A recent exchange with a reader

I recently had a brief exchange with a reader of my blog which I thought might be worth sharing. The reader wrote:

Steve I’ve often wondered if the stuff that you watch has in fact a lasting and future effect on your personality. I mean some of the stuff that you review, I would personally avoid like the plague. If a person chooses to watch certain things, do they, ’by beholding become changed’? Or are some people stronger than others? Some say that Rev. Fred Nile had a special ministry that others could not handle. What are your thoughts? P.

And my reply:

Hi P.

It’s a good question. I don’t know that I would want to claim a special ministry [nor would I want to be compared to Fred Nile!]. I know I think about what I see more than some people I know. Maybe that is the difference. I feel as though I can be critical of what I see. And, despite what you may think, there is some stuff I refuse to see and some I definitely avoid :-) I guess that is not always clear because I usually don’t mention them! And I often tell people that I don’t recommend some things because I think they are not good. Maybe it is a ministry of a sort. There’s a guy who teaches at [a Christian college] who has told me that what I do is extremely helpful, particularly for students or young people. People, including youth, will inevitably go to the cinema and watch movies at home. I hope that my reviews can, perhaps, help people make good choices and, at the least, think about some of the issues going on in a movie. In my opinion, everything we watch has an effect on our personality. And that includes Christian stuff - good and bad. I don’t think it is possible to divide the media up into categories on the basis of whether it is Christian or not. There is some very good Christian stuff and some very dangerous. The same is true of so-called non-Christian stuff. I think we have to be discriminating on a case-by-case basis. I have met some Christians who only watch so-called Christian movies and read so-called Christian books which I would say have the potential to cause irreparable harm. Anyway... that’s a few thoughts that just come to mind. Maybe I’m wrong... but I learn a lot from what I view and read - often in some very unexpected places in and surprising ways! Steve