Zombies!

Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that zombies are quite the rage these days. People have actual written-out plans for a pending "zombie apocalypse". There is a fascination with these "undead" that continues to amaze me. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of a zombie is as follows: the supernatural power that according to voodoo belief may enter into and reanimate a dead body; a will-less and speechless human in the West Indies capable only of automatic movement who is held to have died and been supernaturally reanimated.

You'll often hear them referred to as "the walking dead". In fact, in 2010 a wildly popular show called The Walking Dead appeared on television, and this past October it premiered for its third season. According to Entertainment Weekly,

"[The 2012] premiere will probably be remembered as the hour that set a record for zombie killing. How many was that? Seventy? Eighty? After last season’s fan complaint of too much farm chatting and not enough zombie killing, the third season premiere’s orgy of kill-shots surely satisfied fan blood lust."

Can I be honest, that last sentence really really really concerns me. Not necessarily because our culture has this kind of thought toward what is considered entertainment, but because there are a LOT in the Church who are ingesting this show as a regular part of their viewing diet. Recently I wrote a post called "Time to Diet?" that challenges us as Christ followers to have different standards than the world when it comes to what we are "feeding on" via our eyes and our ears.

Even the creators of the show are looking for ways to push the boundaries of what is acceptable on television. I came across an interview on a site aptly called bloody-disgusting.com where The Walking Dead creator Frank Darabont and executive producer Gale Ann Hurd were asked a number of questions about their show. This statement left me chilled to the bone:

"When we were cutting the show together I remember turning to Gale going ‘wow look, we killed a seven-year-old in the first scene. It is kind of our mission statement, isn’t it? It kind of like really sets the tone. It clues the audience in, ‘if you don’t dig this kind of stuff, you really should just tune out now. But if you do think this is intriguing, then stick around’, you know?"

Their "mission statement" revolves around pride in killing a seven-year-old? I don't "dig this kind of stuff", so you can be assured that I won't be tuning in anytime soon.

Psalm 101:3--"I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar."

Philippians 4:8--"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever ispure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." 

Time to Diet?

If we look at Daniel's life as described in Daniel 1 in the Bible, we see a devout young man who has decided that the "king's delicacies" (food and wine) were not something with which he should defile himself. Instead, he asked for a diet of vegetables and water! I was pondering this and that led me to think about the "diet" of those of us in the Church. Now, I'm not talking about the food diet (though that could probably be addressed considering our love of potlucks!)  :-)  What I'm talking about is our "brain diet"...what things are we consuming, via our eyes and ears, that affect our thoughts, our spirit?

All  you have to do is Google something like "the effect of music on our brain", and you'll find myriad studies and articles that show brain scans and charts and graphs...all pointing to the fact that you are indeed affected by what you hear. Do a search for the effect of what you watch, and you'll find similar results. The bottom line is that we ARE influenced by things like television shows, music, YouTube videos, video games, the Internet, etc. etc. etc.!

Back to the diet analogy...what is it that you're habitually feeding on? What about your kids? The Psalmist in Psalm 101:3 says, "I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar." How much vileness and vulgarity is acceptable in the media we consume? How does a constant diet of vile and vulgar things affect our relationship with the Lord? I've often shared with young people that anything we allow to infiltrate our sight and our hearing should pass the "Philippians Filter" found in Philippians 4:8:

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." (emphasis mine)

Notice those last four words, "think about such things." What you're consuming will affect what you're thinking about. The more true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy things are, the better our thoughts will be. This won't just happen with a snap of the fingers...it has to be something we are committed to. Look at Daniel again, "But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food, or with the wine that he drank."  He RESOLVED. Other translations say "he determined", "he made up his mind", "he purposed in his heart". He was intentional in making the Lord his aim. For him, there was no other option.

So, how's your diet?