I had the following question from a reader [edited to make the person less identifiable, and posted with permission]:<\/p>\n
I’ve been following your blog for a few months now, and I’ve found your posts thoughtful and gracious. Thanks for the time you put into it.<\/p>\n
I wanted to take a minute and ask you for a line or two of your advice. I was a teacher myself for many years and realize how precious free time can be, so however brief of a response you can afford is appreciated.<\/p>\n
Several years ago I made the transition from a more explicit ministry role to a role in the technology\/media industry. I had been teaching computing for some time, was starting a family, and the financial penny eventually dropped. So I took a conversion course and made the change. My current job I view primarily as a way of supporting my role in theological education and as a part-time pastor.<\/p>\n
The trouble is, along with the secular workplace come certain ethical grays that I hadn’t been accustomed to dealing with. Seeing as you work in a secular university, I wondered if you had any thoughts on this.<\/p>\n
For example, the net ethical consequences of the technology I work on is still TBD.\u00a0 […]<\/em>\u00a0 More immediately, our company provides access to an array of films, some of which are of some value, others of which are in direct opposition to the Christian values I espouse and preach.<\/p>\n
I do have a degree of influence in the company, and have been able to steer the direction in certain positive ways during my time there. But the fact remains that impacting the nature of the entertainment industry, or influencing the ultimate societal impact of certain technologies is beyond the scope of my influence. So I will inevitably find myself earning a paycheck resulting from the promotion of certain materials that have to do with darkness rather than light.<\/p>\n
Do I leave and protect my conscience, or remain and seek to be a light, however dimmed by the surroundings?<\/p>\n
Peace,
\n______<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n[I wrote back something like the following:]<\/em><\/p>\n
Peace of Christ to you as well.<\/p>\n
It’s good that you’re carefully thinking through the moral consequences of your job.\u00a0 I’m not going to pretend that there are always easy answers to these questions.\u00a0 But maybe I can say a few things that will encourage you in your present circumstances.<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 Jesus said we were to be “in the world, but not of the world”.\u00a0 It’s sounds to me like you’re wrestling here more with the “in” part than the “of” part.<\/p>\n
Obviously, Christians should not directly endorse or commit acts which they think are sinful.\u00a0 But when it comes to more indirect forms of enablement, I think that the Spirit of God actually leads different people to adopt different strategies, depending on the individual person.\u00a0 Some Christians are called to serve God within explicitly Christian sub-communities with a relatively high degree of autonomy from secular culture, while others are called to immerse themselves within a secular culture and be salt and light there.<\/p>\n
This isn’t moral relativism.\u00a0 The reason different Christians are called to different positions in society, is that it’s a question of different talents and tactics; not a question of who you stand for, which always stays the same.\u00a0 (There are a variety of gifts, but just one Spirit.)<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 And sometimes, God moves people from one of these lifestyles to the other one; in other words he can call you to take different strategies at different times in your life.\u00a0 St. Paul the Apostle was no stranger to this feeling of disorientation.\u00a0 As he described his experience in 1 Cor 9<\/a>:<\/p>\n
Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.\u00a0 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.\u00a0 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God\u2019s law but am under Christ\u2019s law), so as to win those not having the law.\u00a0 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak.\u00a0 I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
There may be some shock of transition, in that if you started off with the “Christian sub-culture” approach, you might feel like you are compromising yourself by being involved with people or things that seem unclean to you. \u00a0(Like Peter’s reaction to the sheet from heaven.) \u00a0And perhaps several of these things really are<\/em> unclean, and you can’t endorse them in your mind; but sometimes it’s hard to separate yourself (in an external sense) from those things, without also rejecting the people involved.\u00a0 That’s why it’s a judgement call.<\/p>\n
The important thing is that you remain faithful to him in whatever situation he’s called you to.\u00a0 If you have heart-righteousness, you can’t be compromised by any amount of indecency around you.\u00a0 This is what St. Paul the apostle called having a “strong” faith in Romans 14-15<\/a>.<\/p>\n
No seriously, you can’t be compromised by it if your heart is right.\u00a0 Not if you have the kind of “innocent as doves and shrewd as serpents” character that Jesus is calling you to have.\u00a0 And if you don’t have that character yet, ask him for it.\u00a0 He might allow you to make some mistakes along the way that are part of the learning process, but he will be faithful to you in whatever situation he’s placed you into, if you place your trust in him.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 When I was about 6 years old, I was attending a Baptist school in Los Angeles, and I recall that they had a kids concert where my older sister helped to perform the following “Input \/ Output” song:<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?
v=whKay8FCU0I<\/wbr><\/a><\/p>\n It’s cute and catchy, but I think it fundamentally contradicts Jesus teaching in Matthew 15:10-20<\/a>.\u00a0 Jesus says that it isn’t the inputs into our life that cause us to sin, but rather the outputs (which come from our heart).\u00a0 Human beings are not robots, who are mechanically controlled by our programming and data.\u00a0 Attempts by Christian parents and leaders to create a “safe” environment that prevents children from ever being exposed to evil, can ironically be motivated by an almost Marxist view, where the spirit of a person is controlled by their material circumstances.\u00a0 So they think that, in order to change people, you have to control them externally, rather than inspiring them from within.<\/p>\n
It’s a fear-based system (what will happen to the kids if they hear about this idea?) rather than a faith-based system.<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0 In the Old Covenant, when a ceremonially unclean object touched a clean thing, the clean thing became unclean (Haggai 2:10-14<\/a>).\u00a0 But in the New Covenant, there is something so perfectly clean, that when it touches an unclean thing, it is the unclean thing that becomes clean, without contaminating the clean thing (Matthew 8:1-4<\/a>)!\u00a0 In other words, in the Old Testament, uncleanness was contagious, but in the New Testament, cleanness<\/em> is contagious, because Jesus has the power to make people clean.\u00a0 And he lives inside of each Christian.\u00a0 If you love as he loved, then you will be like that too.<\/p>\n
That’s why Jesus uses yeast (a reproducing organism) as a metaphor for the Kingdom of Heaven<\/a> in the Gospels.\u00a0 (Even though in the Old Testament Passover ritual, yeast had previously been used as a metaphor for sin, again because of its contagiousness.)<\/p>\n
The reason uncleanness was contagious in the Old Covenant was that there hadn’t yet come into the world a powerful enough love and light and disinfectant to fully cleanse our sin.\u00a0 So God gave Israel some quarantine rules, as a temporary measure, until Christ entered the world to save it.\u00a0 But after Christ came, these quarantine rules were no longer so necessary.<\/p>\n
That’s why Jesus went to dinner parties with prostitutes and tax collectors.\u00a0 You can be pretty sure that some stuff happened at those parties that you and I would not approve of.\u00a0 But the Son of Man went to them anyways, to seek and save that which was lost.<\/p>\n
Like I said, some people are called to live in Christian sub-cultures, and I’m not in any way trying to minimize or disrespect that choice, since it works well for many people.\u00a0 But sometimes people conceive of such subcultures wrongly, as a place where we can go to avoid temptations.\u00a0 But that’s just not possible in this life!\u00a0 A Christian sub-culture just exposes you to a different<\/em> set of possible temptations.\u00a0 (Such as the temptation to slap the word “Christian” on schools or music, and assume they’ve just been redeemed, even though nothing in people’s hearts is any different than what happens outside in the “world”.)<\/p>\n
Don’t get me wrong, an unclean thing can still infect you today, if you turn from Christ and your heart lusts after it.\u00a0 Christians must keep themselves pure from worldly desires (James 4:4, Rev 18:4<\/a>).\u00a0 Yet Jesus taught his apostles that the dividing line of purity has to be in the heart, not in walls of separation from other people.\u00a0 As the famous quotation from St. Solzhenitsyn goes:<\/p>\n
Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either\u2014but right through every human heart\u2014and through all human hearts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If you work in a secular environment, there may be tendencies for it to look a little bit like Romans chapter 1<\/a>.\u00a0 But if you work in a churchy environment, there will be temptations for you to become like Romans chapter 2<\/a>; and these temptations can sometimes be very subtle, difficult to avoid, and encouraged by the community.\u00a0 Neither way looks very much like Romans chapter 8<\/a>, which is where we ought to be living.\u00a0 If so, we can triumphantly say:<\/p>\n
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor [secular culture nor religious culture], shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
5. Your metaphor of “light dimmed by the surroundings” is not really sound.\u00a0 Darkness is just the absence of light, and hence it has no inherent power of its own to overcome light (John 1:5<\/a>).<\/p>\n
This is certainly true for literal light.\u00a0 Darkness is not a substance.\u00a0 There is no such thing as a “dark flashlight” which can emit darkness the way a normal flashlight produces light.\u00a0 Only if the light is concealed or blocked by an opaque object (so that the light doesn’t reach whatever spot you are looking at) can there be darkness somewhere.\u00a0 And even when the light is<\/em> blocked by a solid object, it still shines on whatever object is blocking it, and illuminates it.<\/p>\n
The light of God is truth.\u00a0 Do you believe that truth is more powerful than lies?\u00a0 Do you really believe it?<\/p>\n
6.\u00a0 Reread the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares in Matt 13:24-30<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Part of the point of this story is that no person is smart enough to separate the wheat from the tares; at least, not right now at this stage in history. \u00a0(The separation is coming, but this has to wait for the final judgment, when both plants have reached their full maturity.)<\/p>\n
You might think you know which movies are “wheat” and which ones are “tares”, but art is a funny thing because it can speak to people’s hearts in ways that aren’t entirely predictable.\u00a0 It is good that there exist stories of every possible sort, since they enlarge the range of our thinking about the world.<\/p>\n
Most of the divines of St. William Shakespeare’s day thought it was a sin to attend theatrical performances, because of their ribaldry and because it distracted people from more noble endeavors, but today he is considered “high culture”.\u00a0 Can you imagine where the English language would be, without Hamlet and his other plays?\u00a0 We can all express our thoughts more vividly, because he existed.<\/p>\n
One certainly cannot judge the spiritual value of a work by applying superficial “content filters” (e.g. if the movie depicts adultery or swearing or smoking or gang warfare or alternative sexualities, then it is bad; if it avoids all this stuff and also has an uplifting overall message, then it is good).<\/p>\n
There are some deeply spiritual and moral works of literature which portray people committing crimes or serious sins, but they are still wholesome precisely because they shine a light on how this actually affects real people<\/em>.\u00a0 As a result of seeing these consequences more clearly, people can be inspired to turn away from destructive actions before they ruin their lives.\u00a0 Indeed, in some ways it’s especially<\/em> important to have stories portraying sinful deeds, since that’s the only possible way for us to learn about sin, without having to actually commit it.<\/p>\n
Then there are films and novels that are deeply anti-Christian in their outlook (I’m not talking about straight up XXX pornography here, but rather works which have some artistic merits, but also glorify ungodly values).\u00a0 \u00a0Even so, that doesn’t automatically imply that it is only bad for the world that they exist.\u00a0 It could well be that some of these stories help the discerning to see something new about the world, and some might even be the instrument of somebody’s conversion to Christ!\u00a0 After all, I don’t think any work can have much artistic value if it doesn’t resonate with some<\/em> important truth about the world (even if that truth might be mixed with lies, in a way that is a trap for the unwary).\u00a0 And to the extent a work of fiction resonates with any truth, it reveals something about God who is the Truth\u2014even if the person who wrote it is an atheist and never intended for that to happen.<\/p>\n
Conversely, a studio which makes a film that is “clean” and “Christian” might still be creating a work with very little artistic value.\u00a0 Because artistic value is closely connected to truth, this implies that it is (to some degree) telling lies about what humans are like, and what real virtue and vice look like.\u00a0 Such fiction specializes in equipping people to see the world in an immature and unrealistic manner.\u00a0 There’s a whole Christian film industry which specializes in this type of glop. \u00a0(Of course there are also some great Christian films like Chariots of Fire<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
So maybe some of the works which seem to us like “wheat” are actually “tares”, or vice versa!\u00a0 It’s not really our place to judge. \u00a0(Of course it is fine to judge for yourself<\/em> what seems spiritually\/artistically good, for purposes of deciding what you will watch, or make, or recommend to your friends!\u00a0 What I mean by “not judging” is more that if somebody else<\/em> makes something on your platform, and then somebody else<\/em> enjoys it, you aren’t necessarily in a good position to know whether it will have been good or bad for them, in the long run.)<\/p>\n
7.\u00a0 Suppose now that you are a creator of technology.\u00a0 You can foresee that this technology will be used to produce both good things and bad things.\u00a0 Some will use it to become more virtuous, while others will use it to sin.\u00a0 What should you do?<\/p>\n
It seems to me you have a pretty obvious role-model here.\u00a0 I’m talking about God himself.\u00a0 He created a world, and he could have turned on content filters that made it so bad things weren’t possible.\u00a0 But in his wisdom, he didn’t do that.\u00a0 Instead he put all sorts of things in the world that humans can use both for good purposes and for bad purposes, and he gives us the freedom and space to pick what we will do with them.\u00a0 Most of the time, he lets people make their own mistakes and learn from them, so we can learn the consequences for ourselves.\u00a0 Of course, he’s provided us with lots of direction and guidance in the Bible, and yet he doesn’t even force people to believe he exists, if they don’t want to do that!\u00a0 Yet even so he still provides the same sunshine and rain for the wicked, just as much as to the righteous (Matt 5:45<\/a>).<\/p>\n