Cinema or Sinema?

B. J. Clarke

Webster defines “Cinema” as “a motion picture, a motion picture theater.” Certainly there is nothing sinful about a moving picture on a screen, nor is there anything wrong with a local establishment going into business to show these motion pictures. However, while driving by our local cinema the other day and noting the particular motion pictures being offered for viewers there, I couldn’t help but think that “Sinema” was a far more descriptive word of the type of entertainment being promoted. Oh yes, I know that there is no such word as “Sinema.” Yet, even a casual glance at the movies advertised in your local newspapers, shows that the majority of them are flagrant exhibitions of sinful language and sinful conduct.

A magazine called “PREVIEW,” a movie morality guide, lists the movies currently showing and reports on the content of these movies. To give you an example of the sin, debauchery and corruption depicted in many of these films, allow me to give a few examples of the filth being pumped into the minds of moviegoers. A popular movie from earlier this year, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, contained several graphic curse words and nine separate times in the film, female breasts were exposed for the viewing audience to behold. Is this the kind of entertainment you would take Jesus, the apostle Paul or your local preacher to see? Another hot film, Basic Instinct, used the vulgar slang word for sexual intercourse 36 times in the film while showing the act itself six times with over sixteen other instances of nudity. There were fifteen other instances of homosexual and lesbian conduct with men and women of the same sex shown kissing and hugging and dancing with each other.

Several principles need to be kept in mind that will help us in deciding about the entertainment we choose.

First, we are called to follow in the steps of Jesus and to walk as he walked (1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6). We are to be imitators of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). Thus, we should never do anything that we know would be inconsistent with the character of Jesus. Ask yourself whether or not you could take Jesus with you to the films you normally watch and feel totally comfortable with him present there.

Second, we as Christians are to be a peculiar people (Titus 2:14). We are to come out from among the world (2 Cor. 6:14-7:1). We are to avoid being conformed to the world and its ways (Rom. 12:1,2) The individuals who assign ratings to these motion pictures are people who live in the world. Probably the majority of them are not members of the Lord’s church. If they find the material in these films objectionable, how much more should we who are Christians find them so? Instead, it is often those who call themselves Christians who support the continuation of these ungodly movies by paying money to see them.

Third, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). What we put into our minds makes us who we are. It is not possible for someone consistently to expose their minds to the content of modern day films without being eventually weakened by it spiritually. Our minds should feed on those things mentioned by Paul when he wrote, “Finally brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).

The cinema can be a place where good wholesome entertainment refreshes and relaxes us. Or it can be a place where Satan assaults our Christian faith through the medium of film and song. Let us make sure that we as God’s people don’t allow the cinema that we support be better defined as “Sinema.”