The Salty Peanut Gallery

Some time ago a dear lady in our church approached me about a subject she believed was of utmost importance that needed to be addressed with our young people. “Are you familiar with the Vampire books?” she asked. I had to admit at the time I had no clue what she was talking about. “This is some pretty bad stuff. You really need to go by the local book store and check this out. These books are really popular with the teenagers and I really think we need to be telling our kids to stay away from this kind of thing.”

I really didn’t think much of it at the time. I had no clue what the poor woman was talking about. It wasn’t until much later when the movie version first hit the theaters last year that I put two and two together and realized she must have been talking about the “Twilight” books. For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past year, “Twilight” is a series of fantasy romance novels by author Stephenie Meyer about a teenage girl, Bella, who falls in love with Edward, a 104-year-old vampire. Book one was made into a motion picture and released in theaters last November 2008. The second installment, “New Moon” was just released last weekend and broke box office records as the biggest midnight screening and opening day in history.

So the burning question is this. Can a Christian in good conscience enjoy the “Twilight” series? For that matter, can a Christian in good conscience enjoy fantasy stories of any kind?

Angie Hunt is a Christian Novelist, a blogger and an old friend from college. She writes a pithy article on the subject entitled Twilight Apologetic. Here’s an excerpt:

Okay, let’s look at Deut 18:10: “For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, or cast spells, of function as mediums of psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.”

Now, with all that said, let me say that if a Christian’s conscience is pricked, then don’t read the books. No one is holding a gun to your head. OR you can celebrate the creative imaginations that God gave all his creatures and enjoy them with a clean conscience.

It’s so easy for Christians these days to get themselves all stirred up over fighting the cultural war. You know. “Grab your torch and pitchforks.” You may recall a couple of years back when Laura Mallory began her year long crusade to have the Gwinnett County Board of Education in Georgia ban the Harry Potter books from library shelves. After the local board refused her request, she took her case to the Georgia Board of Education, which upheld Gwinnett County’s decision. Mallory who’s an evangelical Christian said she found the books offensive to her Christian faith and harmful to her children’s spiritual health. Though she never read them she said she wanted to protect her kids and others from evil.

Freelance writer and blogger La Shawn Barber asks this serious question “for Christians who avoid Harry Potter because of the magic depicted in the books: Do you also avoid reading books and watching TV shows and movies that contain fornication and adultery, and depict lying and thievery and murder, all of which are condemned in the Bible?”

Good question. Because quite frankly those depictions in my humble opinion are far more damaging. No matter how personally offensive you might find fantasy stories about vampires and sorcery the fact is young people today are NOT being drawn into the occult because of Twilight or Harry Potter, or for that matter The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Bed Knobs and Broomsticks or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It’s fantasy. It’s make-believe. It isn’t real. It’s meat that has been sacrificed to idols and “an idol has no real existence” (1 Corinthians 8:4).

The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him (Romans 14:3). For why should my liberty be determined by someone else’s conscience?” (1 Corinthians 10:29)

This is a rant about evangelism. For the past three days I’ve been away attending a statewide annual meeting of pastors and representatives from churches in my denomination. Its purpose in general has been to give a report on how our missions dollars are being spent, to celebrate the victories being won for the Kingdom and to provide meaningful encouragement to the pastors, staff and lay leaders down in the trenches. Interspersed between resolutions and matters of business are times of congregational worship, singing and Bible preaching. This year’s theme stressed evangelism and featured the unveiling of a new national evangelism initiative supported by our denomination.

The tone of the event was set early on in the opening message delivered by the president of one of our leading theological seminaries. We learned of a declining number of baptisms being recorded by our churches. We also learned of shortfalls in missions giving that are forcing denominational executives to make hard choices on the number of missionaries that will be fully funded. The bottom line is our churches are moving in the wrong direction and it’s up to pastors to turn this ship around. In short we need to do more, witness more and give more. And shame, shame, shame on you if you don’t.

In addition to these messages of hope and encouragement we were treated to the presentation of various awards for outstanding service. There were awards for churches with the most missions giving. There were awards for churches with the most baptisms, and there were awards given for churches that were planting more churches. Again the point of all this was to encourage pastors to do more, witness more and give more. While many of us came needing a word of encouragement and to have our spiritual cups refilled, what we received in many ways resembled a sales convention.

In case you haven’t figured it out I’m very troubled by all this. Now don’t get me wrong, I love my denomination. I love the stand that it takes on the inerrancy of God’s Word. I love the commitment it has to global evangelization and church planting. Most of all I love the fellowship that we enjoy with other local area pastors and congregations. That alone is enough for me to remain loyal. But I am troubled by a contemporary trend, not just in our denomination, but in many evangelical churches across the country that would seek to fashion church growth into more of a business model. We even praise this concept as though it were a Godsend. But I ask you…really…is this God’s plan for sharing the gospel or is it ours?

Oh yes, I’ve heard all the arguments before. “God has given us a brain and He expects us to use it. He has blessed us with many talents and abilities that we should use for Him. He has given us wonderful pastors with backgrounds in business that can apply these principles to furthering the Kingdom. We’re simply being good stewards of the gifts that God has given us. Our only motivation is a heart for souls. Our only goal is to win the lost. It’s not for our glory; it’s only for the glory of God.”

Now look, I’m not questioning anybody’s sincerity. I have no doubt there are many who espouse this business approach to church growth that are doing what they truly believe God would have them do. And I fully recognize that in the two thousand year history of the church there have been a whole host of methods God’s people have used to successfully advance the gospel. But isn’t it possible if we’re not careful that the method can become more important than the means?

Here’s what I mean. Yes, it is greatly concerning to hear of declines in baptisms and missions giving. But has anyone stopped for just a moment to really think about why? It isn’t for lack of packaging, programming and marketing. Maybe the real issue is power. In 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 Paul writes:

“When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”

It seems strange to hear Paul talk of “weakness”, “fear” and “trembling”. What did he mean by these words? The weakness in which Paul came to Corinth was the weakness of the Gospel message. “Fear and trembling” was the way Paul described the proper attitude for serving the Lord (see 1 Corinthians 1:27 and Ephesians 6:5), in other words a whole hearted commitment to obedient service. Paul’s words were without eloquence or persuasiveness because he only wanted to share the simplicity of the gospel. He was determined that their faith should be in the power of God demonstrated in his life and in his testimony and not in the wisdom of men.

May I make a small suggestion? Isn’t it possible that the ineffectiveness of our witness has more to do with the inconsistency of our testimony than the eloquence of our message? Could it be that what we really need is less emphasis on marketing strategies and more emphasis on consistent holy living? Isn’t it fathomable that our capacity to be relevant has less to do with packaging and personalities and more to do with an authentic “demonstration of the Spirit’s power”?

I hear a lot of talk about the preeminence of the Great Commission and how we should aspire to be an Acts 1:8 church. But hold on a minute. Is the Great Commission really the greatest commandment? Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Mathew 22:37-40).” It seems to me what we’re really doing is putting the cart before the horse. How can we even begin to properly fulfill the Great Commission if we haven’t made the greatest commandment our highest priority?

If that were to become our focus maybe then we might begin to see people in our communities being drawn to Jesus Christ because of the transforming power clearly demonstrated in our lives. Maybe then we might see increases in baptisms. Maybe then we’d be genuinely motivated to give more to missions. And maybe then we might stop giving awards to people for something God has done and begin SERIOUSLY giving ALL the glory to Him.