For Your Entertainment

Our pastoral team chose to preach a sermon series on various human emotions. When the lead pastor preached about desires, he mentioned the Motion Picture Production Code.* This set of guidelines was developed and used in the movie industry to ensure good taste prevailed, no profanity would be used, and no suggestive nudity or ridiculing of the clergy would appear on the screen. The Production Code was strictly followed through most of the 1950s but slowly eroded over time due to the impact of television and the influence of foreign films, which were not bound by the Production Code. I remember watching television programs with good moral messages. Some even included stories that showed the blessing being said over family meals. How times have changed! The entertainment industry no longer follows the Production Code in its pursuit of increased viewers and generating higher box-office revenues and ratings. Movies regularly encourage revenge and vigilante justice.

Religion and religious persons are routinely mocked, with a few notable exceptions. There are also movies and television programs that humanize evil and evil agencies. Fortunately, there are still informational and educational documentaries and biographical movies that delight and inspire us. Just like the Production Code, God’s instructions are often ignored. Paul instructed, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV). We must be careful what we behold because it is “by beholding we become changed.”† Carelessness can erode our love for God and alter the choices we make. God’s Word reminds us, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:18, NKJV). Let us fix our eyes and our minds on the Lord.

Barbara Burris Neequaye

* Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. “Hays Office,” accessed November 16, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hays-Office.

† Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald®, 1900), 355.