My brother-in-law's choice

My husband’s brother moved to Albuquerque to work for the government and ended up in the movies. New Mexico offers filmmakers a cash rebate for the full qualifying amount for production. (And you thought California was the only mecca for fantasy mirages.) Bill is not a household name yet. He hasn’t even had a speaking role yet. If you hold your TV remote in your hand and are quick, you might spot his face as the camera pans a boardroom scene or a hospital ER team.

I talked briefly to Bill on the phone last week and asked him, “So, have you been in any new films lately?” He said that as a matter of fact just yesterday someone had offered him a part, but he turned it down. “Turned it down?” I wondered (for he was generally excited about his good fortune to be on the big screen). Bill told me that the part was a participant in a same-sex wedding or party, and that was where he drew the line as a Christian.

I was impressed. In this day and age I can imagine a number of ways in which one could have justified artistic involvement in a movie portraying homosexuals. Here are a few: (1) Portraying is not endorsing. (2) Scripture does not forbid it, so I will not legalistically forbid it either. (3) It is good to encourage Christian involvement in the arts; in this way we can be salt and light to our fellow actors, an unreached people group. (4) We must portray life the way it is, not the way we might wish it to be. (5) As long as we are mature in our faith, the depiction of a homosexual character will not injure us. (6) “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Timothy 4:4).

As Christians we are often faced with choices that involve hand-in-the-bush acquisitions on the one hand, and an uncertain application of Scripture on the other. These are the toughest choices of all, because if we are wrong and unnecessarily strict in our scruples, we can lose out for no good reason on a great deal of money or opportunity or fame. My brother-in-law somehow chose to forsake the opportunity and the attendant promotion possibility for the sake of personally reasoned extrapolation from Scripture that other Christians may even disagree with.

But this is the Christian life, n’est-ce pas?

“We walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)

Sight seems certain and faith seems uncertain—in the same way that a bird sitting in your palm seems like a better prospect for lunch than two in the tree that may never come down. But God will commend Bill for his choice based on unseen things. Scripture says we must all arrive at points of conviction based on our private wrestlings with the Scriptures before God in the loneliness of our prayer closet:

“Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (Romans 14:5).

Those who think Bill might have forfeited a chance to put Christians in the arts might do well to consider that he may have turned more studio heads to God by refusing the offer than he would have by accepting it.