I appreciate Aaron's post. I wish more pastors spoke about the importance of wholesome living. How we act in our daily lives affects how we think. Corrupt, unhealthy lifestyles lead to corrupt minds.
Slight tangent, but on the topic of profanity, one of the silver linings of society becoming more secular is that you hear a lot less "G___ d___" and "J____ C_____" as profanities these days. Boomers and their predecessors used those a lot, but Gen Xers (especially the younger ones), Millennials, and Gen Z seem to prefer variants of the f-bomb.
Profanity amongst Christian men is something I'm seeing more and more of today. And I don't get it. Profanity to me displays a lack of self-discipline. And while I too consider it sin, I also think it indicates a lack of creativity.
This is evident in older films when profanity was not allowed. The creativity of writing and expression was fuller than today's stream of profanity.
It's important in my opinion not just to reject vice but to cultivate virtue. Otherwise, you can eliminate a vice and find yourself replacing it with another vice.
I think it was the medieval Jewish rabbi/philosopher Maimonides who said something like: You are morally responsible for the foreseeable consequences of your actions.
That means that a state government that promotes various forms of gambling, including lotteries, knowing full well that some minority of its citizens will do significant harm to their lives as a result, is an immoral government.
It also means that, when we buy lottery tickets, we are participating in the immorality, helping to normalize it, and hoping to redistribute money from others to ourselves, even though we know that the weighted average of "others" whose money we are getting is poorer than ourselves.
So, there need not be any reluctance to declare it a sin, and you don't have to become an addict for it to be a sin.
I've started developing a serious ham radio hobby. Part of that is learning morse code, a skill that I find difficult and rewarding. It's an extremely social hobby, I'm now a member of two local, in-person clubs. It develops and rewards skills around electrical engineering and building things and it gets me outdoors often. I find this scratches the itch that video games used to for me. But it's substantively different: playing video games is about sitting in the dark by myself and trying to master a simulation programmed by someone else. Amateur radio is a hobby conducted with real people in real time in the real world.
Amen! since the above to some may sound overly negative, allow me to humbly add a positive corollary: immerse yourself in the great art, music, literature, and movies of the past! The added bonus is these are all far superior to the products of today’s anti-culture. It would take superhuman effort to read/watch/consume all the latest vulgar trash and not get dirty. But I was blessed to grow up with TCM, classic lit, the great American songbook, etc., so to me that culture was normal and today’s stuff the aberration. If you’re new to this world a great place to start is Professor Esolen’s substack, which has weekly movie, song, and hymn recs. Immerse yourself in beauty for a while and soon you won’t even be able to tolerate ugliness:
Only thing for me here is video games. I played an absurd amount of them from about 18 to 25. I played them before that and even now I still play on average once a week with my college buddies. It''s so in my blood as a hobby that I think about them every day, whether it's a gaming news or whatever.
On the one hand, playing once a week and thinking about it through the week like other guys do story sports is far from the worst cases of video game addiction. And I don't feel guilty about it, which I think is meaningful because you should listen to your conscience.
On the other hand, the social aspect of playing with college buddies is pretty low because we never talk about anything meaningful when we play. As you might expect, we talked about the game mostly. So even the once a week is less value than other things I could be doing with my time.
Just thinking out loud. I'm not sure if I should be disciplined and totally remove it from my life or if it has become a mostly harmless thing that brings me joy and is fine to keep. Certainly the calculus was different in past years when I was completely obsessed.
I'm glad to see someone taking this stance. It tends to attract pushback from all sides, so most aren't willing to say it. Many of my church friends have expressed concerns for my "legalism" in stating that not drinking, etc. is more than just a personal choice: I do it because it's good for everyone, not just me in particular. It's not about justification, it's about living the life God wants me to live.
The only one of these I would push back against is video games: I think non-gamers especially see all games as the same, when that simply isn't true. But gamers need to listen to these warnings. Many games are designed to be habit forming in a way that not only kills productivity: it actually kills enjoyment too. Think carefully about what you play and how often.
1. Everyone who takes mind-altering drugs takes some damage, even if everything looks fine (kinda like the vax). They're always impairing (putting you in the state of drunkenness), and they're most certainly a sin.
2. Tattoos are quite clearly revealed to us in the Bible as a sin.
3. Profanity is a sin.
The thing about all three of these is that they are or are getting culturally popular, so the churches are preaching less about them or even saying they're "ok". One of the responsibilities of the church is to teach how God would have us live, but you seldom hear sermons on these actual evils. They would lose those congregants who either commit those sins and don't want to change, or those who have been programmed by society and the media to accept those sins.
Whew, good quality bourbon was not on this list.....kidding folks kidding!
We all have time and productivity whittlers though. Mine can be news and especially political news commentary. Not a vice but an issue enough it is my Lent fast (and I have not perfectly kept it) but my screen time is down!
Confirmed what I had suspected for sometime and I am going to reject these vices. Especially the pot.
Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.
I’d add: No getting drunk. If you can’t stop at one drink, no alcohol at all.
Hi Aaron - how do we get in touch with you?
I appreciate Aaron's post. I wish more pastors spoke about the importance of wholesome living. How we act in our daily lives affects how we think. Corrupt, unhealthy lifestyles lead to corrupt minds.
Slight tangent, but on the topic of profanity, one of the silver linings of society becoming more secular is that you hear a lot less "G___ d___" and "J____ C_____" as profanities these days. Boomers and their predecessors used those a lot, but Gen Xers (especially the younger ones), Millennials, and Gen Z seem to prefer variants of the f-bomb.
Profanity amongst Christian men is something I'm seeing more and more of today. And I don't get it. Profanity to me displays a lack of self-discipline. And while I too consider it sin, I also think it indicates a lack of creativity.
This is evident in older films when profanity was not allowed. The creativity of writing and expression was fuller than today's stream of profanity.
It's important in my opinion not just to reject vice but to cultivate virtue. Otherwise, you can eliminate a vice and find yourself replacing it with another vice.
I think it was the medieval Jewish rabbi/philosopher Maimonides who said something like: You are morally responsible for the foreseeable consequences of your actions.
That means that a state government that promotes various forms of gambling, including lotteries, knowing full well that some minority of its citizens will do significant harm to their lives as a result, is an immoral government.
It also means that, when we buy lottery tickets, we are participating in the immorality, helping to normalize it, and hoping to redistribute money from others to ourselves, even though we know that the weighted average of "others" whose money we are getting is poorer than ourselves.
So, there need not be any reluctance to declare it a sin, and you don't have to become an addict for it to be a sin.
I've started developing a serious ham radio hobby. Part of that is learning morse code, a skill that I find difficult and rewarding. It's an extremely social hobby, I'm now a member of two local, in-person clubs. It develops and rewards skills around electrical engineering and building things and it gets me outdoors often. I find this scratches the itch that video games used to for me. But it's substantively different: playing video games is about sitting in the dark by myself and trying to master a simulation programmed by someone else. Amateur radio is a hobby conducted with real people in real time in the real world.
Amen! since the above to some may sound overly negative, allow me to humbly add a positive corollary: immerse yourself in the great art, music, literature, and movies of the past! The added bonus is these are all far superior to the products of today’s anti-culture. It would take superhuman effort to read/watch/consume all the latest vulgar trash and not get dirty. But I was blessed to grow up with TCM, classic lit, the great American songbook, etc., so to me that culture was normal and today’s stuff the aberration. If you’re new to this world a great place to start is Professor Esolen’s substack, which has weekly movie, song, and hymn recs. Immerse yourself in beauty for a while and soon you won’t even be able to tolerate ugliness:
https://anthonyesolen.substack.com/
Only thing for me here is video games. I played an absurd amount of them from about 18 to 25. I played them before that and even now I still play on average once a week with my college buddies. It''s so in my blood as a hobby that I think about them every day, whether it's a gaming news or whatever.
On the one hand, playing once a week and thinking about it through the week like other guys do story sports is far from the worst cases of video game addiction. And I don't feel guilty about it, which I think is meaningful because you should listen to your conscience.
On the other hand, the social aspect of playing with college buddies is pretty low because we never talk about anything meaningful when we play. As you might expect, we talked about the game mostly. So even the once a week is less value than other things I could be doing with my time.
Just thinking out loud. I'm not sure if I should be disciplined and totally remove it from my life or if it has become a mostly harmless thing that brings me joy and is fine to keep. Certainly the calculus was different in past years when I was completely obsessed.
I'm glad to see someone taking this stance. It tends to attract pushback from all sides, so most aren't willing to say it. Many of my church friends have expressed concerns for my "legalism" in stating that not drinking, etc. is more than just a personal choice: I do it because it's good for everyone, not just me in particular. It's not about justification, it's about living the life God wants me to live.
The only one of these I would push back against is video games: I think non-gamers especially see all games as the same, when that simply isn't true. But gamers need to listen to these warnings. Many games are designed to be habit forming in a way that not only kills productivity: it actually kills enjoyment too. Think carefully about what you play and how often.
1. Everyone who takes mind-altering drugs takes some damage, even if everything looks fine (kinda like the vax). They're always impairing (putting you in the state of drunkenness), and they're most certainly a sin.
2. Tattoos are quite clearly revealed to us in the Bible as a sin.
3. Profanity is a sin.
The thing about all three of these is that they are or are getting culturally popular, so the churches are preaching less about them or even saying they're "ok". One of the responsibilities of the church is to teach how God would have us live, but you seldom hear sermons on these actual evils. They would lose those congregants who either commit those sins and don't want to change, or those who have been programmed by society and the media to accept those sins.
Whew, good quality bourbon was not on this list.....kidding folks kidding!
We all have time and productivity whittlers though. Mine can be news and especially political news commentary. Not a vice but an issue enough it is my Lent fast (and I have not perfectly kept it) but my screen time is down!