Chick Flicks and the Spirit of Christ?
— Thursday, June 11th, 2009 —
To this day, the most controversial radio show I’ve ever guest-hosted for the Albert Mohler Program was on the potential spiritual pitfalls of Christian romance novels. You should see the incendiary emails that lit up my screen, the letters that filled my mailbox! But I stand by every word.
Let’s face it.
The vast majority of what we call romance novels aren’t literature, and they’re not meant to be. Many in the genre are designed to do one specific thing, and that’s to evoke a fantasy for women of an idealized man. For some women, this idealized man is a sexually rapacious predator who will sweep her off her feet and up the stairs. For some women, this idealized man is a Christian leader who will pray with her, and lead the waiter to faith in Christ before proposing to her and whisking her off to the mission field.
One’s explicit and lust-evoking and the other is not. But both are seeking to create dissatisfaction, in many cases, with the real-life man in the La-Z-Boy across the room. Both, in many cases, are seeking to feed off of the temptation to covetousness and discontentment.
But I’m a man so what do I know? At least that’s the question the romance novelists emailing me would typically offer.
Beth Spraul is not a man. She’s a wife, a mother, and a counselor. She’s also one of my favorite former students. Beth has addressed the related issue of the potential dangers of “chick flicks” with the women in her congregation. She’s thinking of films such as Sleepless in Seattle or You’ve Got Mail (or was that the same movie? I don’t know).
Read Beth’s article here, women and pastors who minister to women (that would be all of you in ministry), and think it over.
If you’re outraged by it, remember, I didn’t write it. But don’t lambaste Beth, especially if you’re a man. Her husband is a high-powered environmentalist so he could declare my home a protected wildlife refuge quicker than you can say “Fabio.”
13 Responses to “Chick Flicks and the Spirit of Christ?”
Trackbacks
- Andy Naselli » Blog Archive » Pornography : Men :: Chick Flicks : Women
- Chick Flicks and the Spirit of Christ? « Above Every Name
- American Women « Regina Gibson
- Blog Patrol (June 16, 2009) « Dad In The Middle
I was chuckling then laughed out loud when I got to “Fabio.” What a hilariously good word to Christian leaders.
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Dr. Moore,
I was listening to a local Christian radio station the other night, and the disc jockey was defending himself from a caller who was upset that he played a ‘normal’ love song on the station. The jockey argued that Christian recording artists should not be afraid to record old fashioned love songs on their albums, and radio stations should not be afraid to play them because the world needs to see a counter-cultural commentary on what romantic love is and is supposed to look like between a man and a woman. Seemed to be right on to me.
I think you’re rightly rejecting these worldly romance novels and warning against these movies on the grounds that they breed discontentment and covetousness. However, do you think there is any Christian place in romance fiction? Or any mode of Christian movie making that can highlight romance AND be glorifying to God? As you said above, you don’t make a fundamental distinction between the Fabios and the Rev. Fabios, so I’m having difficulty sifting out the Christian’s response to ‘romance’ in the public square.
Thanks,
BH
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@Brother Hank,
I’m not sure how many Christian romance novels you’ve read but I’ve read four in my lifetime; three as a teen and one as an adult. Let me just say that the writing in these books panders to the lowest common denominator. Not only do most of them portray impotent christian men & women being led around by their emotions, pining for someone or something just out of their grasp, they are not intelligent and the lessons to be had are elementary at best. ‘Bubblegum for the brain’ best describes them.
I do not believe that books like these edify women. There is so much more out there to be read for pleasure that can be uplifting and edifying. For example: Tolstoy’s “War & Peace” (and no, I’m not joking. I just finished it this year and was enthralled.), Dostoyevsky, Dickens, etc… Books such as these address issues that are relevant today (”nothing new under the sun”). The language may be a little antiquated, but it is a wonderful challenge.
Your Frozen Chosen Sister,
Genoise
Brother Hank, Very good question. I’ll answer it in a post of its own above sometime early this week! Thanks, RDM
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Dr. Moore,
I found this artclie about chick flicks and the spirit of Christ very helpful and convicting. I think that alot of godly woman these days are very confussed about what love and realtionships should be. I Thank the Lord for Beth and her faithfulness to God’s word and teaching how we should think on biblical womanhood. Thank you for the post!
Allison Bradburn
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Interesting essay. I personally could live without cheesy chick-flicks like ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ or ‘You’ve Got Mail’ but to consider them spin-offs of Jane Austen, I would not dare. Could not and would not want to live without having read and seen ‘Sense and Sensibility’ or ‘Persuasion’. It’s like not reading Charles Dickens or Mark Twain, only for different reasons. And of course Austen pounds love and marriage throughout her writing because she was a product of her own time and what exactly were early 19th century English women outside of the context of the home and in particular, men? I actually think that if you read Jane Austen within her own social context she does quite the opposite of what this writer is claiming.
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I’m with Genoise. Chick flicks? Blech. Romance novels, even “christian” ones? Blech again.
Gimme Middlemarch. Wives and Daughters. Anna Karenina.
Anything but another Bridget Jones sequel. (though I did rather enjoy Under the Tuscan Sun).
Kamilla
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Dr. Moore,
I hope you won’t mind my adding a few words from our wise friend, Tony Esolen. When I think of chick flicks, what I’d rather see is something like his description of John Ford’s movies from an article he wrote a few months back:
“Men and women, in Ford’s movies, are titanic mysteries, kings and queens walking the earth in ordinary garb; endlessly fascinating to one another and so powerful in their masculinity and femininity that talk of equality misses the beauty and the danger altogether. How can you talk of equality when you encounter a whirlwind and an earthquake? The marriage of such creatures is always an unadulterated good, as it portends both creation and procreation: a farm, a village, a culture, and children.”
Now THAT’s my kinda movie.
Kamilla
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I went straight to Beth’s article after reading yours and both articles have given me much to think about. With teen and pre-teen grandchildren, most of them avid readers, I see some great talking points for their parents. Two exceptions to the Christian romance genre and its heros might be the stories of Lawana Blackwell and Gilbert Morris. Both authors use flawed characters as heros and heroines, both give a fair portrayal of the differences in the sexes (nature, temperament, etc) and both use characters who achieve life goals only by the grace of Jesus and through faith in Him. Few if any of their stories end with the wedding. The story is often in the marriage. In my opinion the fictional characters of both of these writers are more realistic than most romance characters.
One more thing, as a former Middle School literature teacher, I need to say there is a place for Christian romance, especially in the lives of girls of that age. Like all activities, that reading should be monitored by parents. Read what they are reading and discuss it with them. Much can be learned by discussing that with which we disagree.
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