Tag Archives: culture

Where were You when You just had Sex?

As the ever-expanding world of social media appears to be systematically eliminating anything close to what we might have once called “privacy,” it should probably come as no surprise that there is now a social site dedicated to announcing where you have most recently worn a condom.  You read that right.  Just as you might utilize Foursquare or Facebook to “check in” at a restaurant or a theater or a ballgame, Planned Parenthood has now developed a new website targeting teens and young adults, called “Where Did You Wear It?” In short, it allows you to “check in” on where you just had sex with a condom because after all, “sex that safe should be shared!”

And just how much should we expect you to share?  Well, after entering in all the pertinent geographic information, the site also allows you to add a few more details.  Because after all, it’s not enough that everyone knows where you’re having sex.  This is the “Information Age.”  It’s the “Age of Jersey Shore.”  We need more!

So what’s your gender?  Male?  Female?  Trans?  What about the gender of your partner?  No point in making any assumptions or in protecting his or her identity.  This is all about maximum exposure.

How was the sex?  Was it “ah-maz-ing,” as in “rainbows exploded and mountains trembled?”  Or was it a bit more … down-to-earth, say “a work in progress?”   Don’t be shy, now.  Spill the beans.  We want to know.  Was your world rocked or was it not?!

Every once in a while, in a culture as vast and as complex as ours, you run across something so patently “new” that it’s difficult to know where to even begin an analysis.  And so today, I simply want to leave the analysis up to you.  What do you think Planned Parenthood is trying to accomplish through this site?  What exactly are they trying to normalize and should it be normalized?  What about what we, as a society, are sacrificing for this to be normalized?  Is there moral value in trying to protect people from the consequences of their actions?  What about the value in teaching privacy as a virtue of sorts?  Or is the concept of privacy growing increasingly “passe” in a hyper-connected world?   Regardless of religious affiliation, do you want to be part of a society that “checks in” on a site such as this?  Why?  Or why not?  And if the whole point is being “proud to wear protection,” why is there no ability to “share” this information directly through your personal Facebook account or Twitter?  The comment section is yours.  Have at it, readers.   

Time to Get “Radical?”

Having just received a copy of David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, I am already anticipating that it will make my top-10 books of 2012.  Here, are the opening few pages for your consideration.  If they capture your imagination, be sure to purchase the book.  It only gets better.

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“The youngest megachurch pastor in history.”

While I would dispute that claim, it was nonetheless the label given to me when I went to pastor a large, thriving church in the Deep South — the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama.  From the first day I was immersed in strategies for making the church bigger and better.  Authors I respect greatly would make statements such as “Decide how big you want your church to be and go for it, whether that’s five, ten, or twenty thousand members.”  Soon my name was near the top of the list of pastors of the fastest-growing U.S. churches.  There I was … living out the American church dream.

But I found myself becoming uneasy.  For one thing, my model in ministry is a guy who spent the majority of his ministry time with twelve men.  A guy who, when he left this earth, had only about 120 people who were actually sticking around and doing what he told them to do.  More like a minichurch, really.  Jesus Christ – the youngest minichurch pastor in history.

So how was I to reconcile the fact that I was now pastoring thousands of people with the fact that my greatest example in ministry was known for turning away thousands of people?  Whenever the crowd got big, he’d say something such as “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  Not exactly the sharpest church-growth tactic.  I can almost picture the looks on the disciples’ faces.  “No, not the drink-my-blood speech!  We’ll never get on the list of the fastest growing movements if you keep asking them to eat you.”

By the end of that speech, all the crowds had left, and only twelve men remained.  Jesus apparently wasn’t interested in marketing himself to the masses.  His invitations to potential followers were clearly more costly than the crowds were ready to accept and he seemed to be okay with that.  He focused instead on the few who believed him when he said radical things.  And through their radical obedience to him, he turned the course of history in a new direction.

Soon I realized I was on a collision course with an American church culture where success is defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets, and bigger buildings.  I was now confronted with a startling reality: Jesus actually spurned the things that my church culture said were the most important.  So what was I to do?  I found myself faced with two big questions.

The first was simple.  Was I going to believe Jesus?  Was I going to embrace Jesus even though he said radical things that drove the crowds away?

The second question was more challenging.  Was I going to obey Jesus?  My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus’ words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to him.  In other words, my biggest fear is that I will do exactly what most people did when they encountered Jesus in the first century.

That’s why I’ve written this book.  I am on a journey.  But I am convinced it is not just a journey for pastors.  I am convinced these questions are critical for the larger community of faith in our country today.  I am convinced that we as Christ followers in American churches have embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical, but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe.  And I am convinced we have a choice.

You and I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole, enjoying success based on the standards defined by the culture around us.  Or we can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and dare to ask what the consequences might be if we really believed him and really obeyed him.

I invite you to join the journey with me.  I do not claim to have all the answers.  If anything, I have more questions than answers.  But if Jesus is who he said he is, and if his promises are as rewarding as the Bible claims they are, then we may discover that satisfaction in our lives and success in the church are not found in what our culture deems most important but in radical abandonment to Jesus.

When Presidential Candidates Talk About God

It is a commonly held belief that American voters want to know about the religious leanings of their presidential candidates.  Do they believe in a god; and if so, which one?  Why do they believe?  And how will this belief inform their policies?  Will they defend the separation of church and state?  Or will they use federal monies to fund “faith-based” initiatives?  These are the sorts of things we want to know … aren’t they?

Last month, USA Today reported on a new study just released by Lifeway Research.  According to their survey of 2000 voters, only 16% of Americans would find themselves more likely to vote for a candidate if he or she were to consistently express religious beliefs in public forums.  Now take a look at some of the other findings:

As you can see, Republicans (32%) are eight times more likely to be positively influenced by a candidate’s religious views than are Democratic voters (4%).  Conversely, more than half of all Democrats (55%) would actively move away from supporting a religiously vocal candidate, as opposed to the 7% of Republicans who would do the same.

So what do you think?  Does a candidate who expresses his or her religious beliefs have the potential to draw you towards them or does it tend to push you away? 

Capturing 9/11 on Film: The Documentaries …

Earlier this week, my wife and I went to see the latest film based upon the events of September 11th, 2001.  In the hopes of putting Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close within its proper context, I have decided to offer this brief series on the history of 9/11 and film.  Yesterday, we examined the major studio releases that have sought to relive the events of that day.  Today, we will continue the series by taking a closer look at the notable documentaries.[1]

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9/11 (2002).

By far the “gold standard” of all the documentaries on this subject, this is the film that almost wasn’t.  On the morning of September 11th, French documentarians Gedeon and Jules Naudet were out on the streets of New York, making a film about a young probationary firefighter.  But as fate would have it, the brothers were standing in the flight path of the first plane as it flew straight overhead and into the side Tower 1.  Thus, these two brothers became eyewitnesses to history as they captured the only known footage of the first strike as well as the only internal footage of the chaos that erupted in the Trade Centers as the firefighters fought their way into the building in a heroic attempt to rescue the survivors.

Ten years after the fact, this film still stands out as a giant among the many imitators.  By the sheer virtue of its immediate and unparalleled access to the events of the day, it possesses a power that can still reduce the viewer to a state of shock.  From the off camera sounds of the bodies striking the pavement to the steely look of grim determination in the rescuers eyes, the viewer is given a front row seat to hell-on-earth, a seat that might gladly be surrendered if it weren’t so important to remember.

102 Minutes that Changed America (2008).

If 9/11 is the “gold standard” of the documentaries that have sought to understand these events, the History Channel’s 102 Minutes that Changed America comes in a very close second.  Wisely eschewing the footage that played ad nausea in the aftermath of the attacks, this documentary is instead assembled by cobbling together footage from the countless amateur videographers that were filming throughout New York.

What gives this documentary its power is the lack of a singular narrative voice.  There is no filter for this footage. There is no news anchor gravely interpreting the chaos.   There is no buffer from the anguish and pain.  Instead, there is only shaky, raw footage painstakingly stitched together in such a way as to tell “our story,” as we all came to grips with the way our lives were going to change through these events.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004).

Thus far, we have looked at two documentaries that sought to provide cathartic release by offering the viewer an intimate opportunity to relive the events of that day.  Unlike these other two films, however, Fahrenheit 9/11 has no such purpose.  Instead, Fahrenheit 9/11 attempts to take a broader, more politicized, view of the events as it offers up an interpretation of the day that links the attacks, the Bush Presidency, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the Bin Laden family and the Western dependence upon oil.

Regardless of whether you agree with the politics of the film or not, Fahrenheit 9/11 is significant in that it won the Palme d’Or at the 57th Cannes Film Festival in France; and on the strength of that win, went on to be released in the United States just weeks before the 2004 Presidential election.

9/11: The Falling Man (2006).

The least well known of the documentaries we have discussed, 9/11: The Falling Man is nevertheless an excellent look at one of the nearly 200 “jumpers” who elected to plummet to their demise rather than facing what they presumed would be a slow death via fire and smoke inhalation.

On the day after the attacks, newspapers around the world ran a photograph, which came to be known as: “The Falling Man.” It had been taken by the Associated Press photographer Richard Drew; and unlike any other image from that day, it alone was branded as distasteful and voyeuristic by a mainstream media that never printed it again.  But some, such as the documentarians responsible for this film, believed that this picture needed to be confronted, for it alone communicated the true horror experienced by those trapped in a burning building.[2]

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Tomorrow, this series will conclude by taking a look at the Oscar-nominated film, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

[1] It should be noted that no documentaries related to the “alternative accounts” of 9/11 are included in this list.  Such accounts, while widespread on the internet, are too radically different from the accounts accepted as factual by mainstream America, and thus they are a separate entity unto themselves.

[2] 9/11: The Falling Man can be viewed online at the following address: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXnA9FjvLSU&feature=player_embedded

Capturing 9/11 on Film

Last night, my wife and I decided to take in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, one of the nine films nominated for the “Best Picture” of 2012.  Ordinarily, after viewing a film of this nature, I would simply put up a “One-Minute Review,” and be done with it.  But something about this film has elicited responses within me that demand more than a few perfunctory paragraphs. So today, I am going to begin a brief series on the subject of 9/11 and film.  And to get things rolling, I am simply going to highlight a few major films that have attempted to address this subject over the past 10 years.

United 93 (2006).

On the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Paul Greengrass, director of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, offered us this partly speculative, real-time account of the only hijacked plane that failed to strike its intended target.  Much to his credit, Greengrass wisely rejected any attempt to entertain the audience and largely avoided almost all of the exploitative melodrama that one would normally expect from a picture of this nature.  In fact, he was so resistant to the notion of fictionalizing or sentimentalizing the events of 9/11 that he even saw fit to cast some of the real flight controllers as themselves in the film.  Without question, this is the rawest of the films released to date, as it offers no hope and no explanation.

September 11 (2002).

Released within one year of the tragic events of 9/11, this ambitious, yet rarely-seen, film is actually a compilation of eleven “shorts,” filmed by directors such as: Mira Nair, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Sean Penn.  With each segment lasting exactly 11 minutes, 9 seconds and 1 frame, the filmmakers were given broad latitude to explore how the events of the titular day affected people all around the world.  As with any film of this nature, some segments are stronger than others.  Having said that, this film deserves to be seen, if for no other reason than it was the first of its kind to tackle the issue while the wounds were still raw and bleeding.

World Trade Center (2006).

Released around the same time as United 93, this film could not be more different in tone or effect.  Subverting his usual flair for political muckraking, director Oliver Stone instead elected to film a patriotic story of two Port Authority rescue workers who were trapped when the Twin Towers collapsed, and were amongst the last of the survivors to be extracted from “Ground Zero.”  While the film’s tagline sees fit to remind us that this is “a true story of courage and survival,” one can’t help but wonder if we are being reminded of this fact because the sense of hope that the film conveys feels so out of place with everything that the viewer knows to be true about the events of that day.

Reign Over Me (2007).

Six years after the attacks of 9/11, Adam Sandler commendably used his clout to make the first mainstream, Hollywood movie about the emotional fallout that followed the events of that day.  Unfortunately, Sandler’s best intentions were seriously undermined by his own desire to stretch himself as a dramatic actor.  The resultant film is a melodramatic mess that only sporadically comes to life when the under-rated, but always-excellent Don Cheadle enters the frame to provide some measure of gravitas and genuine humanity.  Sadly, by the end, we are left with a vision of “hope” that feels almost as patently false as much of Sandler’s acting career.

Part 2 of this series will explore a few of the most significant documentaries on the subject of 9/11, while part 3 will conclude by placing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close within the proper context of our culture’s attempts to capture this event on film.

“Good Christian Bitches” and the Ugly Reflection We May Not Wish to See

In just a few short weeks, ABC will launch a new mid-season series under the moniker GCB.[1]  Originally titled Good Christians Bitches, the series tells the story of Amanda Vaughn, a now-single, mother-of-two, who is forced to return home to Dallas, Texas after her marriage ends in a spectacularly public scandal.  As a former high school bully, Vaughn hopes to rebuild her life through the assistance of her mother and the help of the local church.  But as the title of the series not so subtly suggests, she is quickly given an education in the “true nature” of Christian women.  In the words of Leslie Bibb, the lead actress:

“This show shines a light on people who say, “I go to church every Sunday, I’m a God-fearing person.  [This show] is like, ‘Hey, y’all, let’s just look at what’s really going on.’”

Not surprisingly, last March, when the series was still in its formative stages, the Parents Television Council came out swinging.   According to Tim Winter, the President of the PTC:

“The ‘B-word’ is toxic and is used to degrade, abuse, harass, bully and humiliate women.  The ‘Christian’ element only adds insult to injury. Regardless of whether the title ultimately makes it to broadcast, ABC has publicly proclaimed its values and it has tarnished the Disney brand … Would ABC even consider another faith to denigrate?  Would they even consider a program title or a plot line based on ‘Bitches’ who were Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist? I suspect not, and I certainly hope not.  So why the double standard?”[2]

Now on the one hand, Winter makes an excellent point.  For in American society, you do not see the widespread, open denigration of other faith groups in the same way that you see the media declare open season on Christianity.  In fact, having a character profess belief in Jesus the Christ has almost become a lazy, shorthand way of setting that character up as the antagonist of a screenplay.  But I’m not interested in talking about the unfair nature of negative stereotyping in the media.  Instead, I am interested in talking about our reactions to such messaging.  Consider, if you will, the words of the Christ as captured by the Apostle John in his Gospel:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.  Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”[3]

Culture tells stories.  Indeed, culture itself is a story.  So should we be surprised that a secular company that is charged with the task of telling stories that make money denigrates Christianity?  Absolutely not.  Jesus told us to expect this sort of behavior.  But here’s the thing.  He didn’t simply say, “This is coming.”  He also entrusted His apostles to tell us a little about how we should respond.  And it is on this point that I want to turn your attention to the first letter penned by the Apostle Peter.

“Dear friends, do not be astonished that a trial by fire is occurring among you, as though something strange were happening to you.  But rejoice in the degree that you have shared in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice and be glad.If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory,who is the Spirit of God, rests on you.  But let none of you suffer as a murderer or thief or criminal or as a troublemaker.  But if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear such a name. For it is time for judgment to begin, starting with the house of God.[4]

Now I want you to look very closely at the latter portion of that passage.  It starts by reminding us that not all suffering is the result of unjust persecution.  Some suffering is nothing more than the product of our own actions – our own hypocrisy.  Some suffering is brought on by the fact that we claim the name of Christ, but act as if He has not given us a “spirit of power” that enables us to live lives that bring honor to His name.[5]

So today, on the eve of the launch of Good Christian Bitches, I want to ask a question.  Is society mocking us because of the exemplary way in which we bear witness to the love and sacrifice of Jesus the Christ?  Or are we being mocked because of the hypocrisy the world sees in a church that wants to claim the name of Jesus while still holding on to some of the very behaviors that we are called to release?

While I can’t say that I will likely be a regular connoisseur of this program, part of me is grateful that it’s going to air.  Part of me is grateful that society is holding a mirror up to the church, and is asking pointed, satirical – dare I say, prophetic – questions.  For through questions comes self-examination, and through self-examination comes refinement and renewed commitment to Kingdom values.

So here’s to hoping that so long as Good Christian Bitches airs, we have the courage look at this portrait of our community.  And here’s to hoping that through this ugly mirror, we, as Christians, might become more invested in telling better stories through our lives that are marked by humility, forgiveness, courage and a renewed commitment to justice.

[1] The title of the original source material was “Good Christian Bitches.”   After the Parents Television Council submitted a petition with over 120,000 signatures to ABC, the title was changed to “Good Christians Belles” before eventually being changed again to “GCB.”  New Zealand is the only market in which the show will be aired under its original title.

[3] John 15:18-20a.

[4] 1 Peter 4:12-17

[5] 1 Timothy 1:7.

“Sexless” Babies and the Rise of “Gender Creativity”

In 2007, Beck Laxton, a self-professed “radical feminist” gave birth to a baby named Sasha.  And for five years, Laxton and her partner worked to keep the sex of their baby a secret, in the hopes of making a statement against gender stereotypes.

“All I want to do is make people think a bit.  I just want Sasha to fulfill his potential, and I wouldn’t push him in any direction … As long as he has good relationships and good friends, then nothing else matters, does it? What’s more important than being happy, and making other people happy? It’s all that matters.”[1]

Since that time, Canadians Kathy Witterick and husband David Stocker have made a similar decision regarding their child, Storm.  When Storm was born in May of 2011, they sent out an email to their close friends and family in which they said:

“We’ve decided not to share Storm’s sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime (a more progressive place?).”[2]

Although decisions like these are still clearly outside of the cultural norm, they are not entirely unheard of.  Take, for instance, Shiloh Pitt-Jolie, the four-year old daughter of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.  In recent months, Shiloh has drawn attention to herself by her unique sense of fashion.  And in an August interview with Vanity Fair, Shiloh’s mother, Angelina, had this to say:

“She wants to be a boy.  So we had to cut her hair. She likes to wear boys’ everything. She thinks she’s one of the brothers.  She dresses like a little dude. It’s how people dress there (in Montenegro). She likes tracksuits, she likes [regular] suits.”

Clearly, “gender creativity” is on the rise in society.  And while it is far from the norm for parents to make decisions as radical as these, there is no denying the fact that greater and greater freedom of choice is being given to individuals in the construction of their sexual identity.  But on a cultural level, this is quite confusing and even somewhat contradictory.

On the one hand, many who self-identify as being part of the “far left” want to deny the differences that gender should be allowed to play in the socialization of an individual.  They want to suggest that society should treat all people, regardless of gender, as equals, both in societal status and in access to power.  In the most extreme cases, you have parents who choose to maximize “gender creativity,” in the hopes of creating a world where sexual identity does not play a role in an individual’s ability to either succeed or be accepted.

But on the other hand, another segment of the cultural left wants to argue that the LGBTQ[3] community is entirely defined by its sexual identity, marking it out as a marginalized population.  For members of this community, matters of sexual preference are often seen as being deeply rooted in biology, and thus they serve as a defining characteristic of the individual, and one that shouldn’t, under any circumstance, be minimized or ignored.

This creates a rather interesting cultural dilemma.  If we want to suggest that socialization should not be determined by the biological sex of an individual, than how can we, at the same time, argue that biological predispositions towards certain sexual preferences form the core of an individual’s identity?  It seems to me that you can’t have it both ways.  Either sexuality should play a significant role in how people perceive us and interact with us or it should not.

If you tend to think that our biological sex should define how society perceives and interacts with us, how do you think we, as a culture, should go about deciding what are and are not appropriate gender roles?  What’s off limits to boys?  What’s off limits to girls?  And who decides?

If, on the other hand, you think that biological construction should not define us, then how can we, as a society, give any credence to notion that the LGBTQ community is a marginalized group of people? 

Whether we like it or not, these are the questions that we are facing as a society; and how we answer them, as Christians, will go a long way towards our ability to interact with those that see human sexuality in a different way than many within conservative evangelical circles tend to see it.

Lisbeth Salander, Genital Piercing and the Dearth of Female Role Models in the Church

A few weeks ago, I picked up Scot McKnight’s new e-book entitled Junia is Not Alone.  Interestingly enough, the very week that I purchased his book, the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly arrived in my mailbox, complete with a cover caption that read: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: How an Intense New Thriller Brought the World’s Coolest Heroine to Life.”  This, of course, got me to thinking.

Why would a magazine choose to describe Lisbeth Salander as the “coolest heroine?”  What is it about Salander that has fascinated us as a society?  What is it about her story that seems to ring so true?  While the theories abound, I think the film’s director, David Fincher, gives us a great insight when he describes how they developed Salander’s look.

“Trish Summerville, the costume designer, and I talked a lot [about Salander’s appearance].  Trish has some of the most beautiful piercings and little studs in her nose, but that’s jewelry.  By contrast, Lisbeth’s piercings – brow, nose, lip, nipple – actually look painful and self-violating.  We went back to that first idea of Sid Vicious[1] with a safety pin through his cheek and what it meant.  That was not a way of saying, ‘Look at me, I’m special, I’m different, I’m committed.’  It was a way of saying, ‘Get away or you’re going to get blood on you.’”

You see, in many ways, Lisbeth Salander, as first conceived by Steig Larrsen, represents the next step in the cultural evolution of the female archetype.  She is the post-feminist, warrior – the literary and celluloid sister of Lara Croft,[2] Buffy Summers,[3] Angelina Jolie,[4] and even the pre-pubescent Hit Girl.  But is that all that there is to her character? Is she nothing more than an avenging angel?  Again, Fincher and his team are right there to help us understand.

“She’s not an avenging angel.  We were never interested in that.  We never felt this was Dirty Harry or Death Wish.  She’s a person who has to deal with a lot of things …   Psychologically, she has to work on two currents.  One of them is saying, I don’t trust anyone, I don’t want to have anyone in my life, and I’m willing put on this garb that says, “Stay the fuck away from me.’  And at the same time, it’s almost as if she’s in agreement with what everyone has always said about her, which is that she’s trash.  She’s perfectly willing to look like refuse in order to be left alone.”

So who is Lisbeth Salander?  She’s the new 21st century female role model.  She’s a deeply scarred and troubled young woman, sexually aware, outwardly self-confident, inwardly bruised, and profoundly violent.  In many ways, she’s a male fantasy – a millennial Cinderella who, while awaiting her knight in shining armor, has the courage and the moxie to take on all comers.  Sure, she’s in need of rescue, but she’s not about to sit around twiddling her thumbs.

So with this cultural story as a background, I picked up McKnight’s new e-book, in which he lays out a devastatingly brilliant argument regarding the neutering of the Apostle Junia.  So well-documented and so airtight was his argument that I found it astonishing that we, as a church, have not heard more about the lone female apostle in the New Testament, a woman described by the Apostle Paul himself as being “prominent among the apostles.”[5]  Now I’m not going to bother you with the details of McKnight’s argument.  Quite honestly, if you’re really that interested in this subject, you should just pick up the book for $2.99.  It’s only 35 pages long; and it’ll excite your imagination in ways my reductionist summary never could.

But my point is simply this.  We know that the cultural story is a damaging story that offers little in terms of real hope for young women in the world today.  We know that sexualizing your body for the sake of marketing yourself isn’t the answer.  And we know that vengeance for all of the abuses suffered – both large and small – will never lead to closure or reconciliation.

But as McKnight so clearly illustrates, we also fail to tell a different story!  We make sloppy hermeneutical decisions to violate the text and propagate the false idea that Junia was a man.  We rarely speak on Hulldah.  We barely touch on Deborah.  In fact, about the only thing we tend to offer is a vision of the “godly wife” from Proverbs 31 – a vision that is often carefully edited to omit the fact that she works outside of the home,[6] earning her own income[7] even as she built a public reputation that is so sound, that it’s praised by the leaders of the community.[8]

It has been said that nature abhors a vacuum.  And I fear that if the church does not begin to seriously take up the task of offering a truly counter-cultural image of what a female disciple might actually look like, if the church continues to let silence be its guiding principle on this subject, than we are likely looking at a future where the vacuum will be filled – not by the likes of Junia, Hulldah, and Deborah, but by the likes of Lisbeth, Buffy, and even the young Chloe Grace Moretz – women left with no choice but to “kick ass.”[9]

Click here for a discussion on misogyny, Lisbeth and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

[1] Sid Vicious was the iconic base player for the seminal punk band, Sex Pistols.

[2] Lara Croft is the fictional main character of the Tomb Raider video game series.  First released in 1996, the character has become so iconic that it has spawned 11 video game sequels, two film adaptations, a series of young adult books and even a few academic monographs seeking to understand her influence.

[3] Buffy Summers is a fictional character first developed by Josh Whedon in a 1992 film entitled Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  While Whedon’s film was essentially dead-on-arrival, he resurrected the character in a breakout series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.  The series ran for several years, and gave birth to a spin-off program entitled, Angel, as well as numerous non-canon material such as comic books, novels and video games.

[4] Angelina Jolie is an Oscar-winning actress who first came to international fame playing Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider series.  Although she has flashed serious talent in numerous smaller projects, she is most well known for playing the type of woman described in this article.  Films in which she is depicted in this fashion include: Gone in Sixty Seconds, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Wanted and Salt.

[5] Romans 16:7.

[6] Proverbs 31:24.

[7] Proverbs 31:16.

[8] Proverbs 31:31.

[9] One of the most shocking, and provocative examples of this new female archetype is represented by Chloe Grace Moretz in Matthew Vaughn’s film, Kick Ass.  Here, the young Ms. Moretz plays a 10-year old girl who is trained to be a killer by her ex-cop father, played by Nicholas Cage.  While the film was ostensibly about the titular hero played by Aaron Johnson, the phenomenon was built around Moretz’s breakout performance as a young girl, deeply scared, but able to take on all comers.

Movie Theaters and Video Games

A recent Associated Press article by film critic David Germain reports that domestic film revenues in 2011 “lagged far behind 2010 receipts.”  Indeed, according to Hollywood.com, last year’s projected revenues of $10.15 billion will represent a drop of 4% in year-to-year earnings.  More troubling still, to theater owners, is the 4.8% decline in theater attendance, which marks a new 16-year low.

As someone who has been in love with film ever since I first watched the flickering image of Indiana Jones racing through jungles and deserts to defeat the plans of Adolph Hitler, as someone who has even taken a stab or two at selling a screenplay, I find myself wondering: why?

Is it simply a matter of cost?  Have ticket prices finally soared too high?  I’m doubtful.  For while there is no doubt that tickets are increasingly expensive, Americans aren’t typically reticent to drop serious cash when it comes to entertainment.  Consider the video gaming industry.

According to the NPD Business Group, in 2004, the video gaming industry brought in $9.9 billion in sales.  In the same year, the movie industry experienced roughly equivalent sales of $9.4 billion.  But six years later is a tale of two industries.  The film industry had sales of $10.56 billion, while the video game industry sold approximately $18.6 billion in hardware and software combined.  So as you can see, even after two straight “down years” in the video gaming industry – years in which all three major gaming consoles are at the end of their product cycle – the video game industry has doubled it sales over the past seven years, while the film industry has remained essentially flat-lined.

Video game sales figures for 2011 have not yet been released.

So this isn’t about the cost of a movie ticket, because when it comes to entertainment, Americans will spend money.  So what do you think?  Is it about the quality of the product itself?  Is it about the emergence of affordable home theater experiences that can compete with movie houses?  I don’t know.  But as someone who is interested in film’s impact on culture, I’ll be very curious to see how Hollywood responds in the coming years.

Can He “Get Me Right?”: Doubt … (part 3)

This is the third post in an ongoing series on the role of doubt in the life and practice of the church. Other posts within this series include:

       Is There Room for An “Anthem of Doubt?

       Big Enough for Hate Mail: Psalm 88

In my first post in this series , I attempted to unpack the lyrics of U2′s classic track, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”  I began there because it was in the lyrics of that song that I found my way back to a faith in the atoning work of Jesus the Christ; and because it seems to me that we need to open this discussion of doubt amongst believers.  Having said that, there is a genuine danger in allowing the reader to falsely conclude that all doubt, such as that expressed by U2,  is a search on a long, heroic quest.  While that may be true to the experience of some believers in some circumstances, there is another, darker side of that coin that I suspect is behind most of the doubts that overwhelm us.  To help me illustrate my point, I want to introduce you to a song called “Get Me Right” by Dashboard Confessional.   Might I suggest you play the video as you read through the lyrics that follow.

Click to enlarge the lyric sheet

Much like the opening verses of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” the narrator of this song is on a journey.  Only here, he’s not looking for Jesus Himself, he’s looking for someone else that can point the way to Jesus.  And this, of course, brings me to my first point.  How often, in the midst of doubt, do we find ourselves unable to actually engage the one we doubt?  How often do we go looking for all sorts of other places were we can talk about our doubt, but not actually deal with it in a one to one fashion.  It’s as if a wife suspects her husband of marital infidelity, but instead of approaching him, she runs to all her friends asking them if they’ve seen anything?  At the core of our being, we were designed for relationship; and at the core of any relationship lies the ability to effectively communicate.  When we make the decision not to talk directly to the source of our doubts, we make a choice for ruptured communication, which almost inevitably leads towards a further fracturing of the relationship itself.

Now look towards the end of the song.  Do you see how the writer has shifted away from describing the journey and talking to his friend?  Do you see how he now begins to talk directly with Jesus?  Look at the difference in the lyrics.  In the first half of the song, the singer is building up the courage to talk, nervously commenting about the woods and the stairs leading up to the house and his friend’s recent hair cut.  But when he actually engages in prayer, the lyrics ascend to new heights of transparency.  Now, face-to-face with the one he doubts, he can unleash everything he is feeling.

What do you think?  Do you think that doubt can be lessened by talking directly to the One that you doubt?  Or is that asking too much of the individual who is struggling to believe?