Tag: Kingdom Culture

What You Can Learn From Scrooge

Charles Dickens’s, A Christmas Carol, is, in my book, the best Christmas story of all time, with the exception, of course, of the real Christmas story.  I even included two different versions of the movie in my list of the Top 10 Christmas Movies Of All Time.

As we have done for the last several years, the wife and I attended the theatre Saturday night to watch the stage version of this classic. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen my tweets from the front row of the show (though I did so before the play began and during intermission). Continue reading “What You Can Learn From Scrooge”

Movie Review: Eat Pray Love

Eat Pray Love should have been titled Eat Pray Be Selfish.

I don’t know why I wanted to see this movie; maybe because I knew it wouldn’t be the typical two-hour chase scene shoot-em up.  I thought it had a good chance of being a thoughtful movie.

I didn’t expect it to be  a two hour tribute to narcissism. Somehow I hoped there would be more depth to the movie than the worn-out vacuous search for self, wrapped up in an existential faux spirituality.

Julia Robert’s character, Liz, decides she’s not happy in her marriage. Her husband hasn’t been unfaithful and seems to love her. They don’t fight, and if he’s guilty of anything it’s that he doesn’t worship her. Continue reading “Movie Review: Eat Pray Love”

Why Words Matter

CNN’s Anderson Cooper is worked up because in the trailer for Vince Vaughn’s new movie, The Dilemma, Vaughn’s character refers to a car as being “gay.”

Cooper said, “We gotta do something to make those words…unacceptable, cause those words are hurting kids.”

I guess Cooper is referring to homosexual kids who might take Vaughn’s character’s use of the word “gay” in a negative context and therefore as a moral judgment of their sexual conduct.

To the extent Cooper is condemning the bullying of homosexuals I agree with him 100%, and citizens of the kingdom of God should be the first to condemn such conduct.  The problem is I think Cooper is saying more. I think he’s concerned the word “gay” may take on a negative connotation.

If you’ve seen the clip from the trailer you know Vaughn’s character is not referring to a person but a car. He uses the word “gay” negatively, implying the car is effeminate, not the kind of car the average guy wants.

The irony is the homosexual community has already taken the word “gay,” a perfectly good and positive word, and, by using it synonymously with the word “homosexual,” given it a negative connotation.

Think about it. Do you ever use the word “gay” in a positive context any  more? Do you ever say, “I felt so gay today,” or “I was in a such a gay mood”?  The only time you see “gay” used in a positive light is in old movies, before the word was hijacked by an interest group with a public relations problem.

My point is not to pick on homosexuals.  It’s not just homosexuals who have indulged in this wordplay.  Heterosexuals who call adultery an “affair” are replacing a negative word with a positive one and impliedly redefining the morality of their conduct.

Anyway, that’s the point I wanted to make, you know, the irony. . . oh, and also, that words matter.  Be careful how you use them. GS

Movie Review: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

“Greed is good,” according to the villain of the “victimless” crime, Gordon Gekko. Oliver Stone disagrees, and he makes sure you understand it in his latest movie, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Gekko is out of prison and lurking in the background of the stock market’s most recent collapse, playing the role of prophet and profiteer. You don’t know whether to love him or hate him, and that’s the way Stone wants you to think about Gekko because, as Gekko says, “We are all a mixed bag.”

Some bags are worse than others though, and in this movie, as in the original classic, Wall Street, the bad are the greedy.

Although the movie suffers from some preachiness and too much reliance on narration, the message is a good one: Greed is not good. For this Stone should be commended. He drives his point home on so many levels one can hardly miss it.

Greed is what cost Gekko his marriage, his daughter’s love and his son’s life. Greed is what cost taxpayers a $700 billion government bailout, millions of jobs and the worst economy in 70 years.

This is a movie Christians should encourage people to see because its message is one straight out of the Book: the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. (I Timothy 6:10).

There is no nudity or sexual content in the movie, and little profanity, if any.

However, I am confident that because Christians perceive Oliver Stone as a liberal they will not flock to this movie and will not encourage others to do so. This, I fear, is evidence too many Christians value politics more than virtue.

The bottom line is that this is an entertaining movie with a great message. It’s a movie worth seeing. Rated PG-13. GS

A Different Approach To The Issue Of Abortion

 

With health care at the forefront of the public debate, the issue of abortion is back in the news again.  I realize this is a very controversial and emotional issue, and my intent is not to polarize people further. I even debated whether to publish this post, but I decided to do so because I believe there is a rational path toward resolution on this issue.

The problem with the issue of abortion is both sides start from opposing presuppositions.  Pro-lifers presuppose a fetus is a human life.  Abortion-advocates presuppose a fetus is not a human life, or that it is not until it becomes viable, or they are agnostic and believe a woman’s choice trumps all.  Because both sides start from opposing presuppositions they will never reach the same conclusion.  Any resolution is dependent on one or both sides starting from a different place.

I propose both start from a more humble and honest place: the place of uncertainty.  The great jurist, Learned Hand said, “The spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not sure it is right.”  That is a great place to start.

I think there is great evidence, both scientific and Biblical, that a fetus is a human life, but I am willing to set that aside and state that I might be wrong.  If you are on the other side of the issue you will surely admit you cannot know for certain that a fetus is not a life.  It may be. It may not be.  You may have an opinion, but you cannot honestly say you know for certain.  Now that we are at the same place–the place of uncertainty–we have something to talk about.

Suppose we were out hunting and you saw something moving in the thicket in the distance you thought was a deer, but you were not sure.  It might be a deer, but it might also be a man. You are uncertain.  Would you pull the trigger?  Would anyone? Would you take the chance of killing a human being? Of course not.  The issue of abortion is no different.  If you cannot be certain a fetus is not a human life you cannot advocate abortion; and the truth is you cannot be certain.

What happens is people allow expediency or the mother’s preferences and desires to trump their uncertainty.  But this is not rational, nor in the face of uncertainty can it be ethical.  It’s just expedient.  It’s no different than slave owners deciding African-Americans were not fully human because slave owners didn’t want to give up their cotton and tobacco profits.  I’ve never had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy and while I can guess, I cannot say I fully understand what a mother of an unwanted pregnancy feels in the moment of decision.  But I don’t need to know because we are trying to arrive a rational, ethical decision, not an emotional one.

Anyway, that’s how I see it, but I may be wrong.  GS