Content and Media

Sometimes members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are weird.  If you’re a member of the Church and haven’t fully embraced this, it’s time to get on board.  Peter stated,

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  

1 Peter 2:9

Peculiar, weird. Same thing.  So, take comfort in this if you haven’t already.

I have many nonmember friends that thought I was weird long before I started going back to church.  That’s mostly because I am weird.  We won’t go into more detail on that.  Since coming back to church though, my nonmember friends have found tons of other reasons to find me weird.

I will quickly list through some of them:

1. I don’t do anything on Sunday anymore (not even basketball)!  This comes up all the time.
2. I stopped listening to a lot of music I used to listen to.
3. My language changed; the words I use drastically changed.
4. I started inviting friends to church and dinner with the missionaries almost constantly.
5. I stopped partaking of some beverages.  Luckily, I never drank coffee.  But when I tell people I don’t drink coffee they almost fall over in shock every time. 
6. I stopped wanting to go to certain places – like bars.
7. I slowly stopped gambling.
8. Finally, and what I’ll talk about here, I recently stopped watching rated-R movies.

Yeah, this is one I didn’t think we actually followed.  For nonmembers out there, yes, we’re advised to avoid rated-R movies.  I’m going to elaborate on how I came to respect and appreciate this counsel.  It wasn’t until very recently that I started this and I’ve been going strong for a few months.

My decision to stop watching rated-R movies starts with a particular movie.  It is called Hateful Eight.  I’m not going to go into detail about this movie because that defeats my purpose.  The gist was this. I started the movie and then there was a particular scene that unfolded about midway through.  The end of the scene left me feeling… icky.  I don’t know how else to describe it.  I had to leave my house at that moment and decided I was going to finish the movie later.  It took me some time to get back to the movie.  I started to realize I didn’t know if I wanted to finish the movie.

For the record, I’m the kind of person who tries to finish something once I start it.  Miserable book?  Gotta get through it.  Boring movie? Maybe the ending is good.  But I started asking myself, do I REALLY want to finish that movie?  I talked to my roommate Chris about it.  He seemed to actually understand where I was coming from, which surprised me.  “Hateful Eight…” he said trailing off, “yeah… there’s a lot in that one.”  I went on to talk about it and learned the part I came to wasn’t even the part he thought I was talking about.  Apparently it got worse after that!

So, I decided I didn’t want to finish that movie.  Since I was cutting movies off midway through for the first time, I started to think more about that icky feeling I had experienced.  What was it?  I started to realize that particular movie made me feel dark and dirty.  There was an image stuck in my mind I couldn’t get out.  It was unpleasant.  It wasn’t something I wanted in my mind.

My favorite book, Visions of Glory has a whole section about the entertainment we choose to take in.  What we view and listen to alters us.  It either brings light or darkness to us.  That’s what I felt after that scene. Darkness. 

I know to many people this may be strange.  I know to some people, cutting some of these things out of our lives seems impossible.  The point I want to make is that it can be done.  I didn’t get rid of all of those 8 things listed above overnight.  In some cases it took years actively going to church to change habits.  The biggest point I want to make is that I’m much happier since making those changes.

I’m not saying everyone has to cut out rated-R movies. But I am saying that if you did, you might be surprised that first, you’re capable of doing it, and second, how you feel about doing it.  The same goes for Netflix and the endless streams of content we take in.  There are good things and there are bad things.  Sometimes the bad is hard to see. You don’t realize it’s “bad”.  That’s why I appreciate this guidance with rated-R movies.  Why chance it?

There’s a quote from Visions of Glory about spiritual gifts.  It reads,

“I observed that there are many people who are governed by the voice of Jesus Christ, who are like lanterns being carried through darkness.  They push darkness away by their approach, and the dark angels must depart.  Evil beings are powerless to penetrate it and are compelled to depart.”

At some point I decided I wanted to be a lantern.  The idea of being given a chance to provide light to someone’s life and missing that opportunity because my light was dimmed, hurts me.  I don’t want that to happen.  I’m not perfect, but I’m trying.  I’m not judging what anyone else chooses to watch or listen to. However, I am telling you what you watch and listen to is important.

We in the Church are peculiar.  We must be.  The world needs more lanterns.