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Becoming a discerning consumer of entertainment and culture is one of the top goals parents and youth pastors have for the young people they love. Justin Taylor points us toward a helpful resource toward that end:
From Grant Horner’s new book, Meaning at the Movies (Crossway, 2010):
Perhaps the single most important philosophical question to ask when watching a film is, “What is the nature of humanity according to this movie?”
If one’s view of the nature of man (in theological terms, “anthropology”) is skewed, then everything else will be off. I cannot possibly emphasize this enough: anthropology is the key. Error at this point inevitably leads to greater error in many other places.
Every film contains presuppositions—and most contain overt statements—about the nature of mankind. The spectrum is deceptively simple:
The real issue is, what is the overall view of the nature of man presented by the film as seen by a reasonably perceptive viewer? This can largely be determined by considering plot, characterization, and the tone or mood of the film.
HT: Justin Taylor
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The town of Quincy, Massachusetts thinks they’ve come up with a way to stop people from looking at pornography on public library computers — name them and shame them.
Quincy Councilor Daniel Raymondi has suggested that the town make public a list of people who have viewed pornography on library computers within the past year. The council unanimously approved a resolution on the idea last week.
Will this work? Can shame shatter attachments to false gods and motivate life change? Is there a biblical case to be made for the use of shame, i.e., Ezekiel 16: 54,58-61? Can people even still be shamed in our culture or have we become confident in our sinful nature, has sin become so mainstream, that feeling a sense of shame isn’t possible?
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HT: Desiring God
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John 4:23-24 says this of worship:
” … the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Do you think the principle of worship found in John 4 applies to wearing a Christian tattoos?
>A Brooklyn middle school has asked its students to consider whether God should be treated as poetry, considered to be neither true nor false (read the article). I wonder if they mean that? Do the educators at this school consider this poem by Langston Hughes to lack truth:
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
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Are Easter eggs and hunts “too commercial,” and do they obscure the meaning of Easter? Why should the church sponsor something that has pagan origins? Could we be playing into Satan’s hands?
HT: Sojourn Church
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To overcome the divide, Greidanus asserts that historical texts are texts. Sermons must seek their point of departure not in the man in the pew nor in the history of redemption but in the historical text. One cannot detail the meaning of a particular text until one has listened attentively to that text. Because the exemplary method views the biblical stories as recorded to illustrate and depict concretely certain timeless “truths” that must be believed or certain timeless “ethics” which must be lived, it does not really need a preaching text form the Bible. But the redemptive-historical approach is liable to similar consequences in that it seeks to reach the facts behind the text to the detriment of the preaching-text. The text becomes a window through which to view the panorama of the upholding redemptive history. The text itself is no longer taken seriously.
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Jonathan McIntosh has a great post at rethinkmission.org about the danger of making a political ideology our Savior over Jesus. He addresses political conservatism, but his post could just as well been entitled, “Why Political Liberalism is Dangerous to the Gospel.” My position has always been gospel + politics = politics. I know many, many people vote based on a specific issue, looking to a political party to correct some moral failure that they perceive. For example, some vote for conservatives who say that they are prolife, but what have conservatives done in the past thirty years on that issue to be considered anything close to credible on that ultimate, in my opinion, moral failure in our world today? Check out Jonathan’s post, it’s worth your time.
HT: rethinkmission
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Christian Striver 