The latest occult film and book series..Twilight.

[Hescominsoon]

Here's my review.

 

[Durruck]

I'm torn about this, to be honest. I've never read the books (nor do I plan to), but any time I see a statement that "this book is" whatever, I get skeptical.

It's classified as fiction. Non-truth. For entertainment purposes only.

As long as I don't fall into the mindset that it's true, there is little (if any) damage it can cause. As a Christian that read Harry Potter, I find the book bans and burnings and protests to be a bit over the top. I certainly don't think that magic (in the HP sense) is true. I don't believe that everlasting life (in the Twilight sense) is true. I don't believe that reading The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings implies that I believe that the power of the rings is real. The power of idolitry is real, but only because we (as humans - not you and I, specifically) let it be real. However, I do believe in the power, the magic, the eternity that God tells about in His Book. It's a matter of choosing what to believe.

People criticized the Superman series because kids started jumping out of windows with towels hooked in their shirts, thinking they could fly... just because Superman did. The comics (and movies) were never meant to be taken as truth. The Da Vinci Code was a fantastic movie (from the entertainment standpoint) but it simply isn't true. Even Dan Brown's book of the same title is classified as fiction.

Reading HP, Twilight, or any other "latest craze" book is no different than playing the latest video game that features warlocks, shaman, murderous rampages, spellcasting, instant respawns, rebirths. It's no different than reading Caesar's Gaelic Wars, Homer's Iliad, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, or even reading Beowulf.

It's not the material that's damaging. It's how we respond to it. I can read a book and separate myself from the content. I've read sections of the Koran because I wanted to see what it said. And yet here I am, still proclaiming Christ as my Lord and Savior.

Twilight is just a fictional book, and now a movie. It's still not true. It still doesn't say "go be a vampire" or anything else. It's a story meant to entertain.

 

[Hescominsoon]

just because its fiction doesn't mean it's any less dangerous..especially when dealing with the occult. Durruck..i just have to ask you..have you spent any time really absorbed into the occult?

 

[the_great_eskimo_pie]

Also Durruck, all these new shows that promote the occult in this manner... AS Christians we KNOW the truth. We can separate the fiction from the reality. Non Christians can't. Kids will think its cool to be involved in the occult. We as a people are starting to be desensitized towards things pertaining to the occult.

I'm not saing we should burn the books. (Actually quite the opposite) You burn the books you inflame people to want to read them. Just as the persecution of the Christians spread the word of the Lord to many, if we make a martyr of the book, we will drive more people towards it for they will WANT to read it to fidn out what the fuss is all about... Remember Harry Potter? Why did it get so much freee Publicity? Book burnings, people denouncing it, public demonstrations. Were these wrong? no, however the way people went about it was. We have to show people there is a better way.

This movie... I am not sure about it. Its too much tryign to be "Christian friendly" Trying too hard to be cute and make it look like all the things associated with vampires is ok... The lure is there and many will fall for it...

I'll say more later... I need sleep as I have work tomorrow.

 

[Durruck]

have you spent any time really absorbed into the occult?

Based on broad definitions, I'd say yes: my church. However, I have not been involved in anything else that anyone has ever called "occult". And I attend a fairly mainstream, non-denominational church. We hold the Bible as God-breathed absolute truth. So it's not a cult, in the way that you mean it.

Kids will think its cool to be involved in the occult.

Even before I knew Christ, I didn't believe all the stuff from books that I've read. If our teens can't separate fiction from non-fiction, then we have bigger problems on our hands. Boycotting the books/movies, whether discreetly or via large demonstrations... doesn't actually fix the problem.

We still send kids to school to hear that (Macro) Evolution is the only answer. Do I blame science books? Hardly. Science is supposed to the be study of the physical, the tangible, the measurable. It does what it's supposed to do.

History books are written by those that win the wars in the end. They do what they're supposed to do

English studies is a class that focuses on how we've stolen every word from some other language. It does what it's supposed to do.

Every book has to be read from a standpoint of evaluating the content... looking for the truth in it. And when it comes down to books like Twilight, Harry Potter, Willy Wonka, Dracula, 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Things That Go Bump In The Night, we have to decide how much we're going to believe them. In the case of each of these examples, we have to understand that they are fiction.

I don't blame Grand Theft Auto for making kids violent. I blame parents for not educating their children on the difference between truth and entertainment. I blame the parents for not teaching their kids about gun safety. I blame the parents for letting the kids play the game if they think the content is questionable for their child.

Remember Harry Potter? Why did it get so much freee Publicity? Book burnings, people denouncing it, public demonstrations. Were these wrong? no, however the way people went about it was. We have to show people there is a better way.

Yeh, I remember Harry. I read a lot of pages about him. I read Rowling's books long before they started getting popular. And a I remember a lot of people giving me a hard time because I was entertained by something so horrid, so evil.

It's a book. I read them all. I've seen the movies. I've listened to podcasts about it.

It

still

isn't

real.

Instead of saying "don't read it, it's evil," why aren't we saying "read it if you want, but keep in mind that it's not true."?

just because its fiction doesn't mean it's any less dangerous..

Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Fair Government, Equal Opportunity, The American Dream, Personal Accountability, Common Sense, Roman Gods, Gremlins, monsters under the bed, monsters in the closet, the boogie man, Spider Man, Super Man, Wonder Woman, Powder Puff Girls...

The list could go on for days.

They're all things that we teach our kids about, and we never flinch while we're doing it. Nor do we evaluate the truth to the claims, and teach our children to separate the truth from lies, the useful from the entertainment.

We as a people are starting to be desensitized towards things pertaining to the occult.

I...through a third-person... know of a young woman that is a self-proclaimed Wiccan. She says she's not a witch, but she's wiccan... beleives the whole "mother earth" thing. Would you like to know what drove her away from her Christian upbringings? Christians. All the "you can't do this" "you have to do that" rules and regulations about what she can and cannot read, listen to, or watch... then get burned by a few hypocrites in the church. She decided she didn't want to be like us anymore.

God doesn't push these people away. We do.

She chose what we call the occult because of us.

Perhaps we will just have to agree to disagree. I've read a lot of books that apparently would make your list of bad books that should be avoided. But I think they've served their purpose: entertainment. I'd go a step farther to say that they've expanded my mind. They make reading enjoyable. They make studying material for truth and content something that I can do.

I'd have never read the Bible cover-to-cover... studying it, breaking down what it says, wrestling with it... if it weren't for books like Twilight.

 

[phasetim]

durruck does make a good point.. whats the difference between reading a fictional book about spellcasting, vs. playing a game where you are in control of and manipulate the spellcasting.. i.e. guildwars, warcraft, etc....

 

[Hescominsoon]

Neither of those are the point. My point was very clear and very succinct...how you wish to take it/dismiss it, etc is up to you.

 

[Durruck]

I think the counter argument was very relevant. How can we (as a group) justify playing warlocks and summoning demons to do our bidding... and in the next breath slash a book like Twilight?

I'm not directly attacking your opinion of the book, I'm asking a related question: where do we draw the line, and how? who decides where the line is?

 

[Wh1te Out]

As a big fan of both the Harry Potter and Twilight series, I feel like chiming in. Heck, I've been to *gasp* midnight release parties for the books even! All kidding aside, though, this is a serious issue that I have some history with.

When I was a child my parents went through a phase where they thought everything was a gateway for occultic activity. I was banned from watching The Smurfs, playing anything Dungeons and Dragons related, and also kept away from many other mainstream toy lines. Later in life they have come to acknowledge that this was over the top and unncecessary.

I agree with some of the comments above. It is Christians who drive people away from the church concept and Christ. We are hypocritical and condemning. We don't exhibit unconditional love, patience and acceptance of others. This is a MAJOR flaw in the current health of Christianity in America, IMO. If we were to step off of our "I'm going to heaven and you're evil" perch we might just be able to lead some to the Lord.

Anyway, regarding Twilight... it's a book... about vampires. As far as I've read there is nothing in it about killing God or anything else damaging to our faith. It's entertainment, and it's actual premise is really a teenage love story. Vampires are the shiny coat on the outside but the books are really about the relationships of the people in them. Like anything else, addiction and obsession can be dangerous of any media. The Bible has led some to occultic behavior, in fact. It's not the book that's bad, it's how some take it, and the lack of supervision and teaching of parents that would allow that to happen.

 

[ppar3566]

I think I will chim in here as well. My view has always been that we would do well to teach our children how to read and understand what the purpose of narrative is than ban stuff. When I say this alot of ppl say you are asking to much of children to understand subtext and what not but I believe that kids of a certain age are generally up to it. The perfect example for me is the difference between Harry Potter and The Golden Compass (both of which i have read recently). Both are set in magical worlds and if anything the golden compass mythology is, on the surface, much easier for most christians to deal with. The differences comes in the subtext. The golden compass aims to turn children away from religion harry potter aims to entertain. IMO I found the story of Christ reflected in the last Harry Potter story quite strongly (dont know if it was meant to be there or whether i put it there).

That being said I would not be allowing my children to read Twilight or Harry Potter until I knew that could distinguish between reality and fiction and that they knew that i could talk to them about what a book is trying to do. My sister in law (age 15) wanted the twilight books for her birthday. My wife brought them all and read them to check if my sister in law could deal with them before giving them to her. Her view was that they were not only harmless for the most part but tended to hold a much higher level of morality (e.g. no sex before marraige) than most of the other stuff we expose our kids to.

The other thing I was thinking recelty is whether it is far to claim that something like Harry Potter or Twlight is occullt related. In the case of Harry Potter the author came out and said no it is not and yet, I feel as Christians, we never give anybody the benifit of the doubt these days. Ppl have been writting about magic and vampiers for the last how many hundred years and for the most part nobody comes out and says anything about 90% of these forms of entertainment. I suspect that most authors, the ones we are talking about here, though that vampiers or magic would be an interesting setting to write about things they were interested in or write to express there creative talents. It is a bit harsh then to say that they are doing it to promote the occult especially when we ignore or even enjoy the other 90% of entertainment that comes out that are written in similar contexts.

For me it is all about education. We spend far to much time in both church and school giving kids information or telling them how to think and far too little time teaching them how to think. It is one of the failures of our Sunday schools and schools in general that we no longer teach our children logic, reasoning, and critical thinking.

 

[Skinski]

I think the counter argument was very relevant. How can we (as a group) justify playing warlocks and summoning demons to do our bidding... and in the next breath slash a book like Twilight?

I'm not directly attacking your opinion of the book, I'm asking a related question: where do we draw the line, and how? who decides where the line is?

The answer is simple.

You can't justify entertaining warlocks and summoning demons and then in the next breath critique a book like Twilight. It is called hypocrisy.


We are in a spiritual war and we have to make choices each day. Do we choose to follow the spirit or do we choose to follow the flesh?