There, I’ve said it. OK, maybe (and I mean MAYBE) a case could be made that a mature believer could justify watching portions of the show as a means of cultural analysis and critique, but if a professing believer watched its totality as a means of entertainment or pleasure, then he or she has sinned and should repent.
No, I’m not talking about the musical forms (though something could probably be said here). Let’s skip all of that controversy for now and go straight to the elements that no Christian can reasonably defend. Elements that, as of 3:35 pm yesterday afternoon, 50% of readers at MSNBC(!) found excessively risqué, unwittingly ranking them in Paul’s category of “sexual immorality of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans” (1 Cor 5:1). Elements like the gratuitous exploitation of women, visually overt and unbiblical sexual themes, lyrical subjects that openly celebrate sin (I looked this bit up, distasteful though it was), and for lack of a clearer word, pornography.
Undoubtedly some readers will howl about liberty, the need to be in the world to win the world, and the ugly spirit of Pharisaism or weak-brotherliness reflected in this post. Whatever. Sin and worldliness do exist, and if not here, then I’m not sure where one might go to find them. There surely is room for reasonable debate over adiaphora or “things indifferent,” but the Halftime Show isn’t among these. Any suggestion to the contrary is unadulterated self-deception.
Let us instead take Peter seriously when he urges us as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul, choosing rather to maintain behavior that is excellent among the pagans (1 Pet 2:11–12).
