Should Christians watch Stranger Things? My Take

[0:00] stranger things season four is out today after three years of waiting and a lot of my friends are kind of on the fence about it they don't know how to feel on the one hand they like most people really enjoy good fiction and good storytelling and compelling characters but on the other hand this season especially is supposed to take a turn more in the horror direction they've already released the first eight minutes of the first episode and it's pretty brutal and there are a lot of violent vicious on-screen deaths so i think rightly a lot of people re react in a default impulsive kind of way to say well this is objectionable content i don't know if i should be consuming this on the other hand you open up your bible and you read through about the first few chapters of first kings for an example and you'll see stuff that's worse so it's not so much a question of can christians watch stranger things or shows like it or horror movies or

[0:48] anything that's generally objectionable or portrays morally objectionable situations it's should they watch it [Music] hey and welcome back to the channel my name is tim barber and if you are interested at all in discussing the new creation the plans that god has for eternity for his people and the restoration of all things then you're in the right place go ahead and give a like a subscribe and ring that notification bell so that i am in your inbox whenever i go live with another episode so what does a christian do with content that isn't specifically moral or espousing a christian worldview what if the material actually portrays things that are antithetical to the christian worldview or to god's stated and clear will or even objective morality number

[1:37] one you and i both know that these things aren't real and so in a sense we're in romans 14 and 15 territory where we're discussing the meat sacrificed to idols if you are a weaker brother or sister which in the context of those chapters of course paul is very careful to point out means that you are uncomfortable with the degrees of christian freedom that are available to you if you're a weaker brother who struggles with non-christian non-edifying content then no of course you shouldn't watch if you're tempted in any unique way by something about a piece of fiction or a piece of content then you should probably not be consuming that piece of content we know from the book of james of course that for he who knows the right thing to do and does not do it for him it is sin and paul's advice in this same thread is that every every person each person should be fully convinced in his or her

[2:26] own mind so my first contention i guess i would say is that nobody should consume anything uncritically if you haven't thought it through if you haven't assessed it if you haven't done the due diligence to look elsewhere for other good input on what is going on in this bit of content you probably shouldn't just consume it unthinkingly but mature christians especially if they're going to be involved in the public sphere in any kind of a way need to regularly give themselves over to observing things and seeing points of view and points of conversation that they don't agree with that they can assess without internalizing there's this this is happening all over the place right now for instance with like the abortion debate and of course the gun control debate in light of the horrible things that happened in texas the most mature people but especially the most mature christians need to be

[3:13] able to weigh opposing viewpoints weigh negative inputs weigh negative stories and be able to parse them through and make sense of them without internalizing what they're seeing the same thing is true of most fiction that we need to um that we consume in this day and age generally there are going to be things that are strongly christian tim keller is fond of saying that there are things that in every culture and every subculture are basically in line with the teaching of the gospel and there are things that are basically against the gospel we can affirm and stand alongside and come up under and support those things while challenging and rebutting and pushing back against these things in the public square for a recent example my wife and i went out on a date the other night and we saw the new doctor strange movie doctor strange and the multiverse of madness and without giving away anything

[4:01] by way of spoilers i just want to point out that the multiverse is something that the people in the world are looking at as a potential solution to their problems they don't want to be accountable to a god or any kind of a creator being and so they posit that there are an infinite number of universes to make it more likely that there would be life in this one they'll say things like of course the the of course this universe has life in it we're here to observe it and they appeal to the multiverse for probabilistic theory to help give them more resources to make it less likely or less necessary to have a god as an explanation for the universe but i found it so fascinating as i was watching the movie that even appealing to the multiverse in the context of that film didn't solve anyone's problems some of the characters i would say most of the characters end that movie in a more miserable and more hopeless place than they did when that

[4:49] movie started so what i've done there is i have a critically assessed a piece of fiction that has a lot of anti-christian messages and a lot of things that are basically against the gospel and i have assessed it in a sort of an objective way to kind of create a discussion around it where we can talk about the ideas and parse out the good ideas and affirm what is basically in line with christian teaching while challenging what is basically against christian teaching while still enjoying the movie most people in this day and age can't help but tell strongly christian oriented stories anyway where there is clear right and wrong there is a battle of good against evil and good usually comes out on top at the same time i do think it bears mentioning once again that if you read the bible you will find lots of stories that are against the values espoused by the bible what do i mean by

[5:39] that read about lamech who brags about how many wives he has and his his willingness to kill people at the drop of a hat you can't get past the first few pages of the bible before encountering a character that is ungodly you've got an entire city and a story about an entire city that thrives on orgies and sexual sin and god's judgment of that city is violent and graphic people are killed often in gruesome ways people say blasphemous things all the time about god in the pages of scripture a young boy is sold by his brothers into slavery in egypt and then he's propositioned by the national leader's wife and when he runs away he's thrown in prison for it if this weren't already in the bible and somebody wrote a story about something like that today and filmed it like a breaking bad most christians would say i don't think we should watch that kind of story so just remember that even as you

[6:27] read the scriptures themselves you have to critically assess what is happening in the pages of the scriptures especially because it is a habit of biblical storytelling not to tell you what to think necessarily about what it is you're reading for example in solomon's life it describes him importing the finest horses from egypt and if you weren't paying attention several chapters earlier you might say wow okay wow solomon was really wealthy and his kingdom was really prosperous that's amazing he was even able to bring these fine war horses from egypt except that several chapters earlier god specifically sanctioned that kind of thing and said that a king of the israelites of the israelites should not do such a thing that it would be an abomination to the lord but in the context of solomon's story it does not tell you that it was wrong it just expects you to be paying attention so really what i say that we need is more critical storytelling and more critical

[7:16] consumption of good media rather than just saying in some form of piety no i'm not gonna do that of course again if you are a weaker brother or sister in christ then you probably shouldn't expose yourself to things that you're not ready to parse through and to examine in a critical light but it's the stronger believers in christ the stronger brothers and sisters who have that freedom that sense of freedom in christ and the ability to critically examine anything that they're consuming while still enjoying it taking the meat and spitting out the bones they're able to do so as long as they're able to do so with the free conscience so what does this mean in light of eternity frankly i think there will be lots of good storytelling in the new creation and i think that some of that storytelling will portray situations and contexts that are against the morality of the bible that will be at odds with the nature of the people who fill that

[8:03] space number one i say that because all of story all of the bible is a story that takes that same shape we're not going to be getting rid of the bible when we're there and so we will still be able to read about all the horrible and stupid things that humans have done over the course of human history i am also personally a dungeon master for the tabletop role playing game dungeons and dragons yet another reason that i enjoy stranger things quite a bit but it's of course also had a huge influence on the broader geek culture as well i fully anticipate to be playing dungeons and dragons with my believing friends in the new creation and we'll be able to see and tell and experience stories that always involve a triumph of good over evil and we'll be able to roll that gratitude and that excitement and that joy at the victory of the good guys up into our present experience in that day and age where we are experiencing the

[8:51] eternal victory of christ over the powers of sin and death and evil portraying evil seeing evil viewing evil acts done does not mean that you are approving them all that we need to do is to decide how that fits into our christian worldview through the lens of scripture not allowing it to passively shape our thinking without examining the claims that it makes frankly i even plan on enjoying stranger things reruns at some point during my time in eternity i'll certainly have plenty enough time let me know down in the comments are you planning on watching stranger things season 4 tonight if you haven't watched it before has anything that i've said made you maybe reconsider starting from the beginning i'd love to hear what you think but in the meantime if you haven't read my book or you'd be interested in interacting with more of the resources that i've put together you can always visit my website at theoverlap.life and again like subscribe and then ring that notification bell so that anytime i put

[9:39] out new content you're ready for it until then enjoy your good stories and enjoy your good fiction giving god gratitude and glory for every good thing that he creates in the meantime further up and further