I recently went to the theater and saw Disney’s latest offering, Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a grand spectacle, well cast, with an intriguing story line and plenty of swashbuckling action to boot. Johnny Depp, was a scene-stealer with his off-beat and off-balance portrayal of the down-on-his-luck Captain Jack Sparrow, the pirate with a heart-of-Spanish gold.

Unfortunately, the movie was quite entertaining. I say unfortunately because although the movie is only rated PG13 (for violence), worldview-wise it should be rated XXX. And here is why:

For several decades now, the Disney Studios have been churning out their cinematic assaults on God’s created order. The most notable and sustained attack has been on the parent-child relationship. In God’s economy, parents are the wise and self-sacrificing ones who, over the course of many years, by example, precept and admonition, instill wisdom and love in their children. In the world-according-to-Disney grownups are, with very few exceptions, somewhere between selfish buffoons and well-meaning simpletons. And the wisdom that invariably carries the day is manifested in the insightful stratagems issuing forth from the innocent lips of the wholesomely primitive wee ones. Pirates of the Caribbean takes this decades-long Rousseau-ian propaganda campaign to new heights.

As noted before, the hands down, gut-level, emotional hero of the story is Jack Sparrow, who is, get this, a pirate! In the movie, Captain Sparrow is explicitly portrayed as a womanizer (fornicator), an alcohol abuser (drunkard), greedy and deceitful. Not to mention the whole host of implied atrocities and debaucheries that necessarily attend his barbarous calling. In a particularly insidious twist, Captain Jack employs the truth to confound and confuse his enemies. He knows that everyone expects a pirate to lie and obfuscate. So in order to accomplish his deceits, he tells the truth. And his enemies, true to type, take the truth for a lie and are thus deceived.

It is Jack Sparrow who ultimately helps the protagonist, Will Turner, overcome his moral failing: intolerance (gasp!) You see, earlier in the story, Will Turner had discovered that his father, whom he mistakenly thought was an honorable merchant-marine, was in fact a pirate. Poor intolerant Will could not accept Captain Jack’s testimony that his father, “Bootstrap Bill,” was both a “pirate and a good man.” But over the course of the movie Will Turner is won over by Sparrow’s sterling example and finally comes to the realization that you really can be both a buccaneer and a good man. Fascinating.

Elizabeth, the heroine in the movie and Will Turner’s love interest, displays many admirable, and truly biblical qualities. Unfortunately they are qualities predominately prescribed for mature godly men. Elizabeth, apparently, knows more about young men than her father (who once was a young man himself); more about ships than men who were at sea before she was born; more about courage than battle-hardened soldiers, and more about hand-to-hand combat than pirates who were crushing skulls when she was still in diapers. Elizabeth, apart from her alluring beauty, is almost the antithesis of Biblical femininity. She is neither Lady Wisdom nor the Mother of Warriors revealed and revered in Scripture. Rather she brazenly attempts to be the Sage and Savior portrayed in holy writ; roles ordained, commanded and reserved by God for men. When the well-meaning Will attempts to rescue brave Elizabeth, he comes close, but in the end needs to be rescued by her. Poor Will.

The red-coated Brits are not portrayed as complete idiots, but they are nonetheless pictured as inept, uptight and priggish. The movie is crafted in a way that sorely tempts you root for the pirates and alternately pity and scorn the loyal subjects of the Crown. Historically speaking, the British were not unselfish and unsullied angels, but they did in fact labor manfully to spread true religion, build schools, increase legitimate trade and commerce, and bring law and order to the islands surrounding the Caribbean Sea. Compared to the pirates in the region who only lived as bloodthirsty parasites and destructive apes, the Britons, warts and all, actually looked pretty swell. But luckily for us Disney’s tight-shoed Anglos do overcome their almost-fatal-flaw in the end, when they learn an important lesson from the pirates, that codes of conduct are really just guidelines. And so they break their own laws by allowing Captain Jack to escape. And more importantly, after coming to the important realization that sometimes you need to break the law to keep it, the Brits pardon Will Tanner for his earlier theft of a British vessel (on the eve of his hapless attempt to save Elizabeth.)

So what did we learn class? Well, let’s see.

We learned that Isaiah’s stern warnings to those who “call good evil, and evil good” were a bit over-the-top. Hard-working honest folk who labor to build a law-loving culture are evil, and those who prey upon the wealth of others, seeking the fulfillment of every base desire and openly defying anything remotely resembling biblical law or culture are good.

We learned that truth is malleable, and properly used works really well to deceive others. And that it is somewhat admirable and a even a trifle ennobling to deceive others if you can do it by using the truth instead of bald-faced lies. Sounds a little serpent-esque doesn’t it?

We learned that Jesus, contrary to what Christians might contend, was in fact very narrow minded and, dare we say it? Intolerant (double gasp!) Clearly, both Jack Sparrow and Bootstrap Bill were pirates and good men at the same time. But Jesus taught that it was impossible for a good tree to bear bad fruit. Tsk. But, as Will Turner learned (and we should too), a man most certainly can commit horribly depraved deeds and unconscionable crimes and still be a good person. We ought not to evaluate other by what they do, but rather, simply by who they are. We all need to create categories of thought that will accommodate the likes of benevolent Nazis and selfless Sodomites. I guess maybe Bill Clinton was right after all…

We learned that true femininity is not about giving life, nurturing, yielding and committing oneself to the admiration, protection and direction of a loving lord. No, authentic femininity is about taking life, and leading and saving men too timid and incompetent to find their own way or save themselves. And of course this is especially true of the ultimate Savior and Bride-to-be. You see, well-meaning Jesus came to earth and tried really hard to save his intended from her peril, but in the end needed a little help himself. Mind you, Christ got the ball rolling, but to accomplish his beloved’s rescue, he still needed her to employ her strength and wisdom in a timely fashion. Obviously, the applications to the modern Church are legion, but I’ll leave you to your own fancies at this point.

And finally, we learned that codes and laws are really just guidelines (Coming to a theater near you, Cecil B. Demented’s, The Ten Suggestions!) We learned that ultimately we must all shape and mold God’s decrees, and yes, darn it, if needs be cut and paste them to fit our own peculiar circumstance. And that sometimes you have to break God’s law to keep it. Most helpful Mr. Disney, thank you very little.

Now, at this point, some of you are starting to think something like, “For Pete’s sake, it’s just a movie! Who cares? It’s not like I, or my children, attended a PowerPoint lecture on the glories of Post Modernism. Now that would be dangerous. Pirates is just harmless entertainment, pure and simple. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

But what is a movie? A movie is a story, told with dialogue, full color, live action and/or computer generated images, and all set to a musical score written and recorded to cement the movie’s message into our very souls. But, at its very core a movie is a simply a story. The overwhelming majority of Scripture is not (contrary to what some Reformed types might like to think) a collection of bullet-point lectures and systematic treatises. When God determined to make Himself and His holy commands known to Adam’s fallen race, He predominately chose the most glorious, the most potent and the most perfectly suited means to communicate His truth to the human heart: STORY. (Incidentally, if anyone ever puts a gun to your head and forces you to choose between sending your child to a Disney flick or the lecture series of a Post Modern flake, take the flake every time. It will be much less detrimental to your child’s sanctification. By the second Roman numeral your child will either be comatose or profitably daydreaming of noble knights, sulphurous dragons and damsels-in-distress.)

A Word to Parents

You parents, especially you fathers, are %100 responsible for everything that your children take in, especially when imbibed through the intoxicating medium of story. When your children (toddlers – college age) view a movie or video, one of two things is happening. Either they are, as God commands them, taking every thought captive, making it serviceable to the glory of Christ. Or, they are being taken captive and robbed by hollow and deceptive philosophy that depends upon the “wisdom” of this world and not upon Christ. There is no third option.

How can you tell which is the case for your children? If your children can recognize and properly name  the tripe being proffered to them as truth (i.e. deism, naturalism/materialism, nihilism, emotionalism, modernism, post-modernism, rationalism, me-ism, victimism, to name a few), then they are probably prepared to refute and reject it. If your children cannot recognize and properly name what is being intravideously fed to them by Hollywood, then they are being doped, deceived and debilitated by people who hate God and war against His ways. This being the case, unless you intervene with loving guidance, your little ones will, over time, acquire an addict’s appetite for lies, evil and ugliness. Strangely, few of these neglected ones will mature into crack-dealers, serial-killers or televangelists. They will simply grow up to lead lives of quiet desperation; lives characterized by the chronic apathy, nagging emptiness and joyless commotion of those who are ever grasping for the things that God hates, and tenaciously clinging to a form of godliness while denying its power to transform, enthuse and to fill their lives with true joy.

I am afraid that in far too many cases the treatise-type theology given to children by their parents in family worship is being eroded and effaced by the wicked lies given to them in story form via celluloid and surround-sound, magnetic tape and Magnavox. It is not enough that our children grow up knowing what is true, good and beautiful. They must grow up in our homes learning to love these manifestations of God’s character and attributes, and learning to love them, learn to love Him. But they cannot learn to love God without simultaneously learning to hate the things contrary to His divine essence.

I am afraid that our covenant children are viewing movie after movie, video after video without the sort of patient instruction that will enable them to label and lay aside the pernicious lies of the world. Our children are passionless for Christ, the living water, not because they have purposely rejected him. But rather because they have already committed their passions to the putrid water in Hollywood’s broken cisterns. They love what their stories have taught their hearts to love.

Parents, here are a couple of diagnostic questions. How many movies a week can you thoughtfully critique, and prepare to biblically evaluate with your children? How many movies a week do your children watch? If the answer to question number one is less than the answer to question number two, then know this: Your children are being kidnapped by the world, and you are an accessory to the crime.