Why I Stopped Watching FRIENDS

“I LOVE the TV show Friends (1994-2004)! Friends has made me belly-laugh more than anything else on a digital screen… or maybe anything at all. My favorite characters are Chandler and Joey. I love Chandler’s sense of humor; it’s so very much like my own. And who can’t love Joey? I mean, really. I’ve probably watched the full 10 seasons from start to finish five times, and I’ve watched random seasons of the show more than that. I really fell in love with this show when I was in college, and it has become a point of camaraderie between myself and other friends who are huge fans of the show as well. I have Friends shirts, coffee mugs, little action figures, posters, all 10 seasons on DVD, games, socks, and probably other memorabilia that I’ve forgotten.”

But that was then. That was roughly two years ago from the time of this writing. That was before my conscience became pricked. Let me tell you what pricked my conscience and what ultimately convinced me to give up watching Friends.

Around February of 2022, I read through J. P. Moreland’s book Love Your God With All Your Mind for the second time. Moreland emphasizes the role that the mind plays in our love for God and our very existence. I was profoundly convicted by many of the things he said. The mind is the motor of the body, the body is the instrument by which our mind interacts with the world around us. Our minds are supercomputers, extremely powerful engines. The mind processes unmeasurable amounts of data every second, and it is changed and manipulated by what it is fed, especially repeatedly. I was so convicted by these new-to-me truths and the mental inventory I performed regarding what content I had been feeding my mind that, soon after, I gave a sermon I entitled: Renewing the Christian Mind (click title to watch).

Around the same time that I re-read Moreland’s book, I watched a complimentary sermon by Brother David Griffin on Christian Landmark entitled “The Christian and Pop Culture” (click title to watch). David explained very powerfully the effect that pop culture has had on our society at large over the past many decades, but he went on to point out its effect on the Christian’s mind. He explained how through movies, TV, the internet, and other forms of popular media, we are constantly exposed to profanity, taking the name of God in vain, sexual immorality, normalization of divorce, cohabitation, and the list goes on and on and on. The part that really convicted me was when he talked about “selective righteous indignation.” This is when someone expresses “righteous indignation” for a selected sin that repudiates them (i.e., homosexuality), but then the same person is willfully entertained by other abominable sins (i.e., heterosexual cohabitation) as if it does not also deserve the same “righteous indignation.” 

David’s words pricked my conscience. They pricked my conscience very much. I shooed these thoughts away initially. Why? Because I was afraid what these newly discovered truths might mean for my long-held and pleasurable habit of watching Friends if I dwelt on them too long. But those words continued to bother me. I couldn’t escape the fact that I had been guilty of feeding my mind garbage and practicing selective righteous indignation. How?

As hilarious and even emotionally gripping as the TV show Friends can be, it is rife with the promoting of sin — sexual immorality in particular. It may not be exaggerating to say that every episode has some character having sex or shacking-up with someone they’re not married to. Every episode certainly has a gross amount of sexual innuendo saturating the character’s many conversations. One episode, in particular, is entirely about Chandler and Joey stumbling across an adult channel on their TV that they didn’t have to pay for, and so they literally don’t get out of their chair for days for the sake of consuming as much porn as they can while it’s free. If you think I should be embarrassed to even know this, believe me, I am. The entire show is largely centered on the main characters having sex with each other and shacking-up with each other. Another main storyline in the show is about how one character’s (Ross’s) wife is a lesbian who cheated on him with another woman and then marries that woman. Ross is chided for feeling angry and uncomfortable about the whole affair early on in the show. This agenda to normalize and endear homosexuality and gay marriage to the audience continues through all 10 seasons. This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the sin that is normalized by this show and fed to the minds of superfans who watch it on repeat like I used to do.

So, what did I do? It was a see-saw battle in my mind initially. I loved this TV show so much; it was very, very hard for me to come to grips with the fact that I shouldn’t watch it anymore. But my conscience kept reminding me of how powerful the mind really is, how habit forming our bodies are. And then there was that thing that kept coming back around in my conscience again and again: selective righteous indignation. I was guilty of this, and it wasn’t just by way of watching Friends. I finally made my decision. I decided I couldn’t watch Friends anymore. It had to go!

If you had told me five years ago that I wouldn’t ever watch Friends again, I don’t know what I would have thought or said. My parents wouldn’t let my older siblings watch the show growing up. I didn’t really understand why at the time. Now I do. 

Friends is just a singular example that many people my age can relate to. There’s also the music we listen to that is often filled with profanity, swearing, and stories about sex, alcohol, and drugs. Basically, if there is a form of media, there is something that most Christians are consuming mindlessly that is nothing more than the consumption and normalizing of wickedness and immorality.

Oh sure, we try to pet the issue to make ourselves feel better. We say, “Oh, I’m strong enough to watch this. It’s not going to affect me,” or, “It’s just a TV show!” That’s your flesh talking. Your flesh wants the filth, because it would starve without the filth. These aren’t legitimate arguments. They’re lying excuses. 

For some people reading this, they will only be disappointed that I ever did entertain this “garbage” to begin with. I’m writing this in spite of them. I’m writing this to those of you who are still entertaining it. I’m not trying to be self-righteous here. I’m telling you, “I know!” I know the show is hilarious and brings you a real sense of happiness watching it! I know! But it’s stuff like this that we invite into our living room, into our lives, that slowly eats away out our very beliefs and integrity. If you’ve ever found yourself shutting off a movie, exclaiming, “How did I even let myself watch that?!” it’s because of a slow process that started with consuming “innocent” TV shows like Friends to begin with.

Listen to your conscience. Two years ago I told myself that I wasn’t going to watch Friends anymore. And I haven’t. It took two years to prove to myself that I was going to keep my word. Now, it’s about being consistent, finding out what else I’ve been letting take up residence in my entertainment, and humbly guarding against selective righteous indignation.