Should I even watch that movie?

Back in the 90s, a song came out and the only line I really remember from the song was, “Let’s talk about sex. Let’s talk about you and me.” That’s what I feel like saying right now as we talk about sex, movies, and personal purity. This is a subject everyone has their own strong views on, so a personal purity course is going to have arguments. But, it’s important to talk about both with parenting and in your Bible lessons.

(This post is sponsored by Personal Purity Isn’t Enough by Cap Stewart)

First, let’s talk about Personal Purity and what that means

I’m 100% approaching this from a Christian perspective. I know there will be non-Christians of all stripes who will agree with me on my stance and will take all of the various different stances, but you need to know where I stand.

Here are the viewpoints I’ve seen:

1. As long as I’m not personally participating it doesn’t matter what I watch/read. Bring on the Game of Thrones.*
2. I think watching/reading about graphic sex/violent content is a problem and will cause me to sin. Get me Vid Angel and let’s watch the carefully edited Game of Thrones.
3. I think watching/reading about graphic sex/violent content is a problem and will cause me to sin. I also do not want to support that with my money because that will encourage more of that content to be made. I will pass on Game of Thrones.
4. I think watching/reading about graphic sex/violent content is a problem and will cause me and anyone who has ever watched it to sin, and those who participate in it are terrible people. No one should ever be allowed to watch Game of Thrones or anything that isn’t some strange list of things they perceive to be acceptable. Anyone watching Game of Thrones is clearly a terrible Christian and if you are not condemning them you are a terrible Christian. And no you may not read fantasy or anything like that.**

* I’m using Game of Thrones as a lazy man’s recent example that had many discussions on it in many different circles.

**This last one is a terrible example, but I’ve run into people like this, and I do not understand how they arrive at what they believe is acceptable and what is not.

I’m going to ramble a lot, I have lots of opinions and I don’t want you to miss the AMAZING deal on Personal Purity Isn’t Enough: The Long Forgotten Secret to Making Spiritual Entertainment Choices

I’ll repeat this again at the end. I’m also from now on just going to use the main title, Personal Purity Isn’t Enough, because that whole title is a mouthful.

I think personal purity is a matter of Christian liberty

What I mean by this, I personally am in Category 3. I don’t want to support sexually explicit content with my dollars. I also don’t really support overly graphic violence with my dollars. It bothers me quite a lot.

Now my husband enjoys violent action movies and will go to see them from time to time on his own or with my brother. Clearly, I am not doubting my husband’s belief in Christ or anything like that.

My best friend watched all of Game of Thrones. I watched the first episode only knowing it was based on a fantasy book and was appalled at the violence, sex, violent sex, and that list goes on. I decided to never again watch an episode.

I’m obviously still talking to my best friend, but we disagree on where this line is. I don’t doubt her Christianity or anything like that.

That being said, it’s still something you need to think about.

Personal Purity Isn’t Enough discusses all of this

When I found out about the Personal Purity Isn’t Enough class I knew I wanted my kids to go through this. I know my kids fall about where I do on the issue of what is and isn’t okay to watch as far as sexual content.

Actually, my kids are probably more of the “Why is there even a romance subplot?” idea for movies and TV shows.

However, my kids are teens. They are about to launch into the world of college and interact with many people who disagree with them.

My reason for taking the course was for them to discuss why they believe and the reasons the class works through.

I’m a firm believer that an unexamined faith is not worth anything.

I want my kids to look at why they believe it’s not okay to watch a movie and be able to explain it to the friend who’s saying, “It’s fine, the sex scene is only a minute or so long.”

What does the Personal Purity course look like?

Each class starts with a video introduction. It’s about 1-5 minutes long. Almost always the kids and I start a discussion just off of the introduction

Next, you have an audio or text version of the lesson. I very much appreciate the content isn’t just audio/video but has a reading component. I’m not an auditory learner. I focus better and learn better if I read the material.

My sons are both auditory learners, so they love the auditory lessons. My one wish, the auditory lessons are just a video with a screen. I think it might have worked better if it was a normal video or just an audio file.

Again, we get into lots of discussions as we listen to the lesson together. I’m going to have to turn this into a whole other section in a moment.

After the lesson, there are discussion questions with Bible verses.

Finally, each lesson has a suggested movie that in Cap Stewart’s opinion does a good job of handling difficult material. A real strength of this course is his obvious love of movies and stories. All too often courses like this are taught by someone looking at movies as a necessary evil.

Cap Stewart’s love of movies is obvious by his choice of sometimes lesser-known movies that do a good job of talking about his point for the lesson. My brother is a cinephile and so I get to hear all about different movies he thinks are amazing.

What it looks like for us to work through this Personal Purity course

The kids and I are watching this in the afternoon. We work through all of the materials together, because I’m using this as a sort of Socratic method.

Pretty much every aspect of this has us pausing the lesson to talk about something. This is exactly what I wanted.

We pause it to talk about expectations of actresses in movies, how peer pressure is used, the argument of just fast-forwarding through objectionable scenes.

Then we get to the Bible verses, and we get into discussions about how we’ve seen this used.* It’s been interesting, and I’m loving seeing how my kids’ brains are developing to be able to talk about shades of gray subject.

As much as I want it to be, this is not a black-and-white issue.

*I admit I have hot-button issues on some of these topics

A common verse used to support topics like this is 1 Corinthians 8:9-13, the infamous weaker brother verses.

Or maybe I only feel like it’s infamous because I’ve had it used on me like a sledgehammer to tell me I shouldn’t exercise my freedoms because it could hurt a weaker Christian.

I’m sure anyone who has read my blog for long is shocked by this statement. I like fantasy, but YA fantasy that doesn’t get too explicit in anything. I like music, but not anything hardcore, no cussing, nothing violent.

Do you know what I had that verse used on me for?

DC Talk and Newsboys at college

Yep, I was told listening to Christian rock music would cause my weaker brother to stumble in their Christian faith.

But, Ticia, I was told, what if they were into that hardcore Satanic, and yes the word Satanic was used, rock music and your Christian rock band causes them to hear it as they walk by your room and think of the music they used to listen to and start listening to that bad music again.

This was the central verse in one of the lessons, and this led to a very long discussion with my kids on how to use this verse properly.

I’d like to point out Cap Stewart used it properly in the lesson. He didn’t talk about the random person walking by who could be hurt by what you’re doing. He talked about who specifically is getting hurt.

That is how the verse is supposed to be used.

It’s not a random person who you might someday meet.

It’s the person sitting next to you in the room. As an example, my brother is a recovering alcoholic. My husband enjoys a beer from time to time, however, because he cares about my brother and doesn’t want to send him back to drinking, he’s not going to drink beer in front of my brother. That is a correct use of the weaker brother verse.

My one complaint about the Personal Purity Isn’t Enough course

When it comes time to watch the video about the movie, every lesson he spends about a minute explaining how this is somewhat freeform and he’ll be looking at notes.

It’s a little annoying to fast-forward through that bit.

It’s a nitpick, and I know it. My kids actually laugh at me grumbling and trying to figure out how to fast-forward.

In my defense, we always end up getting into these long discussions, so I’m trying to save them time for working on other school work.

I think I’m actually making it worse, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to fast forward and my kids from laughing at me.

Is the Personal Purity Isn’t Enough course for you?

I don’t know.

I know about four friends in my co-op who are excited to take the course after hearing me talk about it. It’s all of the parents with teenage kids in my co-op.

I don’t know if it’ll change the mind of anyone who completely disagrees with him.

I will say you’ll get a great discussion with your kids if that’s what you want.

It’s certainly what I wanted. It helped my kids figure out what they thought was acceptable in what they watched and what wasn’t. It helped them have reasons for what they believed and be able to explain it better.

It let my kids argue out things they disagreed on without hurting each other’s feelings. That took a lot of work because I think my daughter was about to hit her brothers in her frustration. It took them thinking about how to rephrase what they were saying and why they were disagreeing with her.

So, if that’s what you want, then yes this course is for you.

But if you just want regurgitation and affirmation of what you believe, then maybe it’s not for you.

Now it’s your turn, get your own copy of Personal Purity Isn’t Enough

Save 40% on the $49 course with coupon code Homeschool.

That makes the course $29 ($20 dollars off). 

Coupon is valid through December 25, 2020.

I am recommending it to all of my friends who’ve asked me about it.

I think it’s a good class and well worth taking. The discussions alone have been worth it.

Unrelated to the Personal Purity Course

Every time I review something I’m given links to their social media, and if I think you’re interested I pass them along.

Cap Stewart’s social media is just who his personality is, and his interested. His Twitter feed is filled with articles and information about movies and personal purity. Or just what he thought about particular movies. I like movies, so I followed him.

His Facebook page is all about movies, movie news, and random funny stuff, often with a Geeky bent. Those are all things I’m somewhat interested in, so I followed them. (Future Ticia 2023 still enjoys both his Facebook and Twitter for his take on new movies coming out)

And like many bloggers and public personalities, his Instagram feed is full of his family and just random things. I get the feeling if I knew him in real life, we’d have lots of great conversations. It looks like he’s as big a fan of the Chosen TV series as I am.

It’s hard to figure out how to work these into the review, but I really enjoyed his social media, so I wanted to pull them out.

I’ve rambled for a long time, and I need to get ready to play board games with friends in a few minutes (I’m writing this on Saturday). It’s our first time to go over to someone else’s house after the lockdown.

More ideas on parenting and such

This seems like more of a parenting post and a little less of a Bible study post

Grumble, I apparently need to get some featured image squares for some of these posts… So I’m only sharing three related posts with you.

• The Importance of One-on-One Time With Your Kids
• Parenting and the Kings of Judah
• Parenting Prayer