is my favorite novel. Some of you are rolling your eyes right now, because it's so stereotypical -- a female English major whose favorite novel is Pride and Prejudice? Get out. Shocking. But hang out for a sec, guys. It's not for the reasons you might think.
Lots of people, both men and women, have the idea that Pride and Prejudice is a love story between two perfect characters. I've seen... oh, I reckon at least a half-dozen ranty posts and articles from men criticizing women for liking P&P, lamenting the existence of Fitzwilliam Darcy, the supposedly ideal man. I've also heard countless women talking in (understandably) swoony voices about the (rightly) famous BBC adaptation and Colin Firth's utterly delicious portrayal of one of the most well-known characters in all literature, or the newer adaptation with the equally delicious Matthew MacFadyen...
OK, sorry. I know I lost a few of you there.
The point is, the rather sexy movie/TV serial adaptations are not the book. The book is not even a romance. It's scarcely a love story -- it's really not about "love" as much as marriage, in a society where love was often considered a bonus to that institution, not a prerequisite. You want the bottom line? Pride and Prejudice is a (sometimes gentle, sometimes quite biting) satire of Regency society and relationships, with an especially sharp eye cast toward marriage and particularly men's roles in making marriage successful or otherwise. In plain English: it's about marriage and men, good and bad.
You know the old saw about Austen "writing what she knew"? I don't buy it.
More to come on the marriages and the men of P&P, what we can learn from it, and why men ought to read it.
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Lent, Day 2: In which the top of my head shoots off.
OK, I have to get this off my chest. Sorry it's such a long, rambling bit of nonsense. If it's too long and rambling and nonsensical, I won't be offended if you skip it. ;)
Fellas: you are misinterpreting data, to your own frustration and the frustration of many, many single women around you. In 2011, a woman who has a career and a college degree (maybe even an advanced degree) and a mortgage, who pays her bills on time and takes her own car to the mechanic and hasn't lived with her parents in ten years is not necessarily, by definition a raging feminist who thinks she needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Nope. She is NORMAL. Got that?
Tip: that's the summary. If you're sufficiently convinced, feel free to stop right here. Need more persuasion that you oughta change your mind? Read on, my friend.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, women in the business world were rare. The average age of a first marriage was still in the early-mid twenties for both men and women. And the message from Western culture was loud and clear: Sisters, get into work. You can still decide to have children later, after you've gone up the ranks in your job, after you've accomplished something "real."
Add to this the shame that generation of feminists heaped on men: you're irresponsible, power-hungry, insensitive; you're someone to be resented and competed with, boxed in, restricted, pushed aside, stepped on. Those power-suit-wearing, marriage-spurning, child-hating career girls -- even then, the stereotype was developing!
But, guys? That was thirty years ago. Somehow, it seems, too many Christian men are still being taught to see career, mortgage, and financial stability in a woman and interpret that as "feminist, not wife material, run far far away"!
I grew up being taught not to waste time or money sitting on my hands, and that it was ungodly to waste my gifts and opportunities. You know who taught me that? Not just my mother, though she certainly did. No, it was the women who had, thirty years ago, bought the lie that they could subjugate their God-given desires, that those desires were wrong, that "wife" and "mother" were not the most honorable titles they could seek, but that they were rather titles to be avoided. These women, who learned through bitter experience, taught me to cherish my God-given desire for marriage and motherhood, but also to seize whatever opportunities the Lord put before me. They passed on their experience and wisdom, and started to break down that paradigm.
In my bitter moments, I want to sock every Christian single guy who whines about modern women being overly independent, and tell them that, if they didn't propose to a girl in college, it's their own fault there are all these career women running around. But in my better moments, I just want to be helpful. So let me help you.
Most of us, brothers, are working, paying our bills, getting promotions, working on our degrees, and all those other things, not because we don't want to get married and have children. It's because we had the opportunity to use our gifts in a job, or use our finances more wisely by buying instead of renting, or develop our skills with an advanced degree, or whatever... and haven't had the opportunity to get married and start a family. Most of us would happily re-arrange any or all of those things for the right man, if given the chance.
If I have one word of caution, it's this: guys, you tiptoe toward slandering your sisters when you silently accuse them of selfishness, unhealthy independence, and unbiblical attitudes toward femininity just because they have careers and mortgages -- love, after all, believes the best about people. You are misinterpreting the data, and coming to wrong conclusions. Don't be put off by a woman who makes a decent living at a job she's good at, a woman with an advanced degree, a woman who owns a home. Don't assume the worst about her.
Thirty years ago, a power suit and a mortgage might reasonably have meant this was a woman who didn't want marriage and family. It doesn't have to mean that anymore. Got it?
Fellas: you are misinterpreting data, to your own frustration and the frustration of many, many single women around you. In 2011, a woman who has a career and a college degree (maybe even an advanced degree) and a mortgage, who pays her bills on time and takes her own car to the mechanic and hasn't lived with her parents in ten years is not necessarily, by definition a raging feminist who thinks she needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Nope. She is NORMAL. Got that?
Tip: that's the summary. If you're sufficiently convinced, feel free to stop right here. Need more persuasion that you oughta change your mind? Read on, my friend.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, women in the business world were rare. The average age of a first marriage was still in the early-mid twenties for both men and women. And the message from Western culture was loud and clear: Sisters, get into work. You can still decide to have children later, after you've gone up the ranks in your job, after you've accomplished something "real."
Add to this the shame that generation of feminists heaped on men: you're irresponsible, power-hungry, insensitive; you're someone to be resented and competed with, boxed in, restricted, pushed aside, stepped on. Those power-suit-wearing, marriage-spurning, child-hating career girls -- even then, the stereotype was developing!
But, guys? That was thirty years ago. Somehow, it seems, too many Christian men are still being taught to see career, mortgage, and financial stability in a woman and interpret that as "feminist, not wife material, run far far away"!
I grew up being taught not to waste time or money sitting on my hands, and that it was ungodly to waste my gifts and opportunities. You know who taught me that? Not just my mother, though she certainly did. No, it was the women who had, thirty years ago, bought the lie that they could subjugate their God-given desires, that those desires were wrong, that "wife" and "mother" were not the most honorable titles they could seek, but that they were rather titles to be avoided. These women, who learned through bitter experience, taught me to cherish my God-given desire for marriage and motherhood, but also to seize whatever opportunities the Lord put before me. They passed on their experience and wisdom, and started to break down that paradigm.
In my bitter moments, I want to sock every Christian single guy who whines about modern women being overly independent, and tell them that, if they didn't propose to a girl in college, it's their own fault there are all these career women running around. But in my better moments, I just want to be helpful. So let me help you.
Most of us, brothers, are working, paying our bills, getting promotions, working on our degrees, and all those other things, not because we don't want to get married and have children. It's because we had the opportunity to use our gifts in a job, or use our finances more wisely by buying instead of renting, or develop our skills with an advanced degree, or whatever... and haven't had the opportunity to get married and start a family. Most of us would happily re-arrange any or all of those things for the right man, if given the chance.
If I have one word of caution, it's this: guys, you tiptoe toward slandering your sisters when you silently accuse them of selfishness, unhealthy independence, and unbiblical attitudes toward femininity just because they have careers and mortgages -- love, after all, believes the best about people. You are misinterpreting the data, and coming to wrong conclusions. Don't be put off by a woman who makes a decent living at a job she's good at, a woman with an advanced degree, a woman who owns a home. Don't assume the worst about her.
Thirty years ago, a power suit and a mortgage might reasonably have meant this was a woman who didn't want marriage and family. It doesn't have to mean that anymore. Got it?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
A Weird Culture Thing
I know, that's probably the most descriptive title ever, right? I was bumming around a friend-of-a-friend's blog yesterday and came across something that really got my blood pressure pumping. The guy happens to be Australian, and he released the freakin' hounds on a famous American preacher for what was, to my mind, a series of totally boring and ordinary Facebook posts talking about his schedule, family life, marriage, etc. But in thinking about it last night I remembered that there's a weird culture thing (there's that brilliant phrase again) between Americans and Aussies that we often don't recognize and that very often causes problems between us.
What is this Weird Culture Thing? I'm so glad you asked. (Attention: broad cultural stereotypes ahead.)
Americans are, very generally, a positive people -- I'm thinking of that sort of midwestern, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, self-reliant, I'll get by, buck up attitude. I mean, there's a whole sub-genre of American folk/popular music dedicated to getting people to cheer up and have a positive outlook on life ("Smile, Darn Ya, Smile" "Put on a Happy Face" "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile," "The Sunny Side of the Street," etc.) -- much of which was written during the Great Depression, a period with an incalculable impact on the collective American psyche. I like this attitude, generally; I think it shows resilience and optimism. But there's a dark side to it as well, what we might call the Joel Osteen or Pollyanna side, that closes its eyes to the impending storm and brags about how wonderful life is.
Aussies, in my experience, often don't get that, for most Americans, this positivity is a totally natural cultural thing, ingrained in us since infancy, not a boastful put-on, not a fake-out, not an effort to belittle anyone else. Because, generally, in my observation, Aussies are humble, hard-working people who just want to give everyone a fair shot, get on with it, and not call attention to themselves. So they see what we think of as cheerfulness and positivity -- or just stating facts -- and read it as Pollyanna-ishness or bragging or putting others down, and feel the need to address it (just like we would want to address something we saw as major arrogance)
But unfortunately, the kind of forthrightness that your average Aussie values, unmixed with flattery, is going to come across to your average American as presumptuous and rude instead of like a much-needed dose of reality. So that gets our defenses up, and we write you off as a mean old crank, and then you write us off as xenophobic and isolationist, and then our suspicions are confirmed that Americans are the only nice people in the world (and we value "nice" a LOT), and then your suspicions are confirmed that Americans don't understand or care about anyone but themselves, and then...
See? A Weird Culture Thing.
What is this Weird Culture Thing? I'm so glad you asked. (Attention: broad cultural stereotypes ahead.)
Americans are, very generally, a positive people -- I'm thinking of that sort of midwestern, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, self-reliant, I'll get by, buck up attitude. I mean, there's a whole sub-genre of American folk/popular music dedicated to getting people to cheer up and have a positive outlook on life ("Smile, Darn Ya, Smile" "Put on a Happy Face" "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile," "The Sunny Side of the Street," etc.) -- much of which was written during the Great Depression, a period with an incalculable impact on the collective American psyche. I like this attitude, generally; I think it shows resilience and optimism. But there's a dark side to it as well, what we might call the Joel Osteen or Pollyanna side, that closes its eyes to the impending storm and brags about how wonderful life is.
Aussies, in my experience, often don't get that, for most Americans, this positivity is a totally natural cultural thing, ingrained in us since infancy, not a boastful put-on, not a fake-out, not an effort to belittle anyone else. Because, generally, in my observation, Aussies are humble, hard-working people who just want to give everyone a fair shot, get on with it, and not call attention to themselves. So they see what we think of as cheerfulness and positivity -- or just stating facts -- and read it as Pollyanna-ishness or bragging or putting others down, and feel the need to address it (just like we would want to address something we saw as major arrogance)
But unfortunately, the kind of forthrightness that your average Aussie values, unmixed with flattery, is going to come across to your average American as presumptuous and rude instead of like a much-needed dose of reality. So that gets our defenses up, and we write you off as a mean old crank, and then you write us off as xenophobic and isolationist, and then our suspicions are confirmed that Americans are the only nice people in the world (and we value "nice" a LOT), and then your suspicions are confirmed that Americans don't understand or care about anyone but themselves, and then...
See? A Weird Culture Thing.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
More Thoughts On Fiction and Entertainment
(see this post and comments section for the first part.)
OK. I've asserted that it may be not only permissible, but also beneficial, for Christians to watch movies or read books without an explicitly Christian worldview -- even books or movies whose themes oppose a Christian worldview, or that are anti-gospel.
Let me add one more assertion: I think it is the height of folly to judge a book or a movie based on what it omits rather than what it affirms. Again, the Twilight books demonstrate how this happens. Edward and Bella, the two main characters, refrain from sexual intercourse until they are married, at Edward's insistence (leaving aside for the moment that he does so because he fears he will be unable, in a state of arousal, to keep control of his desire to kill Bella. And that she, knowing this, keeps pushing him to have sex with her). I can't tell you how many times I heard, from the girls at my school or from Christian parents of my acquaintance, "Well, it can't be that bad; at least they stay pure until they're married! It's a good example to teenage girls!"
Do I dare insult your intelligence, dear reader, by pointing out the folly of ignoring an onslaught of insipid prose both describing irreparably twisted relationships and suborning heresy because the two main characters narrowly and for the wrong reasons avoid one form of immorality? By all means, read insipid prose describing twisted relationships and suborning heresy if you identify them all as such. But don't pretend that it's "not so bad" as you stretch out on your blanket in the park for a sunny afternoon's passive absorption of insipid prose, twisted relationships, and heresy.
I'd much rather my students come to class and say, "Miss Roberts, we watched Massive Gory Shoot-Em-Up: Part IV on Friday night and, geez, it was so wrong! I couldn't believe how Studly McHotness treated women! And the way women threw themselves all over him even though he was a total dirtbag... ew. I thought it would be cool, but I just couldn't get into it," than, "I went shopping at the Christian bookstore and bought this great new book -- I'm A Christian Princess! It's all about how God is the king of everything and that makes Christian girls princesses, so we should make sure that everyone treats us like princesses! Isn't that right?"
Christians cannot avoid evil, and we must not pretend it doesn't exist. Whether non-Christian media, and its depiction of evil, hardens our consciences toward the real thing or trains us to address the real thing depends on how we approach it.
I think the first step is to ensure that we and the young people in our care are absolutely crammed full of Bible. God's Word contains everything we need for godly lives, but if we don't know it, it's of no use to us. Why are there so many stories in the Bible? I think it's so that, when our life stories start to run along the same lines, we'll know the outcome of certain actions. We don't have to come up with an object lesson to teach young men not to ogle naked chicks. We just have to send them to the story of David and Bathsheba!
Beyond the Scriptures, God has given humanity two priceless teaching tools: a colorful and checkered history, and an irrepressible urge to write stories. In these we see an affirmation, whether intended or not, that God's word is true.
As N.D. Wilson puts it, my goal is for my students to learn to recoil from sin, to see in the Scriptures and in fiction and history a tiny taste of the fires of Hell. I want my boys to be so familiar with Lady Folly and Becky Sharp and the Green Knight's wife and Anne Boleyn and Mata Hari that they learn down to a fundamental, instinctive level to stay the heck away from the house of the seductress. I want my girls to know Mr. Rochester and the Highwayman and Count Vronsky and John Wilmot well enough to recognize the sort of twisted romantic obsession that drives women to forsake -- or nearly lose their lives to keep -- their most dearly-held principles.
This sort of education will, ideally, have two results. First, it will enable them to recognize good and evil in fiction. A young man who recoils from Mata Hari will have no trouble recoiling from Our Mrs. Reynolds. A young woman who learns to despise the Highwayman instinctively will hardly be fooled by the endearments of the be-sparkled Edward Cullen.
Following on from number one, this sort of education enables them to recognize good and evil when they encounter it in real life. Again paraphrasing N.D. Wilson, I want my students to know that if the Fool follows the Seductress to her house on page 4, on page 10 he's going to get way more than he bargained for. I want them to know that judgment follows sin as surely as B follows A, and I don't want them to have to learn it the hard way.
OK. I've asserted that it may be not only permissible, but also beneficial, for Christians to watch movies or read books without an explicitly Christian worldview -- even books or movies whose themes oppose a Christian worldview, or that are anti-gospel.
Let me add one more assertion: I think it is the height of folly to judge a book or a movie based on what it omits rather than what it affirms. Again, the Twilight books demonstrate how this happens. Edward and Bella, the two main characters, refrain from sexual intercourse until they are married, at Edward's insistence (leaving aside for the moment that he does so because he fears he will be unable, in a state of arousal, to keep control of his desire to kill Bella. And that she, knowing this, keeps pushing him to have sex with her). I can't tell you how many times I heard, from the girls at my school or from Christian parents of my acquaintance, "Well, it can't be that bad; at least they stay pure until they're married! It's a good example to teenage girls!"
Do I dare insult your intelligence, dear reader, by pointing out the folly of ignoring an onslaught of insipid prose both describing irreparably twisted relationships and suborning heresy because the two main characters narrowly and for the wrong reasons avoid one form of immorality? By all means, read insipid prose describing twisted relationships and suborning heresy if you identify them all as such. But don't pretend that it's "not so bad" as you stretch out on your blanket in the park for a sunny afternoon's passive absorption of insipid prose, twisted relationships, and heresy.
I'd much rather my students come to class and say, "Miss Roberts, we watched Massive Gory Shoot-Em-Up: Part IV on Friday night and, geez, it was so wrong! I couldn't believe how Studly McHotness treated women! And the way women threw themselves all over him even though he was a total dirtbag... ew. I thought it would be cool, but I just couldn't get into it," than, "I went shopping at the Christian bookstore and bought this great new book -- I'm A Christian Princess! It's all about how God is the king of everything and that makes Christian girls princesses, so we should make sure that everyone treats us like princesses! Isn't that right?"
Christians cannot avoid evil, and we must not pretend it doesn't exist. Whether non-Christian media, and its depiction of evil, hardens our consciences toward the real thing or trains us to address the real thing depends on how we approach it.
I think the first step is to ensure that we and the young people in our care are absolutely crammed full of Bible. God's Word contains everything we need for godly lives, but if we don't know it, it's of no use to us. Why are there so many stories in the Bible? I think it's so that, when our life stories start to run along the same lines, we'll know the outcome of certain actions. We don't have to come up with an object lesson to teach young men not to ogle naked chicks. We just have to send them to the story of David and Bathsheba!
Beyond the Scriptures, God has given humanity two priceless teaching tools: a colorful and checkered history, and an irrepressible urge to write stories. In these we see an affirmation, whether intended or not, that God's word is true.
As N.D. Wilson puts it, my goal is for my students to learn to recoil from sin, to see in the Scriptures and in fiction and history a tiny taste of the fires of Hell. I want my boys to be so familiar with Lady Folly and Becky Sharp and the Green Knight's wife and Anne Boleyn and Mata Hari that they learn down to a fundamental, instinctive level to stay the heck away from the house of the seductress. I want my girls to know Mr. Rochester and the Highwayman and Count Vronsky and John Wilmot well enough to recognize the sort of twisted romantic obsession that drives women to forsake -- or nearly lose their lives to keep -- their most dearly-held principles.
This sort of education will, ideally, have two results. First, it will enable them to recognize good and evil in fiction. A young man who recoils from Mata Hari will have no trouble recoiling from Our Mrs. Reynolds. A young woman who learns to despise the Highwayman instinctively will hardly be fooled by the endearments of the be-sparkled Edward Cullen.
Following on from number one, this sort of education enables them to recognize good and evil when they encounter it in real life. Again paraphrasing N.D. Wilson, I want my students to know that if the Fool follows the Seductress to her house on page 4, on page 10 he's going to get way more than he bargained for. I want them to know that judgment follows sin as surely as B follows A, and I don't want them to have to learn it the hard way.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Fiction, Truth, and the Gospel
One of my students last year wrote her final paper on why Christians should exercise discernment in their media involvement. We had a lot of loooooong conversations about discernment, and she really had to work hard to address a common objection about fiction in general -- the "it's just a story, it's not real" objection.
Just taking Twilight as a case study... one of my issues with Twilight is that young girls don't need someone telling them that that's how love is supposed to be -- that there's a guy out there who's perfect in every way, who's your soulmate without whom your life is utterly meaningless, and that its ok if that guy wants to hurt you as long as he has self control. And that when a guy ignores you and barely speaks to you except with apparent hatred, it means that he's just seething with lust. And that it's ok to string a decent guy along until you decide that you do want to be with your perfect sparkly soulmate after all. Teenage girls already are so prone to thinking all that. It's already programmed into their little texting, MTV (do kids even watch MTV anymore?), Jersey Shore, Bieber-obsessed worldview. They don't need an adult to confirm it, they need lots of adults to correct it!
I have some pretty big issues with the weirdo Mormon theology that's EVERYWHERE in the books, but the relationship stuff is my major practical concern. I don't really have much of an issue with adults reading them, since they're more experienced and discerning, and can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. But girls who are 13, 14, 15, when they're just left to read the books on their own with no one talking to them about the issues it brings up? Not so much.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not the type to go, "ZOMG it haz teh witchez/magic/fantasy BURNNNNN IT!" I mean, I did read all the Harry Potter books. ;)
But I do think as Christians we have a responsibility to ask questions. And the question isn't, "Does this movie/book/whatever depict a world without evil or darkness or moral complexity -- a nice, shiny, clean, Precious Moments world where everything turns out just dandy?"
We need to ask questions like, "Does it portray evil as evil and good as good, or does it pretty up evil or trick us into thinking something evil is really not so bad? Does it show the reality of the battle between good and evil? Is it realistic that sometimes evil seems to triumph? Does it show human character honestly -- that we're all messed up by sin and make mistakes, even the heroes of the story?" Again, that's worldview stuff we're talking about here. "How does the author view life? humanity? love? sex? relationships? purpose?"
For example: I think American Beauty is a absolutely brilliant movie, and that Christians ought to watch it (if their consciences permit, of course). It's rated R, it depicts adultery, drug use, deception, violence and lots of other truly evil stuff. But it also shows, vividly and poignantly, the meaninglessness of a life apart from Christ.
Stories are powerful. We're shaped by them and they impact us in a way that just straight teaching might not. So we have to be discerning, even about fiction -- maybe even especially about fiction, because it can affect us without our even being aware of it. I think about how I feel after I watch a movie -- even the fluffiest, silliest, most blatantly unrealistic romantic comedy can change my mood. It can make me feel dissatisfied with my life, frustrated that I'm still single, annoyed that some sexy leading man hasn't come and swept me off my feet (well... yet... ;p). Stuff like that affects our hearts.
I mentioned American Beauty. It's really good, but what keeps it from being "capital-G Good," is that it offers a counterfeit solution to the problem it presents. It says, "Life is ultimately meaningless. If you can find meaning in the meaninglessness, you're one of the lucky ones." We know as Christians that that's not true, that true meaning and purpose and hope are available, and found in Christ. But just like American Beauty, every story -- from comic strips to epic novels to TV shows -- offers some kind of "answer" to the life's problems.
Only Christians can offer the real solution, the Grand Story into which all of our little stories can be fitted by the Great Author of the universe. But a book, a movie, a TV show, whatever -- all these things are only good inasmuch as they can point their readers toward God's truth. Stories have the power to prime human hearts to see the emptiness of life apart from Christ, like American Beauty, or the reality of the battle between good and evil, like Harry Potter, or the brokenness of a fallen world and our often-futile attempts to fix it, like Sherlock Holmes, or the inherent beauty and preciousness of human life, like Children of Men.
Ultimately, we have the freedom in Christ to read, watch, or listen to just about anything. And we have a responsibility to use that freedom wisely. So, read Twilight or watch Mad Men or listen to Katy Perry or whatever. But do it with your eyes and ears wide open, and do it like a Christian.
Just taking Twilight as a case study... one of my issues with Twilight is that young girls don't need someone telling them that that's how love is supposed to be -- that there's a guy out there who's perfect in every way, who's your soulmate without whom your life is utterly meaningless, and that its ok if that guy wants to hurt you as long as he has self control. And that when a guy ignores you and barely speaks to you except with apparent hatred, it means that he's just seething with lust. And that it's ok to string a decent guy along until you decide that you do want to be with your perfect sparkly soulmate after all. Teenage girls already are so prone to thinking all that. It's already programmed into their little texting, MTV (do kids even watch MTV anymore?), Jersey Shore, Bieber-obsessed worldview. They don't need an adult to confirm it, they need lots of adults to correct it!
I have some pretty big issues with the weirdo Mormon theology that's EVERYWHERE in the books, but the relationship stuff is my major practical concern. I don't really have much of an issue with adults reading them, since they're more experienced and discerning, and can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. But girls who are 13, 14, 15, when they're just left to read the books on their own with no one talking to them about the issues it brings up? Not so much.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not the type to go, "ZOMG it haz teh witchez/magic/fantasy BURNNNNN IT!" I mean, I did read all the Harry Potter books. ;)
But I do think as Christians we have a responsibility to ask questions. And the question isn't, "Does this movie/book/whatever depict a world without evil or darkness or moral complexity -- a nice, shiny, clean, Precious Moments world where everything turns out just dandy?"
We need to ask questions like, "Does it portray evil as evil and good as good, or does it pretty up evil or trick us into thinking something evil is really not so bad? Does it show the reality of the battle between good and evil? Is it realistic that sometimes evil seems to triumph? Does it show human character honestly -- that we're all messed up by sin and make mistakes, even the heroes of the story?" Again, that's worldview stuff we're talking about here. "How does the author view life? humanity? love? sex? relationships? purpose?"
For example: I think American Beauty is a absolutely brilliant movie, and that Christians ought to watch it (if their consciences permit, of course). It's rated R, it depicts adultery, drug use, deception, violence and lots of other truly evil stuff. But it also shows, vividly and poignantly, the meaninglessness of a life apart from Christ.
Stories are powerful. We're shaped by them and they impact us in a way that just straight teaching might not. So we have to be discerning, even about fiction -- maybe even especially about fiction, because it can affect us without our even being aware of it. I think about how I feel after I watch a movie -- even the fluffiest, silliest, most blatantly unrealistic romantic comedy can change my mood. It can make me feel dissatisfied with my life, frustrated that I'm still single, annoyed that some sexy leading man hasn't come and swept me off my feet (well... yet... ;p). Stuff like that affects our hearts.
I mentioned American Beauty. It's really good, but what keeps it from being "capital-G Good," is that it offers a counterfeit solution to the problem it presents. It says, "Life is ultimately meaningless. If you can find meaning in the meaninglessness, you're one of the lucky ones." We know as Christians that that's not true, that true meaning and purpose and hope are available, and found in Christ. But just like American Beauty, every story -- from comic strips to epic novels to TV shows -- offers some kind of "answer" to the life's problems.
Only Christians can offer the real solution, the Grand Story into which all of our little stories can be fitted by the Great Author of the universe. But a book, a movie, a TV show, whatever -- all these things are only good inasmuch as they can point their readers toward God's truth. Stories have the power to prime human hearts to see the emptiness of life apart from Christ, like American Beauty, or the reality of the battle between good and evil, like Harry Potter, or the brokenness of a fallen world and our often-futile attempts to fix it, like Sherlock Holmes, or the inherent beauty and preciousness of human life, like Children of Men.
Ultimately, we have the freedom in Christ to read, watch, or listen to just about anything. And we have a responsibility to use that freedom wisely. So, read Twilight or watch Mad Men or listen to Katy Perry or whatever. But do it with your eyes and ears wide open, and do it like a Christian.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Ask the Question.
Linked to a really interesting article today by Carl Trueman on what he calls the "shibboleth" of cultural relevance in Evangelicalism. He describes a conversation he had with a student about Mel Gibson's uber-blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ. "We then," he recalls, "entered a discussion about whether it was right to depict Christ visually on the big screen." The upshot? Take a look:
Yesterday my eighth graders and I talked about worldview. I admit it's a hard line to walk, to explain the importance of living Christianly while not pushing my students toward total neurosis about the Christianness of each decision. I've quoted Luther on the subject of living an ordinary life that God makes extraordinary, and Trueman references Pascal's similar views on the blessing of relaxation and even entertainment.
I guess I don't really have any concluding thoughts about this -- I just want to emphasize my agreement with Trueman that we must ask these sorts of hard questions about culture, but without allowing ourselves to turn into whack jobs who have a "theology of vacuuming" and the like.
Read the article for yourself. It's a nice little rant, with a lot to ponder.
At the end of the discussion, he said that he felt sorry for me because my qualms about the visual depiction of Christ were making me irrelevant to ministry in the modern church. [...] What shocked me in this encounter, however, was not that we had different views on the matter, but that the student could not even see that there was any question to be asked. For him, the question of the meaning, relevance, and application of the second commandment was not even a question. He just thought it was obvious that anything which generated interest in Jesus was a good thing; thus, my concerns about the visual depiction of Christ revealed me as an irrelevant old hack, a superannuated puritan who simply didn't get it. [...T]his student did not even have the categories to see that there was any question to be asked.
Yesterday my eighth graders and I talked about worldview. I admit it's a hard line to walk, to explain the importance of living Christianly while not pushing my students toward total neurosis about the Christianness of each decision. I've quoted Luther on the subject of living an ordinary life that God makes extraordinary, and Trueman references Pascal's similar views on the blessing of relaxation and even entertainment.
I guess I don't really have any concluding thoughts about this -- I just want to emphasize my agreement with Trueman that we must ask these sorts of hard questions about culture, but without allowing ourselves to turn into whack jobs who have a "theology of vacuuming" and the like.
Read the article for yourself. It's a nice little rant, with a lot to ponder.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Seriously? (and a few random notes)
Whoa. I just scrolled down through this page and realized I've written almost nothing of theological significance in the last several weeks. Zoinks. It's probably one of two things: either I am a hopeless sinner blinded the trivialities of daily life, or I spend every day talking about God's precious word and his sovereignty in human history, teaching third, fourth, and eighth graders about this beautiful, broken world God will one day redeem, and by the time I get home, I'm all theologied out. Or maybe both.
So... there's a sizable kerfluffle in the blog world over the issue of whether or not Christians should celebrate a particular holiday with supposedly pagan roots. A holiday whose celebration, detractors claim, sends Christians inevitably down an idolatrous spiral of demon-worship. A holiday whose practices are outlawed by chapter and verse in Jeremiah. Pagan worship! Outright idolatry! Animism!
Well, good heavens, you might say! What is this pernicious, godless event that we've thoughtlessly allowed into our homes, welcoming with it the very blackest forms of paganism?
It's not Halloween. It's Christmas.
No, seriously.
Apparently, Jeremiah 10:2-4 condemns the practice of putting up and decorating Christmas trees. Leaving aside the kinda comical levels of anachronism we've got here, let's not be hasty. Judge for yourself:
Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
OK. So what we have here is... God telling the people not to put up Christmas trees? Huh. Weird.
Because it seems to me that what's actually happening is that Jeremiah the prophet is warning Judah that their sin is fixin' to bring down God's wrath and judgment, and this passage is part of God's case against them. It just so happens that last week's Bible lesson at school was "The Ministry of Jeremiah." So tell me, third and fourth graders, what was the main sin of Judah that caused God to send judgment on them?
Idolatry.
And why is idolatry not only sinful but also stupid? Because, as Isaiah says, idolaters take a log, carve half of it into a statue they bow down to, and throw the other half onto the fire to make their dinner. Because, Jeremiah reminds them, the idols are mute, they're nothing, they can't even move from place to place but have to be carried (10:5). Condemnation of Christmas trees? Ummmm... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that that's NOT a responsible exegesis of this passage.
There are more legs to their argument (the only birthdays mentioned in the Scriptures are those of pagans whom God struck down so we have no business celebrating Jesus' birthday, Yule celebrates demonic pagan deities and harkens back to weird druidy times, etc.), and I could pick each one apart, but I just can't... be bothered. It's all so silly! Surely there are other things we could focus on, right?
(Incidentally, this is a great example of what one blog I recently read called "The Arithmetic Method" of theology. Thought-provoking article. Check it out.)
So, here are a couple things you could focus on if you felt like it:
1. Listen up, Church. (I'm about to get fired up here, so watch out!) Stop letting Joel and Victoria Osteen off the hook. Stop justifying their heresy. Stop nurturing the notion that they're merely addled -- like that sweet but dim-witted cousin everybody loves while being slightly embarassed about -- and get it in your head that they are preaching a different Gospel. Go read Galatians 1:8. (Go ahead, I'll wait...) The Osteens are inviting a curse on themselves. Stay far, far away from their "ministry" and, if you love your brothers and sisters in Christ, warn them about it too.
2. Open iTunes (or the legal online music acquisition apparatus of your choice) and download the following albums immediately: Shai Linne's Storiez, Flame's Our World Redeemed, and LeCrae's Rebel. Then revel and rejoice in the work God is doing through these warriors of the faith and their bold Gospel preaching.
So... there's a sizable kerfluffle in the blog world over the issue of whether or not Christians should celebrate a particular holiday with supposedly pagan roots. A holiday whose celebration, detractors claim, sends Christians inevitably down an idolatrous spiral of demon-worship. A holiday whose practices are outlawed by chapter and verse in Jeremiah. Pagan worship! Outright idolatry! Animism!
Well, good heavens, you might say! What is this pernicious, godless event that we've thoughtlessly allowed into our homes, welcoming with it the very blackest forms of paganism?
It's not Halloween. It's Christmas.
No, seriously.
Apparently, Jeremiah 10:2-4 condemns the practice of putting up and decorating Christmas trees. Leaving aside the kinda comical levels of anachronism we've got here, let's not be hasty. Judge for yourself:
Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.
OK. So what we have here is... God telling the people not to put up Christmas trees? Huh. Weird.
Because it seems to me that what's actually happening is that Jeremiah the prophet is warning Judah that their sin is fixin' to bring down God's wrath and judgment, and this passage is part of God's case against them. It just so happens that last week's Bible lesson at school was "The Ministry of Jeremiah." So tell me, third and fourth graders, what was the main sin of Judah that caused God to send judgment on them?
Idolatry.
And why is idolatry not only sinful but also stupid? Because, as Isaiah says, idolaters take a log, carve half of it into a statue they bow down to, and throw the other half onto the fire to make their dinner. Because, Jeremiah reminds them, the idols are mute, they're nothing, they can't even move from place to place but have to be carried (10:5). Condemnation of Christmas trees? Ummmm... I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that that's NOT a responsible exegesis of this passage.
There are more legs to their argument (the only birthdays mentioned in the Scriptures are those of pagans whom God struck down so we have no business celebrating Jesus' birthday, Yule celebrates demonic pagan deities and harkens back to weird druidy times, etc.), and I could pick each one apart, but I just can't... be bothered. It's all so silly! Surely there are other things we could focus on, right?
(Incidentally, this is a great example of what one blog I recently read called "The Arithmetic Method" of theology. Thought-provoking article. Check it out.)
So, here are a couple things you could focus on if you felt like it:
1. Listen up, Church. (I'm about to get fired up here, so watch out!) Stop letting Joel and Victoria Osteen off the hook. Stop justifying their heresy. Stop nurturing the notion that they're merely addled -- like that sweet but dim-witted cousin everybody loves while being slightly embarassed about -- and get it in your head that they are preaching a different Gospel. Go read Galatians 1:8. (Go ahead, I'll wait...) The Osteens are inviting a curse on themselves. Stay far, far away from their "ministry" and, if you love your brothers and sisters in Christ, warn them about it too.
2. Open iTunes (or the legal online music acquisition apparatus of your choice) and download the following albums immediately: Shai Linne's Storiez, Flame's Our World Redeemed, and LeCrae's Rebel. Then revel and rejoice in the work God is doing through these warriors of the faith and their bold Gospel preaching.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A Beautiful Rejection
I'm about to come out of the closet here, people. Are you ready for this? Brace yourself.
I don't believe in race.
Still reading? OK! While you're in the mood to read, read this:
I don't believe in race.
Still reading? OK! While you're in the mood to read, read this:
[F]or the Christian, there is an even greater basis for unity across ethnic lines and the abandonment of "race" as a part of our worldview and spiritual life — our union in Jesus Christ.When the Christian walks into that lunchroom, she or he sees two groups and thinks, Descended from Adam — like me. Made in the image of God — like me. Fallen sinners — like me. And then if we find that any of those persons in the lunchroom are Christians, we are able to say, United to Christ — like me. Sharing His Spirit — like me. Received the promises of eternal life and everlasting joy — like me!
Catch the full article, by visionary pastor Thabiti Anyabwile, here.
Friday, October 17, 2008
And Now For Something Completely Different...
Michael Pollan's beautiful, sweeping, joyous, practical, intense, inspiring, provocative, stunningly magisterial open letter to the incoming president (whoever he may turn out to be) in the Sunday New York Times Magazine section, all about revolutionizing and returning to our agrarian roots.
It's nine pages long, wordy for a newspaper article, but is so thrillingly visionary that you'll be finished before you know it. Can't recommend it highly enough.
It's nine pages long, wordy for a newspaper article, but is so thrillingly visionary that you'll be finished before you know it. Can't recommend it highly enough.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Rules/Rants About Blogs
The "rules" bit:
1. If you don't have time to read or address reader comments, consider that you might not have time to blog.
2. If you have a strict disclaimer or instructions for commenters (what behavior or content won't be tolerated), but don't have time to enforce these policies, then really don't bother blogging.
Theologica and Boundless Line are two prime examples of what happens when you don't consistently respond to out-of-line or heretical comments, and in the case of Boundless, what happens when you don't enforce your comments guidelines. The moderators end up suborning heresy, the comments sections spiral out of control, and the constructive discussion gets choked out by confusing, contradictory comments by believers, unbelievers, and pseudo-believers.
So, do you 1. address and refute out-of-line or heretical comments, 2. delete them, or 3. let them slide?
#3 is irresponsible and foolish, and either 1 or 2 works. I lean towards deleting (although a blog that's turned into a public forum would want to be crystal clear about the standards for deletion). Heretics who find themselves being blocked will keep moving until they find somewhere else to comment.
And really, have you ever heard a new believer say, "You know, I was an atheist until I started commenting on this blog..."?
1. If you don't have time to read or address reader comments, consider that you might not have time to blog.
2. If you have a strict disclaimer or instructions for commenters (what behavior or content won't be tolerated), but don't have time to enforce these policies, then really don't bother blogging.
Theologica and Boundless Line are two prime examples of what happens when you don't consistently respond to out-of-line or heretical comments, and in the case of Boundless, what happens when you don't enforce your comments guidelines. The moderators end up suborning heresy, the comments sections spiral out of control, and the constructive discussion gets choked out by confusing, contradictory comments by believers, unbelievers, and pseudo-believers.
So, do you 1. address and refute out-of-line or heretical comments, 2. delete them, or 3. let them slide?
#3 is irresponsible and foolish, and either 1 or 2 works. I lean towards deleting (although a blog that's turned into a public forum would want to be crystal clear about the standards for deletion). Heretics who find themselves being blocked will keep moving until they find somewhere else to comment.
And really, have you ever heard a new believer say, "You know, I was an atheist until I started commenting on this blog..."?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Well...?
I posted a version of this series of questions on the Boundless Line today (intentionally not linked; it's a very heated discussion and I wouldn't recommend wasting your time reading it unless you're a glutton for punishment). Anyone want to take a shot?
1. What does God say about children?
2. Is God in control of human fertility?
3. If God calls children a blessing to be welcomed and he is in control of fertility, than do I have the right as a believer (whose life is supposed to be conformed to God's ways) to say (if married), "I don't want kids," or "I want to put off children (or marriage and children) because ___"?
You don't really have to answer them... And I'm sure my answers are painfully obvious. Pondering these questions was what changed my attitude about this whole thing. I realized that I had absorbed the culture's attitudes toward marriage and children -- don't get married until you're settled in your career, put off having children as long as possible because they're a hassle, stuff like that. But throughout the centuries, Christians have always been counter-cultural in how they valued children -- the early Church fought against the pagan practices of child sacrifice and abandonment, for example, and Christians led the charge for the illegalization of child labor.
So why is it that now, even among Christians, having a child early in a marriage must have been an accident? And why having a large family (i.e., anything beyond three or four kids) means you must not have figured out how to work those birth control pills? And why Christian parents tell their sons and daughters that they must not get married before they've graduated college and settled down into a good career (never mind the tens of thousands in debt it took to get there)?
What do you think is at the heart of the problem?
1. What does God say about children?
2. Is God in control of human fertility?
3. If God calls children a blessing to be welcomed and he is in control of fertility, than do I have the right as a believer (whose life is supposed to be conformed to God's ways) to say (if married), "I don't want kids," or "I want to put off children (or marriage and children) because ___"?
You don't really have to answer them... And I'm sure my answers are painfully obvious. Pondering these questions was what changed my attitude about this whole thing. I realized that I had absorbed the culture's attitudes toward marriage and children -- don't get married until you're settled in your career, put off having children as long as possible because they're a hassle, stuff like that. But throughout the centuries, Christians have always been counter-cultural in how they valued children -- the early Church fought against the pagan practices of child sacrifice and abandonment, for example, and Christians led the charge for the illegalization of child labor.
So why is it that now, even among Christians, having a child early in a marriage must have been an accident? And why having a large family (i.e., anything beyond three or four kids) means you must not have figured out how to work those birth control pills? And why Christian parents tell their sons and daughters that they must not get married before they've graduated college and settled down into a good career (never mind the tens of thousands in debt it took to get there)?
What do you think is at the heart of the problem?
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Imaginary Thoughts from an Imaginary Land
THIS is Tasmania:
THIS is NOT Tasmania:
When I was telling people that I was going to spend 5 weeks in Tasmania, more than once I got slightly pitying looks, as if people were saying, "Oh, poor thing... she thinks that's a real place. Tsk tsk."
Well, despite how surreally beautiful it is here, what with the breeze and the sun and the apples and the falling leaves and all (it's Autumn...weird), Tasmania's not an imaginary land after all.
THIS is NOT Tasmania:
When I was telling people that I was going to spend 5 weeks in Tasmania, more than once I got slightly pitying looks, as if people were saying, "Oh, poor thing... she thinks that's a real place. Tsk tsk."
Well, despite how surreally beautiful it is here, what with the breeze and the sun and the apples and the falling leaves and all (it's Autumn...weird), Tasmania's not an imaginary land after all.
Monday, April 21, 2008
You Won't Regret Following This Link
Actually, I kinda hope that none of the link-rabbit-holes I've sent you down have caused actual regret...
Anyway, it's a great article from Boundless on "thinking Christianly" about culture.
Two thumbs up.
Anyway, it's a great article from Boundless on "thinking Christianly" about culture.
Two thumbs up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
