When Media Attacks!

            In the last few months I’ve mentioned some positive trends in what’s coming out of Hollywood, especially a new tolerance for and desire to produce film and television which looks positively at the Christian worldview. Nevertheless, the film industry can still be counted on to produce movies that are either unfriendly to or directly attack biblical truth. What do we do then?

Responding to Controversial Media

            To see or not to see? That is always the first question. For example, should we see the controversial film, The Da Vinci Code and/or read the book? Those who talk about the importance of being “open minded” (which usually means being liberally biased) and critical thinkers will say, “You can’t talk about a movie you haven’t seen or a book you haven’t read.” How true is that? I think that God has called some people to fight the culture wars, standing for Christ against lies perpetrated by the media. These are the folks who need to do their best to watch the movies and read the books and speak out as experts. It’s hard, however, for the rest of us to keep up, and, though we need to try to some extent, we can’t always see every movie and do lots of research to find the problems, the lies. But no one really does this anyway, not even the experts.

            Think about how we truly gather new information. We learn some by reasoning or thinking things out and some by experience. But most of what we learn, we learn by authority. An expert tells us something is true and we believe him. He may be a teacher, a preacher, a newscaster, a newspaper columnist, or a scientist. It may be a documentary on Discovery or A&E, a text book, or a movie, but most of the information we learn we take on the word of others rather than going and researching it ourselves, a process which is of course impossible: imagine dropping all of your assumptions and trying to determine the truth of everything you’ve ever been taught by anyone or anything else. First you’d have to read through a dictionary, interview some language scholars, and conduct some random surveys of English speaking peoples to make sure that every word you know actually means what you were taught it means. Ten years later you could start on making sure one plus one equals two and move on from there! The simple truth is that we have to rely on others for learning truth, and I think it’s perfectly fine to let other people do the work for us in certain instances.

            If I’m a person who intends to talk about the problems of a movie or book to many other people on a regular basis, I need to see or read it. If I have a friend at work or school who asks what I think about the movie, I need to at least say, “I haven’t seen it, but I’ll try to find out some things about it from people I trust.” Then I need to do the research and come back with some information (including honestly admitting it if I decide I don’t want to see it). If, however, I am in a relationship with someone who values my opinion highly, whom I’ve been witnessing to, who is caught up in the lies of the film or book and is therefore being turned from truth by it, then, even if I’m not one to regularly talk about the culture wars, I need to choose to read the book, see the movie, and do some research for the sake of my friend.

            Frankly, it might be a good idea for us not to see anti-Christian movies so as not to add to the box office sales. Nothing kills a movie better than a bad box office and nothing helps it better than controversy. Some Christians feel the need to make open, group protests in front of movie theaters. This has value in that it can raise public awareness; however, it may also backfire, making more people want to see the film, and it may project and unloving tone. In the end, I think there is no single right way, no single strategy to make use of in dealing with anti-Christian movies, books and television. But I would say that, while some of us should consider ourselves called to respond to media attacks on Christ and His word either through the media or to large groups of people, most of us can best participate by responding in relationships—by talking to the people around us who know us and will listen to what we say if we do so in humility and love.