5 of 5

Amy from Pasadena agrees that while MovieMask "is not a copyright infringement … it is an artistic abomination. Saving Private Ryan without the gory opening scene? Not only does it detract from the film, it softens history to make it 'palatable.' The history books that teach our children have already done enough of that. MovieMask is an attempt to force our evangelical Christian values on the world at large. While I would like to live in a world where everyone shares my values and worldview, I do not live in that world."

Rita Reigel adds,"Those who lived, suffered, and died during the Holocaust and D-Day Invasion … do not deserve to have their suffering dishonored by pretending these events were 'bloodless.' If they had to withstand these events, then we should at least have the moral courage to watch movies that portray these events without flinching."

But Sterling Koch, pastor to youth and families at St. Patrick's Episcopal Church in Thousand Oaks, California, writes: "What a great idea! The gore and nudity made [Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan] films that I recommended with a great deal of excuses and embarrassment. People may argue that Private Ryan without the gore isn't real life. But do we all have see the 'real life' of war to appreciate it? I doubt many veterans who saw it firsthand would say so."

This debate is nothing new. Beth Rambo, writing from the English Department at Campbell University, reminds us of a famous argument made by the great Christian poet John Milton in his essay against censorship, "Areopagitica":

He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.

Rambo concludes, "Parents do have the right, and duty, to protect their children from certain elements of a work of art. But physically altering the art is not the way to do it."

I am also concerned that our honorable desire to protect ourselves from the world's evils too easily and too often leads to spiritual weakness rather than immunity. To protect children from secular entertainment's harms by reading and watching alongside, teaching them to sift stories for truth and falsehood, trains to grow from digesting simple work to more complex work—to borrow a Scriptural phrase, "from milk to meat." This, I believe, is more fruitful than blinding them to the true complexities of the world. Learning to grapple with the world's sinfulness—and their own—prepares them to resist temptation rather than merely hide from it. Jesus did not wear blinders to save him from being tempted; neither did the Apostles. Remember, the full armor of God is for folks on the battlefield. Of course, parents should be vigilant in protecting children; they should also teach train them up to "renew their minds" and become aggressive thinkers so they can stare temptation in the face and, with God's grace, remain unpolluted.

Next week: Readers turn in ideas for Mel Gibson's new project—a movie on the life of Christ. Plus, a look at Robert DeNiro in City by the Sea, and the increasingly popular surprise hit of the summer—My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Copyright © 2002 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

first page |  5 of 5

share this page

August (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46