“Entirely different objections were entertained against Theater-going. In itself there is nothing sinful in fiction—the power of the imagination is a precious gift of God Himself. Neither is there any special evil in dramatic imagination. How highly did Milton appreciate Shakespeare’s Drama, and did not he himself write in dramatic form? Nor did the evil lie in public theatrical representations, as such. Public performances were given for all the people at Geneva, in the Market Place, in Calvin’s time, and with his approval. No, that which offended our ancestors was not the comedy or tragedy, nor should have been the opera, in itself, but the moral sacrifice which as a rule was demanded of actors and actresses for the amusement of the public. A theatrical troop, in those days especially, stood, morally, rather low. This low moral standard resulted partly from the fact that the constant and ever-changing presentation of the character of another person finally hampers the molding of your personal character; and partly because our modern Theaters, unlike the Greek, have introduced the presence of women on the stage, the prosperity of the Theater being too often gauged by the measure in which a woman jeopardizes the most sacred treasures God entrusts to her, her stainless name, and irreproachable conduct. Certainly, a strictly normal Theater is very well conceivable; but with the exception of a few large cities, such Theaters would neither be sufficiently patronized nor could exist financially ; and the actual fact remains that, taking all the world over, the prosperity of a Theater often increases in proportion to the moral degradation of the actors. Too often therefore … the prosperity of Theaters is purchased at the cost of manly character, and of female purity. And the purchase of delight for the ear and the eye at the price of such a moral hecatomb, the Calvinist, who honored whatever was human in man for the sake of God, could not but condemn.”
Abraham Kuyper,
Lectures on Calvinism
Clearly many involved in Drama are genuine Christians. All because someone involves themselves or their children in one play doesn’t mean that they are not Christian. Theoretically, the play could be an opportunity for the children to engage in Worldview thinking. I mean, for the rest of their lives those children are going to have to reinterpret the world around them. Why not start in a environment that is relatively safe and is controlled to a certain degree? The key is for the parents to help their children reinterpret all that is being communicated in the play worldview wise. But of course, if the parents have not been taught to see with and not just through the eyes the Parents cannot help their children reinterpret very much.
Second, in my previous post I was not intending to give a blanket condemnation to all that HPA is. I’m only pleading that Parents be wise about all the dynamics of Theater, youth culture and priorities chosen. Theater can be God glorifying but if handled apart from wisdom it can be destructive to the souls of children.
All I’m pleading for is discretion.
And while I’m at it, I’m going to list here my concerns with the youth culture that HPA provides. When children are placed together in the way they are in the context of HPA there is created a youth subculture. The avoidance of youth culture is supposed to be one reason why Christians don’t want their children in government schools and yet when we major on these kinds of adult sparse organizations we create the very thing we were seeking to avoid by homeschooling.
In a culture that doesn’t create a youth culture, young people typically aspire to be like the adults in their lives. They emulate the adults. They strive to be adults. They want to be adults. When you create a youth subculture children now emulate their peers. Children, because they no longer emulate adults, have a passion to fit into their peer group (and what Adult fits into youth culture?). As such children are prone to remain children longer. When we create a youth sub culture, children are retarded in developing adult tastes, and in the desire to think like adults. (Of course since too many adults think like children today, we’ve largely lost out there even when we manage to get them to want to be like adults.) Youth culture breeds immaturity and disrespect for adults because youth culture by its very definition is anti-adult. This burgeoning youth culture explains, at least in part, the phenomenon social scientist are seeing as they see increasing numbers of men in their 20’s refusing to take on the responsibility of men. Our whole culture, from elderly on down emulate youth culture.
So, HPA helps our children to remain children when it is indulged in as a way of life. (And for some of those children HPA is a way of life). There is not enough adult supervision at HPA to disperse the presence of youth culture. (And 19 and 20 year old supervision doesn’t count as “Adult.”) I understand that as an organization HPA can’t be held responsible for what Parents allow their children to be involved in, but I can at least wish that Parents and HPA adult leaders would think through these kinds of things and not be hostile when I broach the subject.
(And as a codicil, I wish I could say that all this analysis is original to me. It is not. I learned it from a host of people I’ve read and studied. Some pastors still spend their lives trying to understand these kinds of things.)
As is hinted at by the Kuyper quote above, drama can mess with a child’s sense of identity. Children need stability to form a stable sense of who they are. When drama is engaged in as a way of life for children the stability is brought into question because the child has no singular identity but rather their identity is connected to whatever role they are currently playing. They are subtly being taught that they can slip in and out of whatever character or personality might suit them at any given time. Who are they? Whoever they need to be.
Finally, I do have this against drama; ( — not only the performance of it but also the partaking of it –) it rewires the mind from an ability to be engaged with a text such as one finds in reading, to a passive “my mind is a canvas, write on it approach.” When we replace the word and the text for the image we at the same time replace,
a.) The active interaction demanded of a text for the passivity which comes with the image
b.) The ability to think critically with being mindlessly caught up with the story presented with the image
c.) The ability to think sequentially (which comes from the linearity of the text) for a thinking abstractly that is encouraged by the image.
d.) The loss of detail in our thinking which is acquired by reading books that reason closely, for an ability to think in grand sweeping narratives such are most often represented in Drama. (Just think how plot and character development have diminished in films over the decades as we’ve shifted increasingly from a Linear-textual culture to a abstract-image culture).
I am not anti-drama, but I am “if we are going to do drama lets do it in a epistemologically self conscious Christian way.” Maybe that will mean plays just for boys and men and separate plays just for girls and women. Maybe it means doing family plays where family life is nourished to some degree. Maybe it means doing a worldview study concurrent with the play so that children are taught not only to act but to think.
My plea is only that we think about what we are doing.
