits in a context of God’s promises to Moses and Abraham, against idol-worshipping pagan nations. The David and Bathsheba story needs to be approached in tension with Ps. 51 and 2 Sam. 12. All of these passages need to be read while keeping the Bible’s full perspective of heaven and redemption in mind. This is the unique worldview of the Bible lived out in the person of Jesus who we aspire to in all our choices today. This is not the general worldview of TV.

You can’t, therefore, just pluck stories out of the Bible for containing similar ideas, ignore the original contexts, group them together indiscriminately, and then present them as a whole to justify today’s consumption choices. That’s hermeneutically naughty! *Slaps wrist.*

Then there’s the logical issue with the argument.

Even if we grant the premise (the Bible is full of [unqualified] stories of gratuitous sex and violence), the conclusion doesn’t then follow.

I once had a young person use exactly this same argument including some of the very same Bible references to explain why it was ok for him to watch pornography. This is unfortunately what happens when you draw too straight a line between two very different things like the Bible and TV. Philosophers call this the fallacy of false equivalence.

For the argument to work as presented, we would need to assume that reading and viewing are the same thing and that both would affect people in the same way. We would need to assume the acts of sex and violence are treated in the same way in both the Bible and GoT and then assume that Paul’s call to purity (Eph. 5:3) along with Jesus’ call to holiness (Mt. 5:28) doesn’t directly apply to those racy and brutal Bible stories. Putting that another way, we would need to isolate those verses from the wider voice of the Bible. We would probably need to assume that there’s no real distinction between art and history as well. Mostly though, I think we would need to assume that both the Bible and GoT were made by the same type of creator with the same kind of purpose.

The issue here is not elevating GoT to the same place as the Bible, but rather depreciating the Bible to be comparable with GoT. This is the Word of God – it’s not just another piece of media. They are simply not comparable.

Sex and violence in the Bible are not enough to warrant viewing sex and violence for entertainment today.

Isn’t everything permissible?

Alan misquoted 1 Cor. 6 as saying ‘everything is permissible, but not everything is helpful.’ We can’t get at him too much, however, because almost everyone misquotes Paul here! What’s missing is the quote marks, but oh boy do they make a difference.

Paul is playing devil’s advocate by slightly sarcastically pseudo-quoting his Corinthian reader saying ‘hey, but I’m saved by grace, so I can do whatev, right? Who are you to tell me no?’

The examples Paul gives for this are cheating someone (v.7, 10), wrongdoing (9), sexual immorality and promiscuity (9, 18-20), stealing, getting drunk, and mocking (10). Because of these things church members were taking legal action against each other (1-6) and the terrible result was increasing division (vv.1-6, 7, 14-16).

On one side of the division there was a misapplication of grace and on the other a misapplication of law. Paul was directly addressing the issues on the first side in the beginning of his pseudo-quote, ‘everything is permissible’. It might just as well read, ‘Hey, I can steal, get drunk, and mock people, right? Who are you to tell me no?’

Alan said ‘is watching Game of Thrones permissible? Yes! Is it helpful? That is for you to figure out’. Is that a legitimate way of using this passage? Only as much as saying something like ‘is murder permissible? Yes! Is it helpful?’ A murderer isn’t barred from the Kingdom of God, but that doesn’t mean crack on.

Using a devil’s advocate quote of Paul as a propositional way for us to measure our consumption choices is altogether the opposite of what Paul was trying to do.

Yes, it’s about grace, but it’s about holiness too. The word ‘helpful’ here (συμφέρει) is exactly the same word used by Jesus in Matt. 5:29 when he tells us that it’s better (more helpful) to pluck out our eyes and cut off our hands if they could possibly cause us to sin. Thinking about Neil’s original post, it’s also the same word used in Matt. 18:6, when Jesus said it would be better (more helpful) for us to be drowned than cause a ‘little one’ to sin.

And there’s the point. What standard do we set for holiness, and what things will we sacrifice for it? Is it permissible? Sure – in the broadest possible way in that it won’t block the gate to heaven. But does it ultimately bring glory to God, unity to His church, and provide a consistent standard to His children? Do our actions – including what we watch on TV – bring the waveforms of our hearts more in line with God’s, or do they clash? Do our habits resonate with or detract from the strength and clarity of our full-throated pursuit of worship? This is the truer reading of 1 Cor. 6.

So…. can a Christian watch GoT?

I wouldn’t and I don’t. I know my issues and my temptations and by spending two minutes on IMDB Parent’s Guide I decided that it wouldn’t be good for me. I love fantastical fiction, but I decided to take a pass on this. My wife, however, is a whole other person and – although she doesn’t watch it either – her own set of triggers and values would be different to mine and these would inform her differently too. I don’t want to be overly prescriptive, therefore, although I would take some convincing that watching GoT would be actively helpful for a Christian’s walk with God. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone legally too young to watch it, which would be most of my young people.

I don’t imagine it’s an easy watch for a Christian, or a helpful watch for pursuing purity, although I concede it’s probably entertaining and interesting. I think it’s always worth asking the question: can I worship God with this? I think, in fact, that there are a few much better questions to ask than ‘should you’? (You can read an old article of mine on ChurchLeaders about this here), and we could converse together over this and other topics much better than we do.

As British Telecom famously said: It’s good to talk.