without necessarily taking a side on the issue…
I once heard a strict fundamentalist preacher support an anti-entertainment position thus:

The word “amusement” has at its root the meaning of “a” meaning opposite + “muse” meaning to think upon. Therefore, he posited, amusement is to disengage the mind and be entertained without thinking or considering the value and impact of the activity.

I think there is some merit - in so far as the need for a Christian to carefully consider the difference between restful and restorative recreation and amusing entertainment.

The proverb says, as a person thinks in their heart so they are (my quasi-translation from memory).

Entertainment should be evaluated like any other activity. Is it forbidden in scripture? Is it mandadted in scripture? Is it glorifying to God? Is it an occassion for the flesh to sin? Is it profitable for me in my walk with God?

Then of course there is the (dare I say “balanced”) view of the likes of John Piper, God is most glorified in us when we are most pleased in him. If I can engage in and enjoy “entertainment” that prompts me to glorify God and do so without being sinful, selfish or silly (aliterating to say, force the scripture to accomodate my sin) surely that is profitable?

e.g. Can I join in with a non-Christian in an entertainment activity and segue into an evangelistic conversation?

Just a few slightly disjointed, but somewhat related, thoughts that quickly come to mind upon reading your article. Very thought provoking though - much to “muse” upon

That’s very interesting. I think the corollory of entertainment is boredom… and so, we need to ask, why are we so chronically BORED all the time that we need entertaining? Is boredom a spiritual problem? I think it might well be..

Indeed. Even these comments are becoming entertaining.

As a kind of side issue, but definitely related to entertainment - have we ever stopped to analyse Western culture.  What makes us think that the day is for work and the evening for idle entertainment?  What makes us think that we work five days a week and have the weekend for fun - when God clearly commanded six days of work and one day of rest?

I’m not advocating a six-day work week, on the contrary, I think that there is plenty of work in ones own home that needs to be done…  But entertainment has become a predominant feature of our lives - should we be spending more hours a week on idle entertainment than personal prayer, Bible study and worship?  More hours being entertained than in corporate worship, Christian fellowship and reaching out to the lost?  I would guess that most Western Christians would spend more hours in a week being entertained than they would on all those listed activities combined.

Michael’s right: entertainment exists, in part, because of boredom.  But I think there’s more to it.  Entertainment is escapism, not only from boredom, but from the real grief and frustration of a world under sin.  Why do we like stories where the good guy wins, and gets the girl, and they live happily ever after?  ‘Coz in the ordinary drudgery of life, the good guys lose, relationships are painful, and everything decays and dies. 

I find the Bible entertaining—it has ironies, unexpected twists & turns that make me laugh—like Eglon and his goons in Judges 3; Dagon falling on his face in 1 Sam 5; the way idols are mocked in Isaiah 44; and the way the disciples just don’t “get” Jesus in John 4:31-33 and 11:11-12, 16. 

Good secular entertainment doesn’t just entertain; it also communicates a world view.  It is happy escapism, but not just happy escapism; it affirms some sort of morality, some sort of teleology.  Perhaps we should work towards redeeming entertainment, and using it as a vehicle for communicating the Biblical world view.  Perhaps we could do what C. S. Lewis did in Narnia: not just predictably parrot the gospel story, but set up a world that is based on a Biblical world view, and get characters to have adventures in it. 

What d’you think?  Any budding playwrights out there…?

I remember encountering a strand of pietism that prohibited reading novels and other fiction, particularly fantasy, on the basis that it was an escape from reality and a rejection of the way the world is as God has created it. It made me think carefully about the sort of literature I read. What is it selling? What hope does it portray.

I wonder if it’s the possibility of false or disproportionate hopes that’s the problem. In the case of fantasy, the Biblical promise of heaven is nothing short of “fantastic” and hearing and believing it is an important use of our imaginative capacity. To buy into other fantasies and abandon that hope as I pursue entertainment would be tragic.