Should Christians watch scary movies ?

With Halloween just around the corner, my husband and I have noticed there is not much to watch on TV. All of the blood, guts and scary movies are playing. I use to, back in the day, enjoy watching scary movies. The kind that had you at the edge of your seat. I remember when I was a teenager, going to the theatre to watch the horror shows with my friends, the scarier the better, because we knew going into it, that it was all fake.

But is it?

Now that I am older and a Believer in Christ, I have since changed my mind. The evil depicted in these horror movies may be fake on the screen, but evil in real life lurks around us and believe me, it is very real!

So how do we deal with these movies (and TV shows) that depict the use of magic, witchcraft and glorified violence? If you are a Christian, I believe that God wants you to use wisdom and be smart about the choices you make. I had to make a choice myself, was I willing to allow the evil thoughts and images to dance in my head from watching a movie or could I make a better choice?

"The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly." (Proverbs 15:14)

If you are still intrigued with the scary shows and wonder if it is ok for a Christian to watch, ask yourself this question, "should I watch this at all?" God said for us to have a pure heart and a clean mind. If the show you are about to watch will keep you from maintaining this, it may not be worth your time.

"Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10) 

I can't tell you if watching the scary Halloween movies are wrong for you, but what I can do is suggest that you apply God's rating to the rating of the movie or show. Paul writes in Philippians that we should think on things that are excellent and praiseworthy; things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable. If you can spend 90 minutes watching ghosts, evil, mass killings, vampires, witchcraft and zombies and walk away feeling all those kind of things found in Philippians, more power to you. But I doubt that you can, I know I cannot.

I have come to know that there is a real enemy who lurks around to steal, kill and destroy. And he uses our mind and what we allow in our hearts and what we allow to be seen by our eyes to haunt and destroy us. I learned a long time ago in elementary school a very important logo, "garbage in, garbage out."

Keep the garbage out by keeping what's on the inside pure and clean. To do this, you may need to change the channel or switch theatres. Evil is not something to play around with.

BLESSINGS. Laurie