I remember watching Beauty and the Beast as a child. I always thought that the beast was one of the coolest prince's that Disney ever came up with. He was big, strong and scary. The beast reminded me of a werewolf on steroids. The story line was unique and intriguing. Flash forward to 2017 and Disney has produced a new Beauty and the Beast feature. The biggest headline in anticipation for this movie is a drive-through movie theater is banning the showing of the new movie. Apparently, Disney decided to take a children's movie and interject an overly-gay character.
I remember watching the original version of Beauty and the Beast. I never remember seeing a gay character in the original. Since Disney produced both movies, you would think that they would keep with the original story line. Including an overly-gay character in the film does not enhance the classic film. It does not reinforce the original story. What it does do is push an agenda. None of this is surprising in the times we live in.
Disney has done a good job of getting people to talk about their new movie whether they intended to or not. With the new Beauty and the Beast movie, here we find ourselves at another divide. Christians on one side and the agenda driven society on another.
What does the new Beauty and the Beast mean for Christians?
There are two things that I take away from this story. First, we must stand behind our values. We must deny ungodliness and worldly desires. This would include filling our minds with things in conflict with Biblical teachings.
Titus 2:11-12 NASB “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,”
Secondly, we must not be hypocrites. If we see homosexuality as a sin, we should remove all of the other sins from our lives as well. This would include watching movies with nudity, cursing, killing, gluttony, deception and so on. If we only feel like being a Christian against a gay character in a film, then what does that say about our relationship with Jesus? It is all or none folks. You can't be on the side of God with one sin and find it ok to engage in others.
Matthew 6:1 NASB “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.”
If we want to be in the business of respectfully declining ungodly movies, then we need to do it across the board. In this situation, the movie theater re-enforced their Biblically based decision.
Henagar drive-in-theatre posted on their Facebook page:
“We all make choices and I am making mine. If we cannot take our 11 year old granddaughter and 8 year old grandson to see a movie we have no business watching it.”
“If I can't sit through a movie with God or Jesus sitting by me then we have no business showing it.”
It is possible for us to show Christ in us without pointing out the speck in someone else's eye. We need to stand firm in our core convictions and values. Never should we compromise our faith in Jesus. It is important, however, to do this in a loving, God-honoring way. We can get caught up in pointing out one sin with engaging in another ourselves.