By now you have likely heard about “content warnings,” sometimes also called “trigger warnings.”¹ And as we explored in part 101 and part 102 of this miniseries, these content warnings are often intended to prevent people from being exposed to content—such as images or words—that would presumably cause them harm.

We’ve already talked about the fact that content warnings occur in two major religions:

• In progressivism, the idea is that victims of certain sins—such as racism or other kinds of abuse—should be protected from references or endorsements of this same sin.
• In evangelicalism, the idea is also that victims of sin—such as sexual content, violence, or swear words—must be protected from references or endorsements of these sins.

We’ve also explored how people who establish content warnings, the “protectors,” can have corrupt motivations.² But now let’s discuss the folks who demand to benefit from content warnings—that is, the “protected.” These may ask secular college professors to shelter them from offensive words and ideas, or ask church leaders to shelter them from sin-temptations.

Whether among progressivist religion or evangelicalism, the assumption is this: “If I am protected from content, I will be safer.” From that comes a logical conclusion: “If I have been protected once and that helped me, then being protected a second time ought to be twice as helpful. And if I am being protected ten times more, that is ten times better.”³

And so on, until the content-warning becomes an indefinite process.

Such advocates may sincerely want protection. In some cases, they may struggle with real trauma or temptations. But they often miss one crucial problem: the warnings are at best temporary measures. They do not and cannot ultimately protect anyone from harm.

Here’s a personal example of “protection” from one type of trigger—personal temptation.

Stephen vs. the fantasy fearmongers

Some months ago a friend loaned my wife and me a DVD about how Harry Potter is evil, of the devil, and a corruption of innocent youth into actual witchcraft. I view this belief as not only unbiblical and nonsensical, but often harmful (and itself an example of “Christian” superstitious beliefs). I’m convinced of this viewpoint. But I don’t want to watch the DVD.

Why not?

Hulk smash puny Christian fantasy critic.

Because it’s a trigger. Even though I’m convinced of my viewpoint, it would take a lot of “working myself up to” the task of viewing this DVD and then getting ready, if necessary, to rebut the nonsense that’s in it. More likely by the end I would be hitting the ceiling and/or being tempted to head onto some social network somewhere to tell this Christian DVD maker, should he care to listen, exactly what I think of his mystical fantasy-fearful rhetoric.

Unbiblical, superstitious opposition to fantasy stories can be a “trigger” that makes me sin.

So how should I deal with this?

For now I’m dealing with it by not watching the DVD. (I don’t really have cause to watch it, anyway.) In other words, I’m content-warning myself. “Don’t watch it. It will only set you off and possibly make you commit sin.” But should I do that all the rest of my life? No. This measure should only be temporary. Even if the DVD teacher is teaching superstition as truth, if I can’t view this calmly and confidently and respond in that way, I’m the one who is sinning.⁴

Content warnings at best keep out infection; they cannot heal wounds

The example is not perfect. Here I’m speaking of a sin-causing “trigger,” a thing that makes me want to punch rhetorical walls. I haven’t yet spoken of the other kind of “trigger,” which may best be described as a post-traumatic stress trigger. This is an involuntary response to something you remember from sin-trauma, such as abuse or violence. We might think of military veterans who famously have trouble hearing fireworks or loud sounds without feeling either the unavoidable impulses to panic, find cover, or fight something back. Or we might consider blog posts about abuse by a spiritual leader.⁵

But without going into much detail about those sensitive issues, I can say this: I believe a biblical perspective of wholeness and resurrection will show that we ought to pursue similar healing for both triggers—both temptations to sin and PTSD-style responses.

Honestly, I don’t see a lot of that in the news reports and anecdotes about “trigger warning” activism on college campuses and such. Instead I see self-righteousness. I also see a lot of whining and first-world-problem-style laments. Among professing progressivists I see the same attitude I’ve seen from some fantasy-critical Christians. And when they do have trauma “trigger” issues with certain words or images or beliefs, they don’t seem to want to heal from them. They seem to want to cling to these weaknesses as if they were the same (in every case) as actual causes of temptations or severe post-traumatic stress reactions.

Such “victims” don’t want to heal. They want to pick at their actual scabs out of fun or idleness. Some of them may want even to cut themselves to bleed, form scabs, and then pick at them. Perhaps they may enjoy getting sympathy and even control over other people. Some evangelicals have called this the “tyranny of the weaker brother.”⁶

So how can Christians use content warnings in biblical perspective? The best Scriptural outline for content warnings may be in texts such as Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8-10. These actually do address not the “weaker brother,” a uniform crowd, but “the one” who is weak, an individual who may need loving content-warning based on wisdom in a situation.

Apart from the Bible, we will veer into overprotectiveness or carelessness about “content” and sin-struggles. That’s where I’ll pick up for the next, and likely last, entry in this series.