Watching Movies Without Violating Your Conscience

Frequent readers of this blog, and my other one, Searchlights from the Scriptures, will readily recognize that the art of film is one of the most influential mediums for modern messages in our day. Every film that is made is made for a purpose, and rarely is that purpose merely entertainment. Usually, there is an underlying worldview that is being advanced through the film. Surely, there is much entertainment value in watching films as well, and we don't want to minimize that. It is an absolute delight to curl up on the couch together with my wife and our little ones to watch a movie. However, most Christians would also recognize that seldom are the offerings of Hollywood suitable for Christian family entertainment. Vulgarity, sexuality, and brutality often detract from the enjoyment of film. For many years, we had to just steer clear altogether of movies unless we knew for sure (from the reliable testimony of others who had seen the film) that the particular movie we wanted to watch was free from those things which would violate our consciences and Christian convictions.

Last year, a landmark court case put the kibosh on family friendly "edited" versions of popular films. In that case, the only two companies (CleanFilms and CleanFlicks) who were producing "cleaned-up" versions of DVDs chose to cease operation rather than appealing the courts rulings against them. When I read about this, I was embarrassed that I never even knew of these companies! If I had, I would have been a customer. But through all of this, I learned of another company which has opened up movie viewing for my family.

ClearPlay makes a DVD player that uses "filters" for DVDs that have adjustable settings for filtering out language, sexuality, and violence. We purchased one of these in October of last year, and have truly enjoyed watching movies again without having to keep our fingers in the kids' ears or our hands over their eyes.

I commend this to you for your own enjoyment. Certainly there are still films which would be inappropriate even if filtered. Some films would be little more than opening and closing credits after all the objectionable content was removed. However, many which would have been "off limits" for us in the past are now easily enjoyable because of the ClearPlay filters.

If you are interested in learning more about it, visit www.clearplay.com.