Church Fathers, Day 157: Tertullian says to be Christian in our entertainment

Last updated on: December 25, 2014 at 3:30 am by Pete Socks

Church Fathers, Day 157: Tertullian says to be Christian in our entertainment 2014-12-20T07:28:06-05:00 Pete Socks

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Be Christian in your entertainment

The pagans, says Tertullian, behave one way in real life and a completely different way when they go to sports or plays. That’s because they let their feelings guide their judgment.

It’s strange how the same man who can barely bring himself to lift his tunic in public, even when the call of nature urges him, takes it off in the circus, as if he longed to expose himself in front of everybody. Or how a father who carefully protects and guards his virgin daughter’s ears from every bad word takes her to the theater himself, exposing her to all its vile words and attitudes. Or how someone who, if he comes across a fighter brawling in the streets, has him arrested or rebukes him severely, goes to the arena and encourages much more serious combats. Or how someone who is horrified to see the body of someone who has died a natural death comes to the amphitheater and looks down with approval on bodies all mangled and torn and smeared with their own blood.

But actually it’s not so strange. Inconsistencies like those are just what we might expect from people who confuse the nature of good and evil as their feelings change and their judgments change along with them.

–Tertullian, On the Shows, 21-22

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

When I choose entertainment—sports, movies, television—are my choices consistent with what I say I believe as a Catholic Christian?

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord, sanctify my soul, body, and spirit; touch my understanding, search my conscience, and cast out every evil imagination.

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