Society Haters

New Moon... A HUGE blockbuster movie that was just released as part of the continuing saga of "Twilight". I don't care for the movie personally, however, it seems as if most of teen girls in America do! In only 3 days in the theaters, the movie is heading towards breaking 2 box office records,expecting to beat out The Dark Knight. The movie is being shown in 4,024 theaters, and in 3 days the total gross for the movie is: $140,700,000... That's right MILLION! But, the "hottness" of Edward is not the only topic of discussion for this movie. I read blogs, Facebooks, and Twitters often (not to stalk...haha) and I've seen a recent trend being spread throughout church communities. So, I pose the question: is New Moon and Twilight treading on the thin line of a "work of Satan"?

There are obvious concerns for religious groups. Blood sucking vampires, scary life altering werewolves. A young woman incredibly wrapped up in the love of these two aliens. However, what is the "work of Satan"? Many say it's the pure thought of evil. That it's a glimpse into the "dark side", that we should stay away from the very thought and existence of evil. Which, I totally and completely agree, that we should. In fact, in Proverbs 6 it is said "If you have been snared with the words of your mouth...do this then, my son, and delivery yourself...deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hunters hand and like a bird from the hand of the fowler." (Proverbs 6:2-5, NASB)

But, let me pose another way at looking at this. Isn't evil everywhere? Think about this: We are chosen of God, born of HIS image, into HIS likeness, for HIS glory; yet there is evil all around. Why? Because of freedom of choice, REAL love! It's not real love if you can't DECIDE to love them, it's simply forced love. So, through that freedom of choice, that real love, we have been given the chance to choose grace and freedom, or an evil path. So, we live in a world where people, born in HIS image choose evil every day. So, by the reasoning presented in that of many Christians with this movie, and several other societal things, we should stay in our homes and never leave. Which is truly not true, because Jesus' last commandment was to "go into all the nations, baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." (Matthew 28:19, NASB)

So, is there something spiritually wrong with this movie? My personal opinion: no. It's simply a love story about 2 races that shouldn't even be discussing/talking/communicating, yet they fall in a blissful Hollywood love, breaking down racial barriers. So, if anything, I almost see it as a knock on racism. (which it also kind of reminds me of the Woman at the Well story. No Jesus didn't fall in love with her, but he helped her, and loved her, and helped her change her life, when the 2 races should never have been talking in the first place.) I could see the spiritually wrong point if Edward or the werewolf guy were out there, recruiting others to join them in the darkside in order to grow the dark kingdom or something, but that's not the point of the story. Really, it's not even the subpoint.

So, if we are to stay away from the very existence of evil, what are we to do? Here's what I think we should do, discern our OWN convictions, and what to stay away from, and not push them on others. Look, I believe we at the church have created 2 very unfortunate injustices:
1 - VERY immature, excuse driven Christians: What does that mean? Simple, we've taught Christians that if it isn't a gift wrapped, good looking package, and if it doesn't blare God's name everywhere it's not of God so we must stay away. Well, where does that actually happen? CHURCH! So, we've created people that aren't following God, they are simply following church. (If I just ticked you off, please stay with me, you'll understand in a minute) We've taught people to complain about Twilight, but not stand up against the group of Lesbians forming a group in a local High School, when we can't create a prayer group. Basically, we've failed to disciples Christians on how to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Philippians 2:12b) Basically, we haven't taught people how to use the gift of discernment, or talk to God about their personal weaknesses. It's easier to create excuses.
2 - Church vs. Society: This one is deadly in the state of youth ministry especially. We've created such a culture of "society is bad" church goers, that we've started a mini war. Let me clear it up by saying this: ALL society isn't bad. Some is, some is out to brainwash you and your children; but not all. The Bible says all things were created in His name. Therefore, dance, movies, laughter, was created by Him... Satan just corrupted it. Here's a better solution I believe - what if CHURCH became part of SOCIETY? No, I'm not talking about conforming and taking the bad things and adopting them into church, I'm talking about learning from society. Because, let me tell you something that I even found hard to swallow a few years ago: Society is winning, and society will not leave! Let's face it, our future church is being mesmerized by lights, music, fun atmosphere,and love stories. Is it the TRADITIONAL way? No... maybe it's not how we'd like them to learn but it's a way to teach them valuable life lessons. What if the church took the opportunity to incorporate some of society's "tactics" to draw, used MTV's idea of discipleship (cradle to grave, Nickelodeon-MTV), and implemented their way of spreading the word through creating a buzz.

I realize, this could be a controversial blog today, and I'm ok and prepared for that. My goal isn't to say that any one person is wrong or right... it's to say, that I think we Christians are "more known for what we are against, rather than what we are for." (Mark Batterson, In a pit with a lion on a snowy day) I am against Satan terrorizing our kids, and our lives, but as I recall in 1 Corinthians 6:14 "Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up THROUGH HIS POWER." (NASB) It also says later in The Bible,that the same power that raised Christ, is the same power that is within us. So, what does that mean? We have the power to walk away from evil when evil is about to overtake us. It's not that we shun the world, because as we saw earlier evil is everywhere... it's that we stay away from evil that we can't handle at that time,because we aren't at the spritual level. It's time that we learn to discern what we need to stay away from, and what we need to engage in battle.

Jesus didn't stay out of evil society, in fact He was all up in the mix of it. I don't ever want to be so known in my community that I'm against a beer, but never known that I'm for Jesus Christ. Because if the God that raised Christ from the dead also raises us with His power, what I'm FOR will fix what I'm AGAINST! New Moon is probably NOT a tool of Satan used to brainwash your child. However, if you feel your child isn't at the spiritual place to sift through this subject, or if you just have a strong personal convition with this subject, then yes, stay away from this movie; but let's not give Satan more credit than he's due. I will not see it simply because it's not my "cup of tea". (Yes, I did really just say that...)

Let me leave you with this: I'm not for the darkness, and I'm not for everything society does; I simply stand for the thought that we could learn something from society in church, and for the thought that we as Christians don't need to wage war, we need to baptize in love.

(i hope i have not offended anyone too greatly, that was not my goal. God has just been working with me on several things, and this is one that was brought to the forefront of my mind in the past few weeks.)