Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Christian Filmmaker Befuddled Over The Relationship Between Media & Religion

In an episode of Generations Radio titled “Filmmaker Chastises Christians For Watching Ungodly Films: Film Has Usurped Church”, Christian filmmaker Rich Christiano provided a summary of an upcoming project as well as reflections upon Christianity and the media.

In the synopsis, he name drops that the upcoming film features Harry Anderson.

The cinematographer reminds that Anderson, before his descent into obscurity, starred as the judge on the sitcom “Night Court”.

So if the truly sanctified believer is to refrain from these kinds of wordly entertainments, how is anyone in the listening audience even supposed to know what “Night Court” is?

Admittedly, I saw a few episodes of Night Court in my youth.

From what I remember, the comedy was heavy on innuendo,

I will confess I enjoy doubled-meaninged word play a little too enthusiastically at times.

However, I don't host a podcast insinuating that your daughter is going to end up being a lesbian if she's too infatuated from a literary or dramatic standpoint with the world of “Little House On The Prairie” as Generations Radio suggested some years back.

Are we to take away that it is acceptable to watch “Night Court” but we need to repent if we find “Hunger Games” to be an intriguing dystopian projection of the world to come in a few decades?

For this very same director that bragged about casting a former celebrity from “Night Court” insisted that it is not enough for a movie to be family friendly, wholesome, or make valid moral observations.

Rather, to be acceptable, a movie must deliberately push Christianity onto the viewer.

Christiano went on to lament how Christians don't get excited over Christian movies.

Sorry, but I don't plop down $10 for any movie where the characters do little more than sit around crying about their everyday feelings and common disappointments.

To be theater worthy in my opinion, considerable spectacle is needed such as some kind of mass battle, talking animals, robots, superheroes, space aliens, clashing wizards or spies.

Christiano further observed that someone couldn't remember what their pastor preached about a month ago but could recall details about “The Wizard of Oz” despite having not seen it in years.

Before heaping hellfire and damnation upon those that might respond similarly, a number of things need to be taken into consideration.

Firstly, how old are they now compared to when they first saw “The Wizard of Oz”?

So isn't that more of God's responsibility for how He allows the brain to decay overtime where it is often easier to recall things that happened to minutest detail 30 or 40 years ago but you can't for the life of you remember what you had for dinner last night?

Secondly, perhaps the blame should be placed more upon the pastor for lack of showmanship and presentation rather than upon the average Christian for failing to retain the intricate details.

For I am sure the next time that there are flying monkeys and dancing midgets in church that you are going to remember it.

Which brings the discussion to another very important point.

One goes to the movies precisely to see an out of the ordinary spectacle.

That is not the the case necessarily in regards to a church worship service.

Upon further consideration, what is retained from a sermon might not be all that different from what is retained from a film.

For example, unless one sees especially at a young age a particular film over and over again, does anyone really retain much beyond a memory of the basic plot usually?

As I approach middle age, sometimes I find I can't recall what happened the previous week on some of the dramas that I follow quite closely.

Thus, instead of condemning a congregation or group of random Christians if they can't elaborate the specifics of a single sermon, shouldn't the professional clergy be more pleased and concerned that those under their care recall the main points of the comprehensive Christian saga rather than the obtuse actions of a single Old Testament character with a name that defies pronunciation?

Along the lines of this criticism about the moviegoer longing for innovation and spectacle, Christiano lamented how movies never satisfy and people always want to see the next big blockbuster.

Let's apply that presupposition to other aspects of life one would otherwise consider wholesome, admirable, and desirable.

For example, according to this logic, shouldn't it be enough to go to church once and never have to go again to quench one's spiritual thirst?

If one's marriage is truly based upon love and not upon the titillation of fleshly desires, by Christiano's thinking, would a couple need to enjoy carnal relations more than once throughout the course of their entire marital union?

Media spectacle will never replace sermonic exposition as the primary didactic methodology through which concise doctrinal content is transmitted to the believer.

However, it often seems that certain Evangelical factions aren't that interested in making much use of these supplementary media formats to augment the learning experience.

In regards to the upcoming “AD” miniseries, the hosts of one program after remarking just moments before about the tendency of a number of Christians to stay in their own bubble, didn't really give much of a reason to avoid the production other than that its producer Roma Downey is a Roman Catholic with mystical New Age tendencies.

Wouldn't it have been better to wait and see if there are any factual errors in Downey's narrative rather than condemn the production on the basis of whatever errant peculiarities she might gravitate towards in the personal aspects of her devotional life?

After all, most conservative Evangelicals allow the King James Bible to stand on its own merits without the homosexual and Romanist proclivities of the monarch for which this translation of divine revelation is named allowed to detract from its literary, historical, or theological merits.

Like it or not, believers find themselves in a culture surrounded by media.

It is therefore imperative not only to figure out how the media can be used to disseminate the Christian worldview but to also understand where the methodologies of entertainment and the church can diverge from one another without there having to be a spirit of hostility between the distinct purposes of each of these modes of communication.

By Frederick Meekins

Friday, February 13, 2015

Worldview Clashes In Super Bowl Commercials As Riveting As The Actual Game

A variety of assumptions worthy of additional comment were propagated for public dissemination through a number of Super Bowl commercials.

In one anti-bullying spot, a social engineer instructs the one to be mentally reconditioned to run or fight like a girl.

Upon compliance, the unenlightened male is subjected to Pavlovian denunciation (akin to what one would receive in a prisoner of war camp) over how he has insulted his sister.

Rather than an instructive analysis of preconceived notions, the lesson to be learned from the public service announcement is that, irrespective of whether you comply with or ignore orders issued by a women, you are going to be reamed a new one anyway.

For if the ambushed lad had not been told to run like a girl, he would have not likely perpetrated the offending action.

If producers of this broadcast spot are so outraged about thought crimes regarding gender, it would be interesting to hear their perspective regarding the commercial featuring perennial pottymouth Sarah Silverman.

In that one, she says after delivering a baby to the parents, “Sorry, it's a boy.”

Would such blatant denigration of the female gender be permitted in a similar commercial?

Lastly, what about the Scientology advertisement?

In 2011, Fox rejected a Super Bowl commercial that broadcast the message, “John 3:16, what's that mean?” on the grounds that the message contained too much religious doctrine.

Of course, that is unlike the moral-free content of the constant litany of erectile dysfunction commercials where the term “partner” but never “spouse” is constantly verbalized.

It is certainly instructive that programming executives at NBC had no problem, however, with a commercial for Scientology, which is a cult that believes that human beings are reincarnated space aliens and whose sexfiend founder tried to live aboard a cruise ship in order to elude capture for his assorted crimes.

It is easy to assume that the commercials are a momentary distraction allowing the viewer time for a quick trip to the bathroom or to grab another handful of chips.

However, in those brief 30 second spots, there is a contest underway for minds and at times even souls that is as pitched as any struggle on the gridiron

By Frederick Meekins

Friday, February 6, 2015

Did Chuck Swindol Overreact To Elijah's Declaration Of Despair?

A Facebook theologian has commented in agreement with Christian broadcaster Chuck Swindoll that we should never pray for God to take a loved one home to eternity.

It is contended doing so can apparently derail His sovereignty.

Apparently, if we believe that He is sovereign, we should know that He is fully capable of taking us home when He believes that the time has approached.

Isn't that formulation itself an affront to God's sovereignty?

For if God is sovereign in an absolutist sense and the religious thinker not precise in their statements worthy of considerable condemnation as the ultra-Reformed insist, doesn't God KNOW rather than BELIEVE?

In such a theology as being advocated by this Facebook theologian, prayer is not about bringing our requests and concerns to God but rather about formulating statements that we think will make us appear exceedingly pious before certain audiences.

Just how far are we to take the presupposition embodied by this religious postulation under consideration?

If it is wrong to pray for God to mercifully end a life that is suffering, is it just as wrong to pray that God restore life and vitality to a life that He might prefer to draw to a conclusion in this world?

And given that this criticism was posted by someone that is quite vocal in expressing their support of a predestinarian understanding of soteriology so thoroughgoing as to deny any place for human choice and liberty, it must be asked is it a sin to pray for the salvation of a family member that God would rather see slip into Hellfire and damnation?

As justification for this position, the account of Elijah is referenced.

In I Kings 19, while on the run from Ahab and Jezebel, Elijah succumbs to a moment of despair where he declares to the Lord, in verse 4, “I have had enough, Lord. Take my life. I am no better than my ancestors.”

From the Lord's response, apparently unlike Chuck Swindol, the Lord did not find what Elijah asked that much of an outrage.

Instead of chastising Elijah for his despondency, on two occasions the prophet was given a meal so that he might have strength for the journey that was ahead.

Thus, about the only conclusion that can be drawn from Elijah's lamentation that God end his life is that God does not always answer our prayers the way that we would like.

And if He does not, we might find Him lending us assistance in ways that we did not initially expect.

By Frederick Meekins

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Do The Truly Redeemed Retain Health Insurance?

An episode of a Christian talk show insinuated that, if you retain traditional health insurance or what still passes for it under the Obama regime rather than one of these cost sharing programs harped about during the advertisements, you aren't trusting in God.

Furthermore, it is pointed out, if you retain traditional insurance, you are sending your money to a large corporation rather than assisting fellow believers.

So long as I get the services I contracted for in a satisfactory manner, what do I care if a corporation is large?

The broadcasters claimed that insurance allows for control over people's lives.

Instead, believers would be better off if oversight over medical affairs were transferred to the church.

But what is to prevent the church from exercising increased control over people's lives or from allocating access to healthcare in a preferential manner?

For example, would ecclesiastical medicine be dispersed to the truly ill or to the missionary couple with the saddest sob story with so many children that you can't help bring to mind the old nursery rhyme about the old woman that lived in the shoe?

During the 1990’s, Christian broadcasters would dedicate entire episodes of their programs shilling for a telecommunications provider with the angle that if you remained with these companies you where as complicit with these companies in the part they played in furthering the agendas of pornography and homosexuality.

Despite such grandiose moralizing, the thing was that this service was a pain in the backside to use when you needed it the most.

Do you really want the same thing to happen to you in terms of securing essential medical services?

by Frederick Meekins

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Too Spiritual By Half?

In an exposition of Mark chapter 3, it was observed that Christ's first miracle after the commissioning of the Apostles was the casting out of a demon followed by the healing of Peter's mother-in-law.

The Lutheran seminarian insisted that this symbolically represented the precedence of the spirit over the human tendency to emphasize the body.

The expositor lamented that such a characteristic was the result of the sin nature.

But how is it our fault that the aspect of reality that is the fist to overwhelm our perception on an instinctive level is the physical?

We did not ask to exist as embodied intelligences.

That was part of our original design even in the sinless state.

Unless the demon was cast out first of the person whose body Christ healed and He then had them wait in contemplation for a time before He healed their biological infirmity, isn't this reading too much into the passage?

If one wants to be that attentive to the text, the first miracle in the chapter is actually the bodily healing on the Sabbath of the man with the withered hand.

And what about taking the Four Gospels as a comprehensive totality?

If so, isn't the turning of water into wine at the wedding feast actually thought to be Christ's first miracle?

So do we want to start reading meaning into these as well other than what we are told in the text?

The case could be made that, in terms of a miracle, turning water into wine would appeal more to man's extraneous physical desires than a desire to avoid overwhelming pain and disability.

You make a choice for wine; by design you feel a compulsion to seek the alleviation of pain.

Furthermore, are Lutherans really sure they want to open the door of reading profounder spiritual meaning into the miracles beyond the miracles themselves?

John 2:3 reads, “And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus said unto him, They have no wine.”

Since Christ ultimately relented to her request, why shouldn't we build detailed Christological speculations like one particular denomination does about how Christ's decisions are especially swayed by her contemplative petitions if we are going to read profound truths into something as commonplace as the order in which Christ performed these miracles?

If the definition of God's omniscience is that the Deity knows everything, wouldn't that also include alternative temporal potentialities?

Therefore, isn't it just as valid to conclude that, if Jesus went first to heal Peter's mother-in-law, Christ night not have gotten around to this particular demoniac before this pitied soul's life ended in some convulsive spasm?

Among Bible scholars and theologians, the Gospel of Mark is noted as a summarative action oriented narrative.

Why would there need to be some esoteric reason as to the order in which the events described transpired other than that this was the order in which events “organically” unfolded around Jesus?

By Frederick Meekins

Monday, February 2, 2015

Christian Publisher Targets Children With Leftist Indoctrination

The Eeerdman's Books For Young Readers spring 2015 catalog contains a book titled “Edgar Wants To Be Alone.”

According to the synopsis, Edgar doesn't like company but notices he is followed by a worm. So he tries to get away from the invertebrate.

The summary reads, “Edgar asks for the other animals on the farm to help him, but eventually he realizes he might have been part of the problem all along.”

One cannot comment definitively without having read the story.

However, the question can be raised why does a children's book need to paint those that might prefer to be alone to as if they are defective or some kind of villain?

Will there be a sequel to the story teaching the worm about the impropriety of pushing his affections upon those that don't want them?

Perhaps the text could be titled “Wiggly Worm & The Restraining Order Process Server”.

Some might think that I am reading too much into a children's book.

Eerrdman's has published another storybook by the very same author titled “The Chicken's Build A Wall”.

That book is advertised with the following copy: “At the farm, the chickens are building a wall, convinced that the hedgehog that wandered in must be trouble. But eventually they discover that he might not be as dangerous as they thought.”

Only the most obtuse liberal (of the variety those publishing this propaganda hope children will be indoctrinated into becoming) will refuse to acknowledge the kinds of agendas such a narrative is promoting.

Firstly, just because the first hedgehog is harmless, isn't it just as much an act of unconscionable prejudice to assume that the next hedgehog is just as affable?

Secondly, if the barnyard or however else you want to categorize their enclosure belongs to the chickens, on what grounds are the chickens obligated to allow the hedgehogs to remain there?

And if the flock does allow the one hedgehog to remain there, are the chickens obligated to allow his entire hovel to take up residence in the chicken coop?

Furthermore, if the hedgehog decides to move into the chicken coop, shouldn't the hedgehog learn to cluck like a chicken or will the chickens be required to grunt like a hedgehog?

It must also be taken into consideration how many hedgehogs can be allowed to move onto the farm before the farm begins to more resemble a hedgehog burrow rather than the original barnyard.

And perhaps most importantly, since it seems that the perimeter can be breached by an animal as innocuous (we are assured) as a hedgehog, shouldn't that serve as a warning for those chickens to get that wall erected before creatures of far more nefarious intent such as foxes, wolves, and weasels make their way into the chicken coop?

At that time, will these carnivores form lobbies and activist networks insisting that, since the hedgehog was allowed to take up residence without protest, that they too be allowed to remain even though their intention is to prey upon the chickens and destroy the avian way of life since these species have been in conflict with one another for nearly two millennia?

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a story can be just a story.

However, when an author or publisher is explicit in conveying didactic propaganda through the medium of a children's narrative, the discerning should not slink back in fear.

It is because such impressionable young minds are potentially on the line that such concerns must be raised with renewed vigor.

By Frederick Meekins