If you go back a few generations in certain parts of the American church, you will encounter a strong current of thought that Christians ought not partake in “worldly amusements.” Drinking, dancing, card- and pool-playing all get roundly condemned, along with moving picture shows and various other pastimes. Sometimes it would take a thoroughly amusing turn: some of my older relatives have informed me that when TV was new, it was off-limits as a “worldly amusement,” but when color TV came out, somehow black and white TV became ok!
Despite the poisonous legalism, they were onto something. Evangelicals typically fear being branded as legalistic, so (ironically) we focus on the legal aspects of a leisure-time activity. We ask if it’s morally wrong for some clear reason, and if not, well, that’s really all we have to say about it. But in a consumer culture drowning in entertainment options, we need to ask more questions than that.
One of the questions has to do with opportunity cost, and this is where our Holiness-movement forbears might have a point worth considering. What am I giving up in order to give the next 90 minutes to this innocent and fun activity at hand? Now, there is a tight-shoed and wicked way to apply that question. If absolutely everything has to be filled with maximal purpose, and if purpose is defined in the hopelessly short-sighted and narrow way such people tend to define it, we will become very dull, joyless folk, incapable of enjoying anything. But if we refuse to entertain the question, we cannot escape becoming distracted, vapid idiots flitting from one amusement to another.
One of the enemy’s basic weapons is distraction. He doesn’t actually have to destroy us to keep us off the battlefield; it’s enough to keep us focused on our own amusement. We can’t allow that.
The job here is to find the road between the ditches. God “gives us richly all things to enjoy,” and it’s wrong not to enjoy them. He also gives us a mission to fill the earth and subdue it, to disciple the nations, to reconcile the world to Himself, and we must be about it. Rightly construed, each of these reinforces the other. The God who is reconciling the world to Himself is the God who wants His good gifts to be enjoyed. We win the world in part by inviting them to enjoy His good gifts with us. Look around your life: who can you invite to join you?
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