What 'Game of Thrones' Says About America

ChristianHeadlines.com ^ | September 23, 2015 | Jim Denison

[fwdude]

HBO's Game of Thrones won the Emmy Award last Sunday for Best Drama. What does its popularity say about us?

Writing for The Atlantic, Christopher Orr recently asked, "Why does the show feature so much sexual violence?" (his italics). Fans claim that Game of Thrones merely reflects the novels on which it is based. But Orr notes that the show's writers "have gone out of their way, time and time again, to ramp up the sexual violence well beyond their source material."

Why? What do the show's producers know about our society?

Pornography sites receive more regular traffic than Twitter, Amazon and Netflix—combined. When I was a child, pornography was confined to Playboy and similar "adult" magazines. Now it's a click away on any Internet device. Child pornography is a $3 billion industry. Premarital sex is more accepted than ever before. Adultery is more common than ever before. The Supreme Court has redefined "marriage" to include homosexuals. Polygamy is next.

What does God think of our Game of Thrones culture?

Ezekiel 16 is an extended parable in which Israel is an abandoned young woman whom God rescues and clothes. As a result, the Lord says to his people, "You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you" (vs. 13-14).

How did Israel respond? "You trusted in your beauty" rather than the One who bestowed it (v. 15). The people engaged in all manner of sexual immorality, proud of their licentiousness when they should have been ashamed of their decadence.

And their lust was never satisfied (v. 29). Rather, it enslaved them and forced God to bring judgment against their nation: "You bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, declares the Lord" (v. 58). Israel's destruction at the hands of the Babylonian Empire was the result.

But that was twenty-six centuries ago. Does Ezekiel 16 apply to America today?

"If any nation will not listen, then I will utterly pluck it up and destroy it, declares the Lord" (Jeremiah 12:17). "Any nation," at any time.

As God saw Israel's sins, so he sees ours: "The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man" (Psalm 33:13). God demands that we "flee from sexual immorality" (1 Corinthians 6:18). The Lord warns that "he who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself" (Proverbs 6:32). He instructs Christians: "Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints" (Ephesians 5:3).

Game of Thrones is so popular because the sexual immorality it exhibits is so popular. What is our only remedy?

"Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!" (Psalm 33:8). Why? Because "the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love" (v. 18). In short, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord" (v. 12).

Can God bless America today?

[Steve_Seattle]

Someone recommended "Game of Thrones" to me, so I bought the first season DVD. What I saw was seemingly an endless hump-fest with lots of public anal intercourse. I got rid of it.

As for what God thinks of all this, the Bible is clear, but God does not need to act through signs and wonders and lightning bolts, but usually by letting human folly play out according to its own inner dynamic. That is what I see happening now. I am not expecting The Rapture, but for full-blown social disintegration within 10-20 years, if not sooner.

[tbw2]

ISIS conquered the Yazidi to get religiously sanctioned sex slaves.
Kind of like the Dothraki.

[driftless2]

The wife and I watched a few episodes of GOT when we had HBO. Sleep inducing.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

The books are good. Martin is sort of the anti-Tolkien. Never watched the show - don’t have HBO.

[Morpheus2009]

I do not have HBO, and do not care.

[NetAddicted]

Public anal intercourse? OMG, I can’t believe this artistic garbage is on TV. Another sign of the coming end.

[fwdude]

God does not need to act through signs and wonders and lightning bolts, but usually by letting human folly play out according to its own inner dynamic. That is what I see happening now. I am not expecting The Rapture, but for full-blown social disintegration within 10-20 years, if not sooner.

This is only my opinion on the scriptures, but when God, through his inspired writers, said that "evil men... shall wax worse and worse," (2 Timothy 3:13) I think the idea conveyed was an exponential acceleration. The moral rot that took perhaps a decade to progress in the 70's will take only 6 months now, and only 3 months tomorrow.

We do not have even 10 years left, in my opinion.

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I've never read where God considered slavery a sin. I believe God expected those who had slaves to treat them well and allow them the Sabbath to rest.

The "slavery" meme has been allowed to completely be co-opted and misrepresent or mangled by the Left.

What was a slave in many former societies was, in many cases, nothing more than a servant, such as indentured servants of all nationalities and races which came to this country. Some slaves were permanent, others were temporary. Some offered themselves into slavery in order to survive a harsh political or economic environment, even to ADVANCE themselves, others were conscripted involuntarily.

That slavery wasn't the universal drudgery and misery that history revisionist would like us to believe is made clear by the fact that many ancient societies allowed for freed slaves to bind themselves for life to their master in an act of affection. That many probably did this is testament to the social usefulness of the practice.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I think the idea conveyed was an exponential acceleration. The moral rot that took perhaps a decade to progress in the 70's will take only 6 months now, and only 3 months tomorrow."

During the Obama years, elite (corporate, government, education) hostility to Christians is increasingly out in the open, and since the gay marriage ruling, it's really taken off.

[Behind the Blue Wall]

You’re missing a lot if you just see the sex scenes and throw everything else out. If conservatism is anything in my opinion, it’s about the recognition that actions have consequences, and Games of Thrones demonstrates that about as well as any piece of entertainment that I’ve ever seen.