Beauty vs. The Beast

It is amazing the posts on my news feed over the hoopla concerning another Disney movie. First Disney has been headed down this road for a while, and we need to quit being surprised. Next, this topic brings up some real discussions, we as Christians need to have. The world sees the hypocrisy in our actions. But this is what happens when we run around telling people “we don’t need to worry about all that theology stuff, we just need to let people know Jesus loves them”. We end up not having any answers or giving poor, if not just wrong, answers to the world’s questions.

So what is the question of the day? It is this… why would Christians boycott Beauty and the Beast when it goes against their values, yet continue to see movies that involve all kinds of other sins; murder, bad language, sex, and more? This is a valid question. And this is how the world sees the argument.

Let’s look at where we agree. I remember when another movie debuted. It was called Magic Mike. This movie did not get the scorn you would expect from the Christians. Instead Facebook news feeds were filled with ladies talking about going to see this movie. These same ladies were posting bible verses the day before. The same argument above works here. Why would you call down condemnation on men for going to the strip club but then justify going to a movie which involved men stripping? I suppose you just use the Playboy argument, “it had a good story”.

The real question being ask is this, why do you justify one sin and condemn another? There is a tendency we have to avoid our own failings and point out the sin in others. This is the meaning of judge not lest ye be judged. Not that we should never judge but that we when we judge we should judge rightly because the same standards will be applied to us. So if we are to boycott a movie like Beauty and the Beast then we should also boycott Magic Mike.

So why don’t we just boycott all movies that contain any sin? There are always distinctions to be made and the distinction is this; both Beauty and the Beast and Magic Mike glorify sin. If a movie contains a murder, it is typically understood that it is wrong and justice is sought by searching for the guilty party, arresting them, and putting them on trial. The fact that a movie contains sin is not a reason not to watch it. The question should be what does the movie say about that sin? The question is not how many cuss words are used. It doesn’t matter if it is 3, 7, or 24, but what is the world view being promoted. Truth is that Christians should probably quit watching most of what is on television and in movies, and read a book. If you need a reference let me know, there is one that has been around a while.

We need to learn to define our worldview and what is important. Christians need to stop defining their worldview based on their own personal preferences. This is what makes it hard to answer the world’s questions. This is how we are hypocritical. We need to learn to rightly define our own sin, as well as sin in general. It is time we take self evaluations and honestly review our own lives. What we watch, what we wear, how we speak and how we spend our time.

Sin is sin is sin. We need to call sin what it is. Truthfully, Christians need to quit justifying their sin and the world needs to quit glorifying their sin. We need to learn that not agreeing is not hate. Truth is true regardless of our emotional reaction. Truth may elicit emotions but they don’t define it. Because I call what you enjoy sin does not mean I hate you. I understand the struggle because I struggle myself. Our sins are different and the same. But sin is sin and we must bring light to the darkness. It is the beast that separates us from our creator but if we turn from it he will redeem us and therein lies true beauty.