Orthodoxy doesn’t forbid entertainment. We’re not Puritans. But we don’t treat it as neutral either.
The Orthodox approach asks a different question than “Is this allowed?” We ask: “What does this do to my heart?” Entertainment can refresh us for prayer and service. It can also feed passions, dull our conscience, and pull us away from God. The difference matters.
Guarding the Heart
There’s an Orthodox practice called nepsis. It means watchfulness. The idea is simple but demanding: pay attention to what you let into your mind and heart. Images, sounds, stories, they don’t just bounce off you. They plant seeds. Some grow into gratitude, compassion, joy. Others grow into lust, anger, despair, or that numb feeling where you can’t pray anymore.
St. Paul wrote “keep your heart with all diligence.” That’s the standard. Not a list of banned movies or approved TV shows, but a call to vigilance. What you watch tonight will shape what you think about tomorrow and what you desire next week.
This isn’t about earning salvation through perfect media choices. It’s about healing. We’re being restored to see clearly, to love rightly, to desire what’s actually good. Entertainment that works against that restoration works against your own healing.
The Practical Test
So how do you decide what to watch or listen to? Ask these questions:
Does it provoke sinful desire? If a show consistently stirs up lust or greed or makes you fantasize about things you shouldn’t do, that’s a problem. Not because desire itself is evil, but because feeding disordered desire makes it stronger. You’re training your heart in the wrong direction.
Does it harden your compassion? Some content normalizes cruelty or makes you numb to suffering. If you find yourself less bothered by violence or more cynical about human goodness after watching something, pay attention to that.
Does it disturb your peace? This one’s subtle. You might finish a show and feel agitated, anxious, or just spiritually flat. Your prayer life feels harder. You’re more irritable with your family. That’s information.
Does it strengthen virtue? Some entertainment actually helps. A good story can teach you about courage, sacrifice, or forgiveness. Music can lift your heart to God. Time with friends watching a ballgame can build fellowship. These aren’t distractions from the spiritual life, they’re part of living as embodied creatures in God’s world.
Rest vs. Escapism
Here’s where it gets tricky for people in Southeast Texas who work twelve-hour shifts at the plants. You come home exhausted. You need rest. Watching something can be legitimate rest.
But there’s a difference between rest and escapism. Rest refreshes you. You return to your responsibilities and your prayer rule able to engage again. Escapism is when you’re using entertainment to avoid your life, your thoughts, your family, or God. You binge-watch because you can’t stand to be alone with yourself. You scroll because silence feels threatening.
The fathers would say that’s a sign of something deeper that needs attention. Maybe confession. Maybe a conversation with your priest. Maybe you need to look at what you’re running from.
Balance Matters
Orthodoxy is ascetical, but we’re not gnostics who think the material world is evil. God made this world. He called it good. He became flesh and dwelt among us. Beauty, music, stories, laughter, these are gifts.
Ascetic practices like fasting train us to enjoy those gifts rightly instead of being enslaved to them. You fast from food so you can eat with gratitude instead of gluttony. Same principle applies to entertainment. Sometimes you fast from it, turn off the TV for Lent, stay off social media for a week, so you can return to it with freedom instead of compulsion.
The goal isn’t to become some grim, joyless person who never relaxes. The goal is to become someone whose heart is free enough to enjoy good things without being controlled by them.
What About Your Family?
If you’ve got kids, this gets more complex. You’re guarding not just your own heart but theirs. They’re more impressionable. What they see now shapes how they see the world for years to come.
The Church has always taught that parents are responsible for what their children are exposed to. That’s not popular in a culture that treats unlimited access as a right, but it’s true. You wouldn’t let your kid eat poison. Don’t let them fill their minds with poison either.
This doesn’t mean raising them in a bubble. It means being intentional. Watch things with them. Talk about what you see. Teach them to ask the same questions: What is this doing to my heart?
When You’re Not Sure
If you’re uncertain whether something is good for you, that uncertainty itself is worth paying attention to. We have consciences for a reason. When yours is bothering you about a show or a song, don’t just override it.
Talk to your priest. That’s what spiritual fathers are for. And if you find yourself getting defensive when someone suggests you might need to give something up, that defensiveness is also information. We get defensive about things that have a hold on us.
The ancient canons of the Church warned against “lascivious images” and content that corrupts. The technology has changed but human nature hasn’t. We’re still vulnerable to the same passions. We still need the same watchfulness.
Living This Out
You don’t have to figure this out perfectly tomorrow. Start by paying attention. Notice what you feel after you watch or listen to something. Notice what happens to your prayer life. Notice whether you’re more patient or less patient with the people around you.
Try fasting from entertainment periodically. See what happens. You might discover you were more dependent on it than you thought. Or you might discover that some of what you were watching was actually fine and you can return to it with freedom.
The point is to grow in nepsis, that watchfulness that keeps your heart turned toward God. Entertainment can serve that or sabotage it. Choose accordingly.
