by Nikolas Nies

Created on: May 26, 2009   Last Updated: May 28, 2009

Imagine that it is the day before your seventeenth birthday. You are too young to attend a rated R movie without Mom or Dad, but tomorrow it will be acceptable, you will be old enough. What difference does one day make, or one week? If some material may not be suitable for some viewers, what does age have to do with it? Or is it just a matter of being old enough to make the decision to feed your mind such needless garbage?

True, there are movies that we desire to watch for one reason or another, so we sift through the garbage, ignoring what we can. However, when you think about what you are watching, one should ask, does it actually entertain you. If you viewed some of the content you see on television and at the movies in real life, would you be entertain. Put yourself in someone else's bedroom watching as they perform a sex scene, are you comfortable with that? Go to a gang infested neighborhood, and watch them obliterate each other, entertaining for you? How disturbing would it be to witness a plane crash, or train wreck? Yet, we find all of this stuff entertaining when we see it in the fantasy realm.

A Christian is one who should abstain from evil, a person who should be offended at the sight of it. A Christian should not find entertainment in evil acts. Psalms 101:3 says: "I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me". But when discussing the issue of rated R movies, I think there are a lot of people who don't profess to be Christians who would prefer their movies cleaned up. When discussing this matter, one only need to think about the movie "The Rookie" to understand that all that offensive language, smut, and violence is not necessary to produce an excellent movie. "The Rookie" was rated G and sold millions. It was a great movie, and one that the whole family could enjoy. If more actors would make these kinds of movies, they would be surprised at the response from viewers.

The question of content in movies, television, and even music should not be one just relative to Christians. People should be careful what they let their minds absorb. How much time they spend watching or listening to useless trash. You wouldn't sit down at the supper table and eat a bunch of garbage, sifting through it to get the good stuff out. So why do we sit in front of a screen and feed that same garbage to our minds. We need a healthy diet mentally, just as we do physically.

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