50 shades of purity

The Oscars were just televised a couple of weeks ago. I didn't watch them, but saw enough about them on my Facebook feed to know I was better off. The women attending seemed to be having a contest to see who could show the most of their breasts and wear the ugliest dresses while doing so. Many of the same men and women that got shiny awards, are the same ones  who mock Christian values and help indoctrinate Americans that sex outside of marriage is normal, homosexuality should be celebrated, that more nakedness is good, Islam is good, and who reinforce the idea that the freakier you look, the cooler you are. The host of the awards, Neil Patrick Harris, appeared on stage in his underwear, which didn't leave much to the imagination.....why would any Christian want to watch that?

  Just a week earlier, the S&M/pornographic movie 50 Shades of Grey released in theaters, a supposedly harmless movie, which has already resulted in one young man raping a girl and reenacting a scene from the movie. Besides the fact that the movie degrades women and gives the idea it is OK to force women into acts they don't want to do, the movie borders on pornographic, and should have an XXX rating. And scores of people flocked to view it who profess to follow Christ.

  Ten years ago, another movie released in theaters. The first movie of its kind to be shown in theaters, Brokeback Mountain. A tale of two cowboys who have a gay relationship. At least one of the men was married, so not only did the movie and Hollywood celebrate a movie about a gay relationship, they celebrated a movie where a man committed adultery to have that relationship/affair.

  Christians were upset about the movie, and rightly so. Some churches boycotted theaters that showed the movie. I wonder how many of those same churches boycotted theaters that showed 50 Shades of Grey...... And I wonder how many churches boycotted theaters that show movies where there is adulterous relationships and sex outside of marriage relationships. Well, I don't wonder about that one. The answer would be none.

  You cannot be a Christian and be having sex with someone of the same gender. Period. Hollywood and many churches and Christians are tossing out and ignoring what the Bible says about that, but it is still true. People engaging in homosexual behavior will go to hell if they don't stop and surrender their lives and desires to Jesus.

  But the same holds true for heterosexual people. The same Bible that condemns homosexuality, also condemns fornication, which is any sex outside of marriage, and adultery. People committing those sins will also go to hell, not Heaven, and cannot be a Christian if they are doing those sins. Hollywood and the church long ago glossed over those sins, especially sex outside of marriage. No one is shocked or bothered, and it isn't unusual for professing Christian couples to have sex before marriage anymore. Even among Christian teenagers, the idea of staying a virgin until you're married is a joke. The idea that teens are going to have sex anyway has crept into many churches, brought on largely in part by Hollywood.

  Author and pastor David Platt made a great point about our selective morality.... condemning homosexuality while viewing other immorality. He put it this way:

"we’re all bent towards sexual deviation and we all realize this. The second reason this is so important is because it’s not just homosexual sin that skews the picture of Genesis 1 and 2. It is heterosexual sin as well. I represent the class of people that is responsible for the vast majority of sexual wrongdoing in the world: male heterosexuals, and I, and every heterosexual person, we would be wise to stop looking at the speck in other’s eyes when there is a mammoth log in our own eyes. It makes no sense to be watching TV and to see footage of same-sex marriages in California, to roll your eyes or shake your heads and flip the channel only to stare uncritically at adultery in a drama or to laugh at the trivialization of sex in a sitcom or to gaze upon the seductive images that dominate just about every realty TV show and to sit and watch advertisements that are virtual prostitution as people sell us, as followers of Christ, their products based on their appeal to our sexual desires. This makes no sense. This is why these Scriptures apply to every single one of us in this room. Are our sins as heterosexuals acceptable because they’re of the majority? Absolutely not, we are all born with a heart of pride and we are all, all of us, bent toward sexual deviation and as a result we all need the Gospel, every single one of us needs the Gospel because we’re all guilty, all of us and we need to remember these things."

  I wasn't exposed to much TV or movies until I became an adult, and then was careful about the movies I watched. I can still remember when I watched the popular "You've Got Mail" and feeling a sense of uneasiness that the female lead was living with her boyfriend. Sound weird, prudish, naive'? Maybe, but up to that point I hadn't watched much, and what I watched either didn't make shacking up obvious, or it wasn't in the movie at all.

But we get used to it. After you see it all of the time, and everyone starts doing it, you get desensitized to it and it seems less wrong to you, or less obvious that is is wrong. Hollywood helped do it with premarital sex and adultery, especially via soap operas, and now they are doing it with homosexuality.

 I looked up some statistics on gay characters on TV shows. The most recent that came up was from 2013. There were 35 series regulars on cable, and an addition 26 recurring gay characters on cable. This is not an accident. Hollywood has an agenda to make homosexuality more normal and accepted. They did it already with affairs, divorce, sex outside of marriage, and a multitude of behaviors, fads, etc. that were once considered weird and even taboo....... but thanks to Hollywood, no one blinks anymore.
 

 Last week,  ABC Family aired on one of their shows 2 13 year old boys kissing. Ironic, given the "family" part. Someone stated that if you were caught with pictures of minor boys kissing on your computer, you'd be in trouble, but since it was on a TV show, the gay lobby is jumping for joy that they got another taboo on TV.

  TV in and of itself is not evil, but Hollywood is evil and godless. I have read reliable sources that tell of minor boys being used sexually by adult males, and most likely minor girls also, but everyone looks the other way, because money and fame are more important than morality and doing the right thing, even if that right thing is protecting kids. And these people dare to tell us how we should live, who we should vote for?

 The Bible says in Psalm 101:3 "I will set no wicked thing before my eyes." Other versions render it better:
"I will not look with approval on anything that is vile" NIV
"I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar." NLT

  A couple of translations render it "I will not set anything worthless before my eyes."

    Philippians 4:8 says "And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."

   Do we really apply these verses to our lives? Do we put what we watch, what we read, what we let our eyes set on through the filter of what is pure, honorable, not wicked or vile? Does 50 Shades of Grey go through those filters? Absolutely not. Does any show celebrating homosexuality, adultery, fornication go through those filters?

  I did a blog post a while back, Addicted to "E", with the "E" standing for entertainment. There is nothing wrong with clean and wholesome entertainment, and we all need relaxation and fun...... but so much of America, and sadly all too many of those who claim to follow Jesus, have become so addicted to entertainment - TV, movies, music, amusement parks, and more, that we blindly go along and watch what the world watches, go where the world goes, listen to what the world watches. Then we wonder why our churches are shallow, why we never reach anyone for God, why we have so little time for God.

 My supervisor at work gets on a kick once in a while where he will start listing movies and ask if I have seen this one or that one. The ones he has watched that I watch are few and far between......because I don't watch many movies, and most of the ones I watch are either Christian or family oriented. I read far more than watching movies. But even there, I have to be careful. Reading can take the place of what I should be doing. Not all books, even on the Christian market, are pure and wholesome.

  There were many who called us who stood up against the 50 Shades movie "judgmental" and thought we should mind our own business.... but come on, a movie about a young girl being taken advantage of by a sadistic man...... is that something anyone concerned with morality and living for God should see? Absolutely not.

  Just as it is hard to swim upstream, living pure in today's culture is difficult. It is very difficult. It isn't considered normal, and those who try to live pure, who save sex for marriage and avoid movies like 50 Shades are mocked and called judgmental. We don't need to watch things, go places, or do things that will make it more difficult to remain pure. One can hardly go outside in warm weather without having to battle what your eyes see. So why unnecessarily put things in front of our eyes to cause us problems? We don't have to see the latest movie. We don't have to see ANY, for that matter, though I am not saying Christians can't..... our viewing habits should be a lot different from non-Christians though.

 Hollywood does not have our best interests at heart. They celebrate immorality. They mock Christian values, and yet Christians help support their godless and immoral movies and TV shows.

  It isn't just pornography that will separate us from God and destroy lives and marriages. It is immoral TV shows and movies.

  If everyone who professed the name of Jesus would stand up and boycott every movie and TV show that no Christian should watch, I firmly believe Hollywood would have to change the way they do things....... but too many of us won't do that. We are addicted to entertainment, and too calloused and used to immorality that we keep watching whatever Hollywood comes out with. And all along, the Bible is still saying "I will set no wicked thing before my eyes", and to think on whatever us pure, lovely, and of good report.