We Christians like redemption.  Understandable: if any group can be said to have a “thing”, our “thing” would definitely be redemption.  Possibly also damnation.  We seem to like that as well.  We like to see people redeemed, for sure.  There also seems to be going along with this the idea that each part of their life would be redeemed too.  If a newly redeemed person was a teacher before, now they teach for the glory of God and so on.  It often seems, though, that our idea of redemption is more like a sterilization than the true life-giving process God indicates in the Bible.

Let us say, for example, that a comic book artist known for his dark (but often powerful) illustrations has a spiritual encounter with the Holy Spirit and is redeemed.  What would we expect of his artwork going forward?  Some change would be natural, of course.  One can hardly have a life-altering experience as an artist and not have it transform your art, but would we expect the themes the artist had worked on for so long to be abandoned in their entirety?  Would the artist famous for their vivid portrayal of the darkness inherent in the world and in ourselves fully reject that and from then on, only draw images of light and hope?  I personally would hope not, because that would be to our cultural and spiritual poverty.  The redemption Jesus Christ offers does not sterilize—it is not content to simply censor and remove all “offensiveness” from our daily lives.  It does not build walls.  It seeks to give life, and that more abundantly, to every facet of our existence.

Take as another example that recalcitrant devilry that is dancing.  Many churches, schools, and other Christian organizations have implicit (and often enough, explicit) rules against dancing.  I recall a joke told by some friends at a school in Indiana that went something like, “You know why we aren’t allowed to have sex at school, right?  ‘Cause sex might lead to dancing!”  The irony of David dancing before the Lord in 2 Samuel 6 and then being (wrongly) rebuked for it seems to be lost on them, but I do have some empathy.

After all, most dancing in our culture has been hyper-sexualized, a weird civilized version of a peacock mating ritual, where each potential mate prances around, trying to attract the attention of their opposite.  Their error, I think, is in drawing the line firmly and saying in effect, “Because there is so much bad dancing, we don’t believe it is worth it to pursue good dancing.”  It is a question of value.  No Christian says, “Because there is so much bad marriage, we don’t believe it is worth it to pursue good marriage.” We believe marriage has intrinsic value, but apparently dancing doesn’t.  Instead, we build walls to keep dancing out.

So why the change?  A lot of it may simply be age.  Dancing and a great many other activities abandoned to the world outside the walls of the Church are largely the province of the young.  And since the young are not in charge (or often even listened to), then it is the older, non-dancers who choose that it is unworthy of redemption.  Similar generational gaps have existed in the past or exist now within the arenas of alcohol consumption, body piercings and body art, “inappropriate” popular music (which, depending on the time period, may have been swing jazz, rock and roll, soul, disco, heavy metal, rap, punk, and so on*) video games, comic books, and much more.  Rather than let our personal generational preferences dictate the spiritual worth of any activity, properly redeemed, we should follow God’s own pronouncement at the beginning of creation, when He saw that all that He created was good.  That should be our default stance.

Anything must be corrupted by sin to be evil.  Dancing is no more lost to the world than sex, music, or politics is.  All of them are at root good things, though politics is pushing it.  Part of our calling in redeeming the world is to reveal the good in every aspect of life and embrace it.  Of course, the Supreme Caveat holds here.  If anyone has a specific calling from God to avoid something, that is their task.  But for the rest of us, we must, if we can, redeem the world as we see it around us.  Thus, the question is, generally, not “Should a Christian watch TV at all?” but rather, “How should a Christian watch TV?”  And this how is a question of reference point.

The Bible is brimming with sin in it.  This suits us, because so are our lives.  We grow and mature by how we read or how we watch.  We redeem the sin in the Bible by understanding it, rejecting it, and learning from it.  We do the same in television.  We can do the same with dancing or anything else: praising and celebrating what is good, understanding and rejecting and learning from what is evil.  The central transformation here is shifting from a Church that builds walls, that sterilizes what it sees, to a Church that knocks walls down, that brings life to every place it steps, and that is able to simultaneously celebrate the good and condemn the bad around it.

* Incidentally, I used to work at a family summer camp that did themed dinners.  One year, we had a “’50s Night” that I found absolutely delightful.  I was hosting a table of elderly couples who had all spent their teenage years growing up in the 1950s.  During the meal, as the “oldies” music played, I remarked, “I bet it’s fun to hear all the music you grew up with again, right?”  Their reply: “We wouldn’t know.  We weren’t allowed to listen to any of this.” Perspective changes everything!