Did God Really Say?
| By: Dr. Ted Baehr; ©2001 |
| Are the messages in movies, like beauty, “in the eye of the beholder”? Dr. Baehr explains how this view point can lead one dangerously close to Satan’s lie in the Garden. |
Deconstructionism has invaded Christian ministries. Recently, a Christian ministry came up with the demonic conclusion, “This just proves that movie messages, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder.”
Imagine telling this to the Holocaust survivors who suffered from the impact of Dr. Joseph Goebbels’ feature film I ACCUSE, which convinced the German people to change their vote from being against so-called “mercy killing,” to being in favor of “mercy killing,” which was the Nazi code word for the Holocaust. I ACCUSE is a very subtle film, but the message was not in the eye of the beholder.
Or, imagine telling the millions of people who come to Christ through THE JESUS FILM that it was just their interpretation of the movie-not the Truth.
This “eye of beholder” statement, like the rest of deconstructionism, turns communications inside out.
Christians believe in epistemological realism, that is, we can know what God said, and what God meant, even when He said, “Don’t eat of this tree.”
Satan, however, wants us to play God, so he says to us, just like he did to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:1 “Did God really say?” Or, in other words, can you really know what he means-isn’t it just in the eye of the beholder?
Now, saying confronting the evil of deconstructionism does not mean that someone might not be mistaken about the message of a movie, but even if they are that does not diminish the message. Using proper analytical tools and Occam’s razor, we can know the message that was intended. Even without these tools, most audiences understand clearly the messages being presented to them. There is no need, therefore, to despair whenever we find people, even Christian experts, disagreeing with one another about what something means. We don’t have to throw up our hands and resort to some kind of intellectual relativism that contradicts the Word of God.
Such corruption of understanding may point out, however, why some ministries in Hollywood have so little impact on the product coming out of the entertainment industry. If they have embraced moral relativism, deconstructionism, solipsism, and worldly standards, then it will be impossible for them to disciple the key men and women in the entertainment industry with the truth of God’s word. After all, the eye of the beholder position is like unto the snake in the garden, asking, “Did God really say?”
