Few men have had more influence on American society than Walt Disney. He pioneered the American animation industry and captivated children’s hearts with cartoon characters such as Micky Mouse and Donald Duck. He took Hollywood fantasy to a new level of influence with the building of DisneyLand in California and Disney World in Florida.
The author of The Gospel According to Disney observes that Walt Disney preached a religious message through his cartoon characters, a message that “faith is an essential element–faith in yourself and, even more, faith in something greater than yourself, even if it is some vague, nonsectarian higher power” (Mark Pinsky, “Finding faith in the house of the mouse,” The Washington Post, Aug. 14, 2004, B7).
Disney’s animated classics are filled with pagan and occult imagery such as witches and demons, sorcerers and spells, genies and goblins, all of which is strongly denounced by Scripture. Like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, Disney cartoons present the false and damnable concept that there is good and bad magic. Disney often depicted witches and sorcerers as likable heroes.
The 1940 animated movie Pinocchio is about a man who brings a puppet to life by wishing upon a star; the puppet is subsequently visited by a Blue Fairy who advises, “Let your conscience be your guide.” This is a lie. Man’s conscience cannot be his guide, because he is a fallen creature whose “heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). The Disney fairy preaches a works gospel that “the gift of life” is attained by “choosing right from wrong.” The Bible says that any gospel other than the gospel of salvation through faith in the blood of Jesus Christ is cursed of God. “… if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:6-9).
Disney fairies are depicted as cute and likable, and this is not a small error. The Bible warns that the devil appears as an angel of light in order to deceive people (2 Corinthians 12).
Walt Disney did not attend church, and there are no churches on Main Street in Disneyland or Disney World, even though there were churches on practically every main street in America when Disneyland opened in 1955.
Christian parents have unwisely allowed Disney’s cartoons and movies to influence their children. Pinsky notes that “few entertainment productions continue to have as profound an impact on young children as [Disney’s] animated features” and “millions of children around the world know from Disney much of what they do about the practical application of right and wrong.”
Some years back, the Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of Disney, but that boycott was based on the newer, more morally edgy Disney productions and ignored the heretical New Age gospel preached through Disney’s earlier movies, movies that are typically found in the homes of Southern Baptist parents and grandparents.
When Disneyland opened, Time magazine featured Walt Disney on its cover and called him “the poet of the new American humanism.”
Indeed.
The acceptance of Hollywood’s “entertainment” by American churches over the past half century helped paved the way for the wholesale apostasy that we witness today and the destruction of biblical morality in society at large.
