Thank you, for your suggestions!
BTW My husband loved "The Last Stand" so it seems you may have similar tastes!
Maybe I'm just having difficulty with what types of movies would be acceptable to watch for a Christian? Nothing anti-Christian of course...but are there other guidelines as well?
You'll likely find some Christians and some churches that have strict guidelines, but this kind of tends toward Moralism--the attempt at creating strict moral codes in order to make it seem as though by following them one is acting righteously (guidelines and morals which God Himself has never actually commanded or instructed, but are self-made by people wanting to create a sense of morality for themselves). It's a theological system that I find deeply troubling, but very rampant in modern Christendom.
So I think think you should really go by conscience, putting it on the same level St. Paul in his letters to the Romans advises:
"
As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and of the living.
Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, 'As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue confess to God.' So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.
For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.
So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
Do not for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for anyone to make another stumble by what he eats. It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble. The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason t pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin." - Romans 14
The point is this, there are things in this world which God has neither condemned nor commanded of us; in Lutheran language we call these
adiaphora, a Greek word meaning "indifferent things". These are a matter of conscience, strictly speaking adiaphora refers to the many things that are traditional in Church--clergy wearing vestments, making the sign of the cross, sitting in pews during the service, the use of certain prayers, or observing of certain feast days--which God hasn't commanded, but neither are they forbidden, and thus they are morally indifferent. In Lutheranism we keep these traditional things because we find them helpful, but they are not obligatory.
I would also argue that when it comes to the sorts of things you watch on television or in the movie theater, or the music you listen to, etc, these are a matter of conscience. There is no quick and easy way to delineate morality on such things through fiat, rather it must be navigated through as we devote ourselves to God, and so conscience should dictate such things for us. So that whatever you do, you do in honor of God.
If your conscience cannot allow you to watch violent films, then by all means don't watch violent films. If it does not offend your conscience, then don't stress about it. At the end of the day such is between you and God, and as St. Paul says, we must all, on the Final Day, give an account before the Lord for all that we've done and did not do; and if we are in Christ, then we are clothed with the righteousness of God already, righteous because He has made us righteousness by His solemn promise and the mercy He so graciously bestows to us through our Baptism.
Not because we ourselves are righteous or act righteously (we don't), but because He who is righteous makes us righteous in Him, and this is His kindness, His mercy, His compassion, His goodness toward us.
-CryptoLutheran
