The Devil in a Blue Dress, July 10, 2024, from the Credenda Archives 1995, volume 7, number 3.

Serious Christians have always had an uneasy relationship with popular entertainment,

and the difficulty is certainly understandable.

Presented with the problem of recreation and entertainment, we usually find understandable. dishes up in the name of the great God entertainment, confronted with movies,

plays, dancing, songs, videos, novels, short stories, television, magazines,

etc. These believers demonstrate all the discernment of a vacuum cleaner.

If one were to point out that their salad had three demonstrate all the discernment of a vacuum cleaner.

If one were to point out that their salad had three huge garden slugs in it,

they would maintain that there's still a high percentage of lettuce.

In short, many Christians are worldlings. They happily spend hours a night in front of the tube,

pearl diving and a cesspool. Their occasional success in coming up with a pearl

does not change our overall opinion of the wisdom of their efforts. But of course on the other side we find

our more stern brethren who regard all aesthetic activity the same list as

given above as necessarily worldly and not fitting for Christians. In short some Christians think the Bible is not strict enough.

It has always been this way.

John Bunyan had to include a poetic defense of his fictional work as a preface to

part two of Pilgrim's Progress, but some love not the method of your first.

John Bunyan, works of John Bunyan in volume 3.

Carlisle PA. Banner of Truth Trust, 1991, page 170.

How are we to respond to this difficulty?

The answer is that we must keep both errors in mind.

The Christian Church must provide a hard-headed critique of the World's Entertainment

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