I have come across two blog posts recently questioning whether it is morally right for Christians to watch Game of Thrones. Great question to be asking.
This blog post is not primarily answering the question – whether agreeing or disagreeing, so much as it is questioning the logic of these posts:
1. John Piper – 12 Questions to Ask Before Watching Game of Thrones
This is not so much 12 questions you should ask, but more 12 assertions rephrased as questions. Or 12 questions Piper has begged about the whole issue.
First of all, Question 7 really is a pointed and challenging one: 'Would I Be Glad If My Daughter Played This Role [which involves nudity and sex scenes]?' That's a powerful question that we should ask, which grounds television in real human lives and forces us to apply our personal standards to public people.
Question 8. at first seems to build on Question 7: 'Am I Assuming Nudity Can Be Faked?'. However nudity in and of itself, is not immoral. It is context that makes nudity immodest. And it begs the question to argue that all public nudity is necessarily immoral. It might be, but that has to be established.
And others strike me as clumsy:, for example: '10. Am I Assuming Nudity Is Necessary for Good Art?' There is not an easy answer one way or the other to this. I'm not so sure that all nudity in art is immoral, or unnecessary. I can't confidently claim that all nudity in art is gratuitous. In fact, to go to an extreme, it is possible that there are powerful forms of effective art, where the shocking and explicit content makes it effective art. We might not want to see that art. We might not want it to be made at all! But that is not the same as saying it is not good, or not necessary. Having said all that, I agree that there are many scenes in TV and film that are annoyingly sleazy and superfluous.
Question 11. 'Am I Craving Acceptance?' – is a common ad hominem on these blogs. It is almost-assuming that the motives on any less-conservative Christian is motivated by trying to be trendy. That could be a problem. Just as a more conservative stance can be driven by prudishness or fear. So it is worth raising this. But often it is not so much raised as a question as asserted as a fact.
2. Tim Challies – Television's Rape Epidemic
The title makes me worried that rape is being normalised or even glamorised on television. That would be a horrendous and repulsive thing. But the title seems a bit miselading. What Challies observes is that a lot of modern television shows feature rape in some form or another – to explain a character, develop a character or as a plot device. Perhaps 'Television's Epidemic of Rape-Being-Used-As-A-Plot-Device' would be a more accurate and less salacious title?
There are two other things that don't quite gel in Challies argument.
Firstly, Challies wants to say that this has increased. I'm not sure if that's true across all art forms. And I'm not sure if it's easy to prove at all with regard to television in particular. Over the last 20 years television has changed dramatically. Comparing the television of 2014 with the television of 1994 is a hilarious retro kind of activity. Television like Twin Peaks or The X Files were edgy exceptions. The kind of sophistication of television that has been produced since West Wing and The Sopranos means that we are almost dealing with a new kind of medium.
Secondly, Challies wants to say that the dominant reason for watching television is entertainment, and so if we watch anything immoral in a television show, we are being entertained by it. This is seriously mistaken. Not only do we watch television for more complex reasons than simply entertainment, entertainment itself is also more complex than simplistic enjoyment. Listening to an orchestral symphony is entertaining but it's not merely entertaining. To be honest, most people read/watch news and current affairs partly for entertainment, but not merely entertainment. Just because the category of media is 'entertainment' doesn't mean that any isolated feature of the content is being treated as 'entertaining'.
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Does any of this mean that Christians should therefore feel free to watch Game Of Thrones? Not necessarily. All it means is we should be a little more careful in how we think and talk on this matter. Especially if we want to persuade people who don't already agree with us!
