Matthew 10:16

Have yo seen the new Disney princess movie "Tangled"? Its cute reworking of the old Rupunzel story, and has some great "one-liners". She is kidnapped as a baby by a woman who is using her, a woman who Rapunzel thinks in her mother. Only in rebellion against this wicked woman does Rapunzel find her true calling and place in life as a (drum roll....) PRINCESS! Cute right? But the movie has some additional very obvious messages for girls. How do you know that the person you call "mom" really loves you? How do you know what the rules she makes and says are for your protection (stay in your tower because it a big bad scary world out here) are really for your good and not designed to just hold you back from all the wonderful things in life? Rebellion may not be easy at times, but if you follow your heart you'll find you're really a pretty pretty princess!
What a lie from the pit of hell in pretty packaging. I know what a lot of you are thinking, "oh, come on! It's JUST a cartoon, lighten up!" Right, so you Christians out there believe that Satan is too honorable to use a lovely cartoon to plant seeds of doubt and rebellion in your three year old daughter's heart that can blossom as you she sneaks out of the your house ten years from now to have sex with her boyfriend...and become a pretty pretty princess too of course? God tells us we are in a war and our enemy wants your soul and the soul of your children to be damned to hell for all of time. There is nothing honorable about the way Satan fights us, and he's not above using ANYTHING to get to you. We're in a war, a war of ideas. Doesn't that sum up a lot of our faith? We all believe and build our lives on something, as Christians we believe we build on the only immovable foundation available, and that Satan makes war on this idea and the people who believe in it. Most Christian parents believe that stories have the potential to plant seeds that can change our lives, or else why do we take our children to Bible class and read them Bible stories? They may not understand it all right now, but God willing they will one day. These stories help to shape their life and their beliefs. Satan plants seeds too (Matt 13:24-30).
We need to learn to look at the message (the moral of the story if you will) and hold it up to the light of scripture and see if it is true. What does the Bible say about following your heart? about rebellion? The Bible doesn't teach us to act as if we immune to the devil's work, but instead to face it head on. We need to be on guard and to teach our children to be also. These are learned skills, souls saving skills, that need to be taught and exercised in our day to day life. But all of this means nothing if you don't know what is really in your children's books and movies. When you watch something with your kids, really watch it, and think about it, and talk about with them. Hardly ever does a movie have all negative messages, Tangled for instance has a strong theme of self-sacrificing love. Talk about the truth and the lies, but the main point is to talk about it. I know at some point, if you have active readers in your house it's not possible to know about everything they are influenced by. But that's a very good reason to teach your children these skills and to trust the word of God above all other things. We need a standard to compare things too, and the Bible is that perfect unchanging ruler.So where does this leave us on an issue of a cute cartoon like Tangled? I think that depends a lot on you, God, and the children involved. Some girls are too young or too easily influenced to grapple with these issues properly, and yet are very fertile soil for these lies to be sown in and bloom another day. For others this would be a perfect venue for conversation and exercising critial thinking skills. Staying alert and being engaged in this war takes an exhausting amount of vigilance. Are you willing to pick up your sword even at home?

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.