Remember back in the day when even the mention of Christian rock music brought shudders to most adult
Christians? and then there was a whole other group of Christian Fundamentalists who considered this music to be
demonic. Their argument ran something like this: If you’d lived in the puritanical Fifties like we had, and you saw
Elvis-the-Pelvis move like that, you’d have crossed yourself with holy water.
Given the times, I probably would have.
Now flash forward to the 21st Century . . . not only do singers like Amy Grant and Steven Curtis Chapman sell
millions of CDs to the Christian market, their videos are shown in churches across North America as a regular
feature! Has their music changes? not really. Christians have come to realize that artists can use a variety of talents
to glorify God.
This is a different millenium. Every television two-minute-commercial-break, North America is spammed with
sexually-explicit-cubed. Our animated-G-rated “children’s” movies are seeded with adult comments once-per-
minute, yet we’re trying to raise a new generation of ambassadors from Heaven in this place? We are therefore
Christ’s ambassadors, as though God was making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be
reconciled to God (2nd Corinthians 5:20, (NIV)). Me-thinks that if there were a New-World to which we could all sail
and start anew, most would be packin’ even as I type. But we’re fresh outta’ new worlds. We can no longer flee the
Biblical command to be in the world but not of it. Since we’re stuck here, what do Christian children think when we
allow them to watch Cinderella, Snow White, and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, then curse Harry Potter?
Why is Star Wars okay, but Isaac Asimov bad, and why on Earth do Christians file Role Playing Games in the same
mental box as Ouija boards? With this kind of confusion, how will they be equipped to make proper distinctions
when encountering the mysterious?
Now back to Elvis. In the late Seventies and early Eighties, when it finally occurred to Christian record-producers
that they could imitate pop-music and reap healthy profits (yes, it took some twenty-five years—we are a slow
bunch) they met with outcry from old-school Bible-believers. Rightly outraged grandparents argued that rock-music
was of Satan, and could not glorify God.
I submit that this was impotent hand-wringing.
Inanimate objects are neither morally Satanic nor Theistic. Art forms may be employed to either worship or
blaspheme. The old-school was wrong.
Yet in our new millenium, the people who haven’t figured out how to diagnose sin, still bemoan that which
threatens them, that which they don’t understand. Is rock-music inherently evil? What if it’s Christian rock? Have
you ever read any Creed lyrics (my personal favorite)?
Are ideas of intelligent alien life-forms blasphemous? Do you believe in angels?
Is magic the equivalant of Satanism? What about Fairy Godmothers and the Good Witch of the North?
I am not saying that morality is shades of grey, it is indeed very black and white. I am saying that we who are quick
to judge must not do so from some instinctive and ignorant fear. Our sub-culture is in full retreat from popular
culture. Because of this we fall into the Islamic mindset of idealizing an earlier golden-age that never existed: an
age when Fantasy (Snow White), was not yet a taboo genre. We protectively cocoon our children, and purchase
firearms (I personally have and use an Indiana hand-gun license-to-carry).
With her children’s best interests enshrined, our mother secluded my sisters and I behind a trusty societial curtain.
She ignored Second Corinthians 3-6: For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The
weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish
strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we
will take captive every thought to make it obiedient to Christ (NIV). Rather, Mom tucked us safely away within the
folds of her Christian subculture.
Her problem was, we grew up, moved out, and faced the world, with wide eyes. She’d not thought that far ahead.
Rather than exposing us to limited doses of ‘secular’ and using given opportunities to discuss current events, Mom
forcably stuck our heads in the sand. Without revealing personal demons, suffice-it to say that my siblings and I met
the real world naked as a monk on brown-robe-laundry-day.
But Mom got one thing right—the exception to our cultural isolationism. She allowed us to play Advanced Dungeons
& Dragons.
I know, the unforgivable sin; take a deep breath and read-on.
She had faith in her ability to teach us the difference between Biblical reality and magical fantasy. She allowed us to
fantasize, and therefore encouraged our imagination (the result is that I’m a novelist and my sister, Lydia, is an
author and poet). But once Mom had heard the media’s controversial reports on gaming, she became attentive to
our past-time, feigning interest, asking confusing questions that had nothing to do with AD&D but everything to do
with weirdness. Our being baffled at weirdness convinced Mom that we were just having fun, and in the end she
came away convinced that we were safe.
My point is that Harry Potter and The Matrix are discussion-points for Christian families, not taboo materials.
Fantasy and Sci-Fi explore human ideas, as will our children. These genres seek answers to important questions,
questions to which the Bible contains thunderous answers.
Someone once said that Fantasy and Sci-Fi are the handmaidens of philosophy, because they explore the
possibilities behind reality. Sooner or later, our children will face these boundaries. They’ll face them either with,
or without us. Parents too busy to provide real guidance will be ignored.
Since we have the wisdom of experience, the logical arguments of theologians, and the loving trust of our children,
let’s not cement those ill-mannered rascals behind brick-walls. Rather, communicate His answers to their
curiosities. For centuries, both believers and unbelievers have tried our own solutions in place of His, and for
centuries we’ve failed . . .
When will we learn to trust Him?
Christians? and then there was a whole other group of Christian Fundamentalists who considered this music to be
demonic. Their argument ran something like this: If you’d lived in the puritanical Fifties like we had, and you saw
Elvis-the-Pelvis move like that, you’d have crossed yourself with holy water.
Given the times, I probably would have.
Now flash forward to the 21st Century . . . not only do singers like Amy Grant and Steven Curtis Chapman sell
millions of CDs to the Christian market, their videos are shown in churches across North America as a regular
feature! Has their music changes? not really. Christians have come to realize that artists can use a variety of talents
to glorify God.
This is a different millenium. Every television two-minute-commercial-break, North America is spammed with
sexually-explicit-cubed. Our animated-G-rated “children’s” movies are seeded with adult comments once-per-
minute, yet we’re trying to raise a new generation of ambassadors from Heaven in this place? We are therefore
Christ’s ambassadors, as though God was making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be
reconciled to God (2nd Corinthians 5:20, (NIV)). Me-thinks that if there were a New-World to which we could all sail
and start anew, most would be packin’ even as I type. But we’re fresh outta’ new worlds. We can no longer flee the
Biblical command to be in the world but not of it. Since we’re stuck here, what do Christian children think when we
allow them to watch Cinderella, Snow White, and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, then curse Harry Potter?
Why is Star Wars okay, but Isaac Asimov bad, and why on Earth do Christians file Role Playing Games in the same
mental box as Ouija boards? With this kind of confusion, how will they be equipped to make proper distinctions
when encountering the mysterious?
Now back to Elvis. In the late Seventies and early Eighties, when it finally occurred to Christian record-producers
that they could imitate pop-music and reap healthy profits (yes, it took some twenty-five years—we are a slow
bunch) they met with outcry from old-school Bible-believers. Rightly outraged grandparents argued that rock-music
was of Satan, and could not glorify God.
I submit that this was impotent hand-wringing.
Inanimate objects are neither morally Satanic nor Theistic. Art forms may be employed to either worship or
blaspheme. The old-school was wrong.
Yet in our new millenium, the people who haven’t figured out how to diagnose sin, still bemoan that which
threatens them, that which they don’t understand. Is rock-music inherently evil? What if it’s Christian rock? Have
you ever read any Creed lyrics (my personal favorite)?
Are ideas of intelligent alien life-forms blasphemous? Do you believe in angels?
Is magic the equivalant of Satanism? What about Fairy Godmothers and the Good Witch of the North?
I am not saying that morality is shades of grey, it is indeed very black and white. I am saying that we who are quick
to judge must not do so from some instinctive and ignorant fear. Our sub-culture is in full retreat from popular
culture. Because of this we fall into the Islamic mindset of idealizing an earlier golden-age that never existed: an
age when Fantasy (Snow White), was not yet a taboo genre. We protectively cocoon our children, and purchase
firearms (I personally have and use an Indiana hand-gun license-to-carry).
With her children’s best interests enshrined, our mother secluded my sisters and I behind a trusty societial curtain.
She ignored Second Corinthians 3-6: For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The
weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish
strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we
will take captive every thought to make it obiedient to Christ (NIV). Rather, Mom tucked us safely away within the
folds of her Christian subculture.
Her problem was, we grew up, moved out, and faced the world, with wide eyes. She’d not thought that far ahead.
Rather than exposing us to limited doses of ‘secular’ and using given opportunities to discuss current events, Mom
forcably stuck our heads in the sand. Without revealing personal demons, suffice-it to say that my siblings and I met
the real world naked as a monk on brown-robe-laundry-day.
But Mom got one thing right—the exception to our cultural isolationism. She allowed us to play Advanced Dungeons
& Dragons.
I know, the unforgivable sin; take a deep breath and read-on.
She had faith in her ability to teach us the difference between Biblical reality and magical fantasy. She allowed us to
fantasize, and therefore encouraged our imagination (the result is that I’m a novelist and my sister, Lydia, is an
author and poet). But once Mom had heard the media’s controversial reports on gaming, she became attentive to
our past-time, feigning interest, asking confusing questions that had nothing to do with AD&D but everything to do
with weirdness. Our being baffled at weirdness convinced Mom that we were just having fun, and in the end she
came away convinced that we were safe.
My point is that Harry Potter and The Matrix are discussion-points for Christian families, not taboo materials.
Fantasy and Sci-Fi explore human ideas, as will our children. These genres seek answers to important questions,
questions to which the Bible contains thunderous answers.
Someone once said that Fantasy and Sci-Fi are the handmaidens of philosophy, because they explore the
possibilities behind reality. Sooner or later, our children will face these boundaries. They’ll face them either with,
or without us. Parents too busy to provide real guidance will be ignored.
Since we have the wisdom of experience, the logical arguments of theologians, and the loving trust of our children,
let’s not cement those ill-mannered rascals behind brick-walls. Rather, communicate His answers to their
curiosities. For centuries, both believers and unbelievers have tried our own solutions in place of His, and for
centuries we’ve failed . . .
When will we learn to trust Him?
"Frank Creed is a Fundamentalist Christian and writer of fantasy and sci-fi ( Speculative Fiction ). Frank Creed has a Christian Speculative Fiction novella published in
Tales for the Thrifty Barbarian: An Anthology of High Fantasy and three short stories in Light at the Edge of Darkness. His debut novel, a Christian cyberpunk novel
titled Flashpoint was released in September 2007; the sequel, War of Attrition will be available winter 2009. An avid fan of sci-fi and fantasy, Speculative Fiction is the
vehicle that Frank uses to deliver his beliefs and spiritual philosophy to readers. This "Lost Genre" remains very controversial in the Christian Fundamentalist community
and Frank Creed and other authors of Christian Speculative Fiction are the new kids on the block. They will likely spread the Christian message to a greater number of
people because they are willing to follow His voice and use the gifts He has given. To this end, Frank has created the "Lost Genre Guild" an organization to help
promote Biblical speculative fiction and assist fans in locating the best in the genre." Learn more about the Lost Genre Guild at www.lostgenreguild.com.
Editor,
The Writers' Cafe Press
Tales for the Thrifty Barbarian: An Anthology of High Fantasy and three short stories in Light at the Edge of Darkness. His debut novel, a Christian cyberpunk novel
titled Flashpoint was released in September 2007; the sequel, War of Attrition will be available winter 2009. An avid fan of sci-fi and fantasy, Speculative Fiction is the
vehicle that Frank uses to deliver his beliefs and spiritual philosophy to readers. This "Lost Genre" remains very controversial in the Christian Fundamentalist community
and Frank Creed and other authors of Christian Speculative Fiction are the new kids on the block. They will likely spread the Christian message to a greater number of
people because they are willing to follow His voice and use the gifts He has given. To this end, Frank has created the "Lost Genre Guild" an organization to help
promote Biblical speculative fiction and assist fans in locating the best in the genre." Learn more about the Lost Genre Guild at www.lostgenreguild.com.
Editor,
The Writers' Cafe Press
| Christian Parents can use music, movies, and rpgs as teaching tools |
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