Beware of Desensitization

Consuming TV, social media, and everything in between wisely

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Photo by Oscar Nord on Unsplash

Christians have to do a balancing act every single day. We have to walk a fine line every passing moment. This is the line between Christian freedom, legalism, and just being wise as we follow Jesus. Believers have to find a balance between these three things because it’s way too easy to fall into legalism or, on the other hand, we far too often succumb to consuming all of what the world has to offer.

It’s the latter issue that’s the topic for discussion today. We need to be aware, along with many other things, of becoming desensitized to everything around us.

Let me give you an example. My wife and I are massive fans of the popular Netflix original show Stranger Things. We are, admittedly, incredibly excited to watch the series finale. Since it first aired, the show has always featured crass and inappropriate language — most certainly coming from kids (at the time). Now those kids are older, but we noticed something as we watched Vol. 1 of Season 5. It seems like the Duffer Brothers (the creators of the show) go out of their way to have characters say the Lord’s name in vain, but use the word ‘damn’ along with it. I remember Shale saying, “Looks like this is their favorite cuss word now.”

Indeed, it is. And I cringe on the inside every time they say that word. But every now and then there’s the temptation for it to not have an effect on my mind and heart. There’s the temptation to become desensitized to people saying such a blasphemous word because it’s just a show. But that’s the problem. It’s commonplace—it’s “normal” for that language to be used.

The language used in Stranger Things is just one example, and certainly not the worst. There are far too many shows that go way beyond blasphemous language and veer into normalized pornography (Game of Thrones, anyone?). “Men, it is the ‘legal’ sensualities, the culturally acceptable indulgences, that will take us down, R. Kent Hughes wrote. “The long hours of indiscriminate TV watching or internet surfing, which is not only culturally cachet but is expected of the American male, is a massive culprit of desensitization.”

My example was a TV show, but the even bigger problem is social media. We spend far too much time on social media (I’m looking at myself here¹), and that can easily translate into becoming desensitized to things on there that no Christian should look at, laugh at, or even consider. And yet, we all fall into that trap periodically. It makes me think of the quote from the late John MacArthur: “We should not be entertained by the sins for which Christ died.”

J-Mac’s quote is correct, but I think it brings up the fine line again. On one hand, what he’s saying is true—I’ve laughed at or been entertained by things that, after, I would say to myself, “I shouldn’t be laughing at that.” On the flip side, this doesn’t mean watching TV or scrolling social media is inherently sinful. It’s not innately wrong to watch a show that has inappropriate language—unless your conscience tells you so (although I do believe there are some shows that would be absolutely sinful to watch more so for sexual content/nudity). The question is, “Am I allowing this entertainment to affect my heart? Is this TV show or social media habit causing me to not have the mind of Christ? Is partaking in this revealing sin in my life?”

Let’s go back to Hughes’ quote again and focus on “culturally acceptable indulgences.” We should think, act, and speak different. We should be different than the world. There are many things society labels as acceptable, but that doesn’t mean we indulge, too. It doesn’t mean we consume the same way they consume. It doesn’t mean we don’t have boundaries to what we watch or be aware of what comes across our social media feeds. We must, as Romans 12:2 exhorts, “renew our minds.”

This goes back to staying in communion with the Lord. In other words, the way we ensure we don’t become desensitized is not by eliminating those things altogether—which could be the case in some circumstances—but by making sure we’re consistently in our spiritual disciplines. There is certainly freedom in Christ to simply live our lives and enjoy things to the glory of God, but we must be wise about that. There are some forms of entertainment that make it impossible to glorify God. Use wisdom.

Friends, we don’t want to overindulge like the culture does by consuming all the things they consume. We ought to be different—noticeably different. There should be barriers in place for our sanctification in Christ.² But at the same time, we don’t want to veer off into legalism and invent “thou shall nots” on things that may or may not be sinful. Again, there’s freedom in the Christian life as long as we use wisdom. But we must be careful, as I’ve said, not to become desensitized to what we consume. We must, above all else, look to Christ, the founder and perfecter of our faith. We must do all things to his glory.

1. I’ve made the intentional effort to not be on Facebook so much. I’m still on it, but I don’t use the app for it, so it’s clunkier and doesn’t suck me into its doomscrolling vortex

2. A very practical example of this would be using VidAngel which will mute or skip foul language and/or sexual content. We don’t use it, but that’s a good option.