Christian Carnival CCLXIII

Assuming I remember my roman numerals, I think that's the 258th Christian Carnival, hosted this week at the Evangelical Ecologist (a good blog about environmental issues from a Christian perspective). It includes my post on "engaging culture."

Enganging Culture Means All Culture--Not Just What's Hip

Owen Strackan gets it exactly right (HT Christ and Pop Culture):

Readers of this blog will know that I want to “engage culture” even as I want to be what is often called “incarnational.” But as some are increasingly pointing out (see pastor Kevin DeYoung’s hilarious and correct post on this topic), engaging culture does not mean that one must own a Mac, listen to Sufjan Stevens, Bob Dylan, and Bon Iver, watch CNN, listen contemplatively to NPR, drink local-brand coffee only, and cultivate stylish facial hair.

One may be engaging culture with these sorts of life choices. If so, terrific! But isn’t one also engaging culture, so to speak, by listening to Hank Williams, eating at Wendy’s (note: I do not encourage this), and seeking to witness at the local truck stop? Are these things not “culture” that we should engage? Or is “culture” only what is branded cool by the upwardly mobile?

It seems to me that many of us have become so concerned about distancing ourselves from fundamentalism that we have abandoned the low-brow culture entirely. We tell ourselves that this is part of our witness--that we want to show that Christianity doesn't have to be ignorant and backwards-looking--but the truth is, we've grown comfortable with our "upwardly mobile" lifestyle and don't want to give it up. Jesus commanded us to "deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me," but it's a lot easier to pamper yourself, take up your Starbucks and follow what's cool.

Abortion and Teenage Pregnancy By State

For those who have not been following the comments on my recent post on the Freedom of Choice Act, an objection was raised that restrictions on abortion merely trade a lower abortion rate for a higher rate of teenage pregnancy. Now those who believe abortion is murder might think that a reasonable trade--the lesser of two evils and all--but even if so, it is hardly an ideal situation. Better by far would be to reduce both teenage pregnancy and abortion, and a truly pro-life position must not ignore the negative consequences of its actions. Thus N. Adam claims the pro-life acceptance of this trade-off is one more instance of our "caring more about the welfare of the unborn than the born."

In support of such a claim, it can be pointed out that most of those states with the highest teenage birth rates are in the South, and many of these are Red states. These numbers are a bit skewed, however, by the fact that a high abortion rate can mask a similarly high pregnancy rate. Still, even when comparing overall teenage pregnancy rates, it is clear that the South is not doing well. According to the Guttmach Institute (an arm of Planned Parenthood; figures are for 2000, the latest I can find), the five states with the highest teenage pregnancy rates per 1000 girls are (with Abortion rank and percentage):

1. Nevada: Pregnancy rate 113/1000 (Abortion: 4th highest; 36%)
2. Arizona: 104 (A 19th; 21%)
3. Mississippi: 103 (A 28th; 16%)
4. New Mexico: 103 (A 18th; 22%)
5. Texas: 101 (A 26th; 17%)

Nevertheless, the fact that these are all in the South, and include some states with pro-choice policies (e.g. Guttmacher ranks New Mexico the 6th best for "efforts to help women avoid unplanned pregnancy") strongly points to a cultural factor--this is clearly not just a matter of access to contraception and abortion or even "Red vs. Blue." Thus, some very Red and very anti-abortion Midwestern states (like the Dakotas) are among the lowest in pregnancy and birth rates: North Dakota has the best overall teenage pregnancy rate (42/1000) and the 3rd best abortion rate (8%); South Dakota has the 7th best pregnancy rate (54/1000) and the 2nd best abortion rate (7%).

These numbers are also skewed by the fact that abortion restrictions and contraception restrictions (too) often go hand-in-hand, especially in the South. So if we want to get a better idea of the impact of abortion restrictions themselves--and thus the likely impact of FOCA's passage, which would eliminate all such restrictions--we should instead look at the rankings for highest abortion percentages, and here the claim that increased access to abortion lowers teenage pregnancy rates collapses in ruin. According the Guttmacher Institute's own numbers, the five states with the highest teenage abortion rates are all among the top 16 highest teenage pregnancy rates, and all are Blue states (with overall teenage pregnancy rank and rate/1000 girls):

1. New Jersey: 47% Abortion rate (Pregnancy rank 16th highest; 90/1000)
2. New York: 46% (P 14th; 91)
3. Maryland: 38% (P 13th; 91)
4. Nevada: 36% (P 1st; 113)
5. California: 36% (P 7th; 96)

Predictably, four of these states have very permissive abortion laws (California, Maryland, New York and New Jersey; Nevada is something of an exception, and in fact is not clearly Blue, though it went for Obama). More surprisingly, and according to Guttmacher, three of the four provide excellent access to contraception and related services: California (1st), New York (5th) and Maryland (12th) are all in Guttmacher's top 12, though Nevada (34) and New Jersey (43!) get low scores. In other words, these states have some of the best access to abortion and contraception but not only have very high abortion rates (predictably), but also have consistently higher teenage pregnancy rates. In contrast, the five states with the lowest abortion rates are all among those with the 25 lowest teenage pregnancy rates:

46. West Virginia 10% abortion rate (Pregnancy rank 35th; 67/1000)
47. Kentucky 8% (P 25th; 76)
48. North Dakota 8% (P 50th; 42)
49. South Dakota 7% (P 44th; 54)
50. Utah 6% (P 45th; 53)

Note that this does not just measure overall numbers of abortion, but the abortion rate per pregnancy. In other words, Utah, South Dakota and North Dakota are not just low on the list because they have few pregnancies; they have the fewest pregnancies and the smallest percentages of those pregnancies end in abortion. Four of these five states have in place the very laws FOCA would eliminate (West Virginia is the exception).

Now clearly there is much more involved in these differences in teenage pregnancy and abortion rates than a few parental consent laws. There are, very obviously, strong cultural differences that no laws (for or against abortion) can eliminate. Thus, it is often rightly pointed out that, even if criminalized, many women would still seek abortions (though clearly this is more true in certain parts of the country than others). But the opposite is also true: even where abortion is legal, it can remain rare if the culture continues to view it as objectionable (as in parts of the Midwest), and this by no means needs to lead to higher pregnancy rates. In short, and as I have emphasized on numerous occasions, it is not the laws that need fixing so much as people's hearts and minds. So long as we pretend that casual sex and abortion can be morally neutral and consequence free, we will have states like New Jersey and New York with extremely high abortion and teenage pregnancy rates.

But at the same time, it can hardly be an accident that four of the five states with the highest rates of abortion already have FOCA like laws on the books and yet still are among the worst in teenage pregnancy, while four of the five states with the the lowest abortion rates have the very kinds of laws FOCA would repeal and some of the best rates of teenage pregnancy. All of which renders very problematic the claim that restricting access to abortion inevitably leads to higher rates of teenage pregnancy. If anything, the opposite seems to be the case.

Quote - Religion in the Ancient World

A nice summary by John Kloppenborg, in his interesting little book on Q: The Earliest Gospel:

In the twenty-first century we usually think of religion as a discrete and identifiable aspect of culture and distinguish it from economics, politics, education, and other cultural domains. Yet in the ancient Mediterranean languages there is no word at all that is equivalent to our abstract term "religion." There are words for altars, sacrifices, prayers, and temples and words for attitudes towards gods (piety, impiety, fear). But there was no collective word that gathers all of these into a single domain, distinguishable from the city, the empire, the army, trade and professional associations, and other social institutions. Religion in the ancient world was embedded in these institutions. (pg. 85)

Quote - Science Fiction and Heroism

Sean Cubitt, editor of Aliens R Us: The Other in Science Fiction Cinema, from an excellent interview at TheoFantastique (HT James McGrath):

In the West today, we live in a deeply managed society. From traffic regulation to the management of crowd movements through malls and stations and airports; from statistical aggregation of behaviour to the management of supermarket stock, our societies work on probabilistic predictions that tomorrow will be pretty much the same as today - within statistical variations which themselves can be planned for. In this kind of world, action is incredibly difficult. It’s even more difficult because we are told over and over in our stories that only individuals can take action. But how can little me make an action that changes global warming? I can’t. We feel like action is impossible. In SF, action is possible, heroism, sacrifice, generosity, making a moral choice, changing the course of history.

Private Vice and Systemic Evil

Human nature being what it is, we almost never admit that something we do habitually is wrong. We might condemn others for doing the same things, or critique our own vices in the abstract, but if it is something that we do not want to give up doing, we will pretend we are innocent, and either deny it’s a vice at all, or pretend that we don't do it. It is for this reason that moral arguments can place very little stock in claims that come in the form: “I’ve done such and such for years and it’s never done any harm.” Such claims are rarely credible and have been used to justify of all manner of systemic evil.

To see this, consider an example that may at first seem trivial, but turns out to be anything but: Speeding. Most of us consider speeding a minor vice at worst, and could give a thousand reasons why it really isn’t that bad, how it has never done me any harm, how it is sometimes more dangerous not to speed, etc., etc., etc. But the truth is these are just excuses. We enjoy speeding, it gives us a thrill and, supposedly, saves us time, so it’s tempting to dismiss it as harmless and acceptable. Thus, even when we do get in an accident, this rarely convinces us to make a consistent or concerted effort to change. We just do not want to make the sacrifices necessary, even though an honest appraisal would recognize that speeding doesn't actually save as much time as we imagine, and adds a great deal more stress than we usually admit.

For the truth is that speeding is not harmless at all. It directly contributes to auto accidents which injure or kill over 50 million people a year and cost untold billions in property damage. Though we like to tell ourselves that speeding is a private choice, that we are adults who know the risks and have the right to take them if we wish, speeding does not just affect the people who do it; it impacts everyone around us: other drivers, pedestrians, the families of those hurt or killed, businesses and insurance companies, health care providers, law enforcement and other government agencies, and through them, all of us. Though we, as individuals, may be lucky enough not to be seriously harmed by it, every individual choice to speed carries these risks and encourages others to speed as well.

Moreover, even when it doesn’t cause an accident, speeding uses more fuel, which costs more money and contributes to the energy crisis and all the attendant evils that has wrought, environmentally, economically, geo-politically, and more. Therefore, while as individuals, it is easy to tell ourselves that our own speeding does no real harm, this ignores both the small-scale risks and the large-scale impact that our actions have on the world around us. Of course, there are various technical solutions offered to these problems—seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, etc.—and the development and use of such things should be encouraged, but if allowed to excuse speeding as a choice then they can only be self-defeating, for they do not address the real issue, which is moral, not technological.

As this example illustrates, self-focus and private vice, even in “trivial” matters, can sometimes lead to massive evils beyond any one person’s control. And this is not just true of speeding. Most vices, even those widely considered “private,” are defended with the same kinds of excuses, yet they result in similar large-scale tragedies when they become broadly accepted. For instance, and to take up an example from recent discussions, promiscuity falls into just this category. Though everyone knows the dangers, these are dismissed on a personal level with the excuse that “it’s my body and I have the right to do with it what I wish.” But as with speeding, promiscuity creates both potential risks and large-scale tragedies.

Each year, there are more than 340 million new sexually transmitted infections (virtually all of which derive from promiscuity) and 42 million abortions (at least a significant portion of which derive from the same). The widespread acceptability of promiscuous behavior has also drastically increased the rates of illegitimacy and single-parenthood, which in turn result in poverty, abuse and increased crime rates. This impacts not just the people choosing to be promiscuous, but their families and communities, local businesses, insurance companies, health care providers, law enforcement and other government agencies, and through them, all of us.

Additionally, by fostering a widespread belief that sex can legitimately be separated, not just from reproduction but from relationship, these have in turn increased the demand for and acceptability of prostitution, leading to a worldwide system of sexual slavery and human trafficking. As with speeding, of course, there are technical and legal methods of reducing some of these risks, but to appeal to the availability of contraception or some hope for better goverment control to justify promiscuity is rather like appealing to seat belts and traffic cops to justify speeding.

"Christian Atheism" and the Christian Carnival

This week’s Christian Carnival is up at Parables of a Prodigal World, including my review of The Shack and the usual assortment of interesting posts.

Readers might also be interested in this outstanding article on “Christian Atheism” at The Other Journal (HT James KA Smith, at The Church and Postmodern Culture):

Why Every Christian Should ‘Quite Rightly Pass for an Atheist’, by Jon Stanley:

Perhaps we will tolerate some level of ambiguity when it comes to politics. After all, it may be perfectly legitimate to be authentically “torn” between being either a Republican or a Democrat (and the Independent vote is becoming an increasingly viable position). But this level of ambivalence is rarely tolerated when it comes to religion. Being torn between being an atheist or a theist, or confessing one’s uncomfortability with the categories themselves, is usually interpreted as either weak-willed, weak-minded, or both....

[Yet post-modern philosopher Jacques] Derrida has continually drawn attention to the “porous boundaries” between atheism and theism. He speaks of a certain type of "theism" that “at times so resembles a profession of atheism as to be mistaken for it,” as well as a certain form of “atheism” that has “always testified to the most intense desire for God.”... While this may at first sound like an affront to believing ears, Derrida... is actually echoing a very biblical notion. In biblical terms, authentic faith is not characterized by the denial of one’s doubt and unbelief, but by acknowledging it (dare I say, embracing it), and praying along with the father of the boy who had just been healed by Jesus, “I believe, I don’t believe, help my unbelief.”...

For [Soren] Kierkegaard, the virtues that characterize the life of the one who recognizes they are always “becoming Christian” are “humility” and “rigor” (the humility of admitting that we have not fully arrived at Christ-likeness, and the rigor of the whole-hearted pursuit of becoming like Christ). Contrast these virtues with the vices of “pride” and “sloth” that characterize the life of the one who confesses to having arrived at “being a Christian.”

Read the whole thing, then read Ben Suriano's response:

On What Could Quite Rightly Pass for a Fetish: Some Thoughts on Whether “Every Christian Should ‘Quite Rightly Pass for an Atheist’”

Reclaiming something of the subversive core of Christianity in order to more radically challenge and transform our dominant social ideologies is of utmost importance for Christians today. Indeed, Stanley has done us a great favor in passionately articulating this urgent need, and I therefore stand with him in pursuing these concerns.

Yet I believe that such concerns could be more fruitfully pursued without an appeal to atheism or Derrida. I believe that, at times, Stanley obscures some of his best insights about the radicality of Christianity by placing too much emphasis on how it “quite rightly passes for atheism” and not enough emphasis on how it more significantly does “not quite” pass.

"Practical" Christianity

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend. I'm probably up to my sleep-deprived eyes in poopy diapers, but hey, I wouldn't have it any other way! The following was first posted here.

A common reason people reject or abandon Christianity is a feeling that it simply isn’t practical. For many in the average church, there is no obvious connection between what is preached on Sunday morning, and what they actually do the rest of the week. Talk of grace and eternal salvation, however uplifting, is often perceived as irrelevant to everyday life.

The problem is that we have shied away from the one aspect of Christianity that really is applicable – its moral teaching. Actually, that isn’t quite correct. The church hasn’t abandoned its moral teaching, but too often it has distorted it. Publicly, at least here in America, we have focused ever more attention on berating the surrounding culture for its sexual practices and selfishness, while paying ever less attention to the state of our own lives. Thus, the non-Christian world sees in Christian morality only a collection of harsh and unnecessary rules, because that is how many of our loudest advocates announce it.

Privately, countless churches do a wonderful job of living out the love of Christ, but as a whole, the Church in America has done a poor job of expressing its moral viewpoint to the outside world. How rarely do non-Christians hear that the heart of the gospel is actually a call to die to yourself, that you might live? How often do we show this by our actions?

The trouble is that we too often accept the assumption that the value of a thing lies in its utility. Dying to yourself is not practical; it doesn’t pay the bills or get you ahead on the ladder of success. Quite the contrary, it might even mean paying other people's bills and letting them go ahead. In the long run, this results in community, love, and mutual encouragement, but in the short run, it is hard, so we avoid it. Instead of dying to ourselves, we rest content in our cheap grace or pile harsh condemnation on those around us. In all that, we forget that Christian morality is intended to be a lively and liberating way of life, the outlines of what it means to be truly human. As N.T. Wright puts it in Simply Christian (by the way, Matt, I’ve changed my view of this book; the second half is excellent):

Only when we have set all that out quite clearly can we ever speak of “rules.” There are rules, of course. The New Testament has plenty of them. Always give alms in secret. Never sue a fellow Christian. Never take private vengeance. Be kind. Always show hospitality. Give away money cheerfully. Don’t be anxious. Don’t judge another Christian over a matter of conscience. Always forgive. And so on. And the worrying thing about that randomly selected list is that most Christians ignore most of them most of the time. It isn’t so much that we lack clear rules; we lack, I fear, the teaching that will draw attention to what is in fact there in our primary documents, not least in the teaching of Jesus himself.

The rules are to be understood, not as arbitrary laws thought up by a distant God to stop us from having fun (or to set us some ethical hoops to jump through as a kind of moral examination), but as the signposts to a way of life in which heaven and earth overlap, in which God’s future breaks into the present, in which we discover what genuine humanness looks and feels like in practice. (pg. 224-25)

If we want to change our culture, we must start by changing ourselves.

DailyLit.com

I recently discovered Dailylit.com, which would seem to be the ultimate triumph of the Internet over classic literature. It will send you moderate-sized portions of a book on a daily basis through email or RSS, so that you can read your Dickens or Hemingway without suffering the embarrassment of being seen with an actual (gasp!) tome in your hands. There are numerous classics available for free, and newer titles for the usual price of an ebook (though I’m not sure why you’d pay $5 for a book that will end up being scattered through your inbox in 100 installments).

Needless to say, I wasn’t sure how useful I would find the service, especially since I've never been able to get in the right frame of mind to read an ebook. When I’ve tried reading classics from Gutenberg.org, I generally find such a large block of text overwhelming, and give up after a few pages. Curious whether this “daily” format might help, I chose a classic (Pride and Prejudice, which I’ve always put off reading as a “girl’s book,” but recently very much enjoyed as a film) and set it to send the shortest amount possible per day, about half a chapter per email. At that rate, I’d finish Jane Austen’s classic in just 146 days! Heh.

It turns out, I’ve found that not only am I quite able to enjoy reading a novel in this form (at least one so well written as this), but that even after changing the settings to send three times as much text per day, I soon found myself repeatedly clicking the little link at the bottom of each email “to receive the next installment immediately.” For some reason, by breaking it up into manageable chunks, it’s easier to maintain my attention, even if I end up reading several portions in one sitting. In fact, I’ve read three-quarters of the book in the last 4 days, all in chapter and a half increments. I’m hooked.

So I guess that’s proof of my slavery to the Internet Age, but I can’t help but recommend the service, which provides a variety of options for how much and how often you want them to send portions of the book. My only complaints are that occasionally a paragraph break appears in the wrong place (not sure why) and it can feel a little unsettling to begin the next installment without having the previous one right in front of you. It sometimes takes a bit to remember what was happening (or even going back to the previous email for a reminder), especially when the previous day’s email ended in the middle of a chapter. Still, for a free service DailyLit is well worth checking out.

Fundamentalists Come in All Kinds

A minor explosion occurred this week in the “culture wars,” started by a surprisingly small fuse. It seems a certain Florida college student attended Catholic Mass at a local parish and, instead of consuming the consecrated bread (which Catholics believe is literally the body of Christ), he took it home with him. When he initially refused to return the wafer, he unleashed a storm of protest that might shock anyone unfamiliar with how seriously Catholics take the Mass. Among the hysterical reactions to the incident, a spokeswoman for the parish was quoted saying “if anything were to qualify as a hate crime, to us this seems like this might be it.” Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League, even called this an attempt to take “the Body of Christ hostage,” which was “beyond hate speech.”

In response, outspoken atheist scienceblogger PZ Myers wrote a blistering rant against “Dark Age superstition and malice,” mocking Catholics for even comparing the theft of “a cracker” with true hate crime:

Wait, what? Holding a cracker hostage is now a hate crime? The murder of Matthew Shephard was a hate crime. The murder of James Byrd Jr. was a hate crime. This is a g-------d cracker. Can you possibly diminish the abuse of real human beings any further?

Now if he had stopped there, I’d probably be agreeing with Myers, crude and disrespectful though he was. In fact, the student in question eventually returned the wafer because, he claimed, he felt his life was in danger. Ironic. Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to think death threats ought to be considered a more serious crime than disrespect of a religious ceremony. Jesus, I am sure, can handle the disrespect towards his Body shown by an ignorant college student “stealing” a consecrated wafer. But death threats against a student? How do you think Jesus views that? The Church, after all, is also believed to be Jesus’ Body, and I have a hard time accepting that a stolen piece of the consecrated bread can possibly be considered to do greater harm to that Body than the kind of vitriol some have leveled against this student.

Besides all that, I think the concept of “hate crimes” is seriously out of hand anyway, coming dangerously close to criminalizing thought. As I see it, if a crime is committed, the criminal should be punished for the crime itself, not for some presumed motive that the court attributes to him. Why should a crime be punished more severely just because it was motivated by hate rather than, oh I don’t know, spite, or greed, or lust, or even boredom? (For that matter, I'd think a person who can kill merely out of boredom ought to be considered a greater threat to society than one who kills out of hatred, but that's just me.) Intention should be relevant to crime, not the particular motive, or else we open the door to punishing beliefs and motives themselves, even where no actual crime is committed. In fact, that is precisely what has happened. Now that the concept of crime has been stretched in that way, simply saying certain politically incorrect things (like homosexuality is a sin) is now viewed as a “hate crime” by certain groups, which is not only absurd, but a serious threat to our freedom of speech. In short, “hate crimes” are ridiculous enough as it is, without adding disrespect for a religious ceremony to the list of illegal activities.

So like I said, if PZ Myers had stopped with defending the student and mocking Donohue’s absurd claim that the incident was “beyond hate speech,” I’d probably agree with him, though not with his abusive and vulgar tone. But Myers did not stop there. His post went on to encourage the willful desecration of the Eucharist:

Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers? There's no way I can personally get them — my local churches have stakes prepared for me, I'm sure — but if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I'll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won't be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a g-------d cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web. I shall do so joyfully and with laughter in my heart.

As you might expect, his horde of sycophants have added a few thousand comments offering more of the same. Apparently they are all so blinded by disbelieving indignation that Catholics would consider “a cracker” so important, that they fail to notice how Myer's own response is quite as absurd and over-the-top as Bill Donohue’s, indeed, much more so. But it seems there are Fundamentalists everywhere, and in the sequel, both Donohue and Myers have found their inboxes flooded with vile and hypocritical hate mail.

All I can say is, if hate were a legitimate crime, there seem to be a lot of people guilty of it right now.

Camping and the Christian Carnival

This week's Christian Carnival is up at Fish and Cans (be warned, the page loads pretty slowly; I think it's got too much stuff in its sidebar), and includes my post on Inclusivism and Injustice plus a whole lot of other stuff.

I also just started reading this fascinating article at The Weekly Standard on the changes in parenting practices over the last 50 years (HT: Maverick Philosopher, who's back after taking a month off blogging). I haven't had a chance to finish the article yet, but it's worth a look.

In any case, I'm about to rush off to go camping with my family, so I won't be back til Saturday. God bless and have a great week!

Quote - Wendell Berry on Art and Sex

Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community:

When sexual lovemaking is shown in art, one can respond intelligently to it by means of a handful of questions: Are the lovers represented as merely "physical" bodies or as two living souls? Does the representation make it possible to see why Eros has been understood not as an instinct or a "drive" but as a god? Are we asked to see this act as existing in and of and for itself or as joined to the great cycle of fertility and mortality? Does it belong to nature and to culture? Can we imagine this sweetness continuing on through the joys and difficulties of homemaking, the births and upbringing of children, the deaths of parents and friends--through disagreements, hardships, quarrels, aging and death? Does it encourage us to forget or to remember that "certainly it must come to pass that the very gentle Beatrice will die."?...

The relevance of such imagining is urgently practical; it is the propriety or justness that holds art and the world together. To represent sex without this fullness of imagination is to foreshadow the degradation and destruction of all that is not imagined. Just as the ruin of farmers, farming, and farmland may be predicted from a society's failure to imagine food in all its meanings and connections, so the failure to imagine sex in all its power and sanctity is to prepare the ruin of family and community life and of much else. In order to expose the privacy of sex, we have made of it another industrial specialization, leaving it naked not only of clothes and of customary discretions and courtesies but also of its cultural and natural connections. (pgs. 165-166)

Art, Nudity and Sex and the City

As you may be aware, the new Sex and the City movie has caused quite a stir in some Christian circles, for its graphic sexuality and nudity. Though the movie was mostly panned by the critics (Rotten Tomatoes has it at 52% - rotten), it was popular at the box office and at least a few Christians have written positive reviews (for instance, Barbara Nicolosi, whom I respect). When Christianity Today (CT) published its own quite positive review, however, it sparked so much controversy that they felt obliged to post a response defending their right to review morally objectionable films. Ted Slater then wrote a scathing Open Letter at Boundless Line (an arm of Focus on the Family), denouncing them for “promoting” such a film and calling them to repent:

Your review grudgingly admitted that "there is a lot of sex and nudity in the movie." Your disclaimer went on to say that this movie isn't for "some adults." By "some adults," do you mean those who take the call of Christ seriously, to flee sexual immorality and pursue a life of righteousness? And that other, less conscientious adults should disregard the pursuit of holiness and "enjoy" (to use a term from the original review) this portrayal of illicit vulgarity?

The post drew 150 comments and a number of blog reactions, ranging from enthusiastic congratulations to impassioned objections (for example, see these discussions at Christ and Pop Culture). The key issues at stake seem to be: 1. Is it OK for (some) Christians to watch sexually explicit films, and 2. If (some or all) Christians should not watch such things, do Christian publications have a responsibility not to “promote” them through positive reviews?

Now I have not seen Sex and the City, I have no desire nor plan to do so, and I’m not even that concerned to defend or condemn Christianity Today (I think their review was questionable, but Slater’s response was over-the-top). But these two questions are broadly applicable and have left me rethinking my own approach to film. The truth is, my own views have become much more permissive over the years. When I was single, I firmly believed that any nudity in film (and most sexuality) was sinful and not something I should see. I don’t think I was wrong, either; as a single guy that was a temptation I was not equipped to handle well. When other Christians tried to distinguish between “tasteful” nudity and mere pornography, I understood the artistic difference (sort of), but could not see the moral distinction. As far as I was concerned, any movie that included such a thing, no matter how good otherwise, was off-limits.

But since I’ve been married (five and a half years now), my views have softened and I find myself watching films with stronger sexual themes without qualm. Whether because I'm more mature, or just desensitized, I know that these films do not affect me in the same way that they once did. For instance, if I had watched Knocked Up as a teenager… well, let’s just say it would not have been good for me; but at this stage in my life its excessive sexuality left me more disgusted than harmed. It was gratuitous and immoral, but it’s a simple fact that such images don’t stick with me the way they did as a teenager.

More generally, I no longer think that the amount of nudity (or other immorality) is as important as the context in which it is shown. If deliberately sexualized, even implied nudity can be much more harmful than explicit (but non-sexual) nudity. An obvious example of the latter would be the nudity in Schindler’s List, which is very graphic, but not at all sexual nor gratuitous. In contrast, these days it seems like almost every soap commercial is filled with highly sexualized images of women showering. Though they never include full nudity, these ads present a sexuality with no connection to any relationship. Added simply to get a reaction out of the audience, it doesn’t much matter that the sexual organs are just off-camera, this is essentially pornographic.

Alternatively, if a film shows two people fall in love and then implies that they had sex (perhaps even showing some skin), that may often be immoral, but it’s not necessarily as harmful to me as a viewer – it largely depends on the moral tone of the story. Is it presented as a legitimate expression of sexuality or a mistake? Are the real consequences of sex recognized or ignored? Does the film have an overarching moral tone, or is it simply trying to titillate the viewer? Unfortunately, the vast majority of the sexuality in modern film falls into the latter category, but this is not always so, and when it is an important part of a redemptive story, even full nudity can be less harmful than using sensual images simply to induce a sexual reaction in the viewer.

But however that may be, such distinctions require a level of maturity that is not automatic. It’s not just that I didn’t recognize them when I was younger, but that I couldn’t. At that stage of my life, almost any nudity was liable to affect me as strongly sexual, and I have to realize that this is still true of many other (younger) Christians, some of whom may perhaps read this blog. I’m starting to recognize that if I’m going to discuss films or TV shows with sexual elements, I need to be more aware of this potential and do a better job than I have of warning about such aspects of anything I recommend or discuss.

Moreover, even such considerations do not excuse all my viewing of sexually explicit material. However I may have matured, I’m still a human male who (whether I see it or not) is liable to be influenced by the presentation of sex I see in the media. And just because I now believe that some nudity can be legitimate and, occasionally, even necessary, that doesn’t change the fact that most of what Hollywood produces does not fit that category. Even if I am better at recognizing and critiquing such distortions than I once was, that doesn’t mean it’s good for me to see such things. As St. Paul said, just because it’s permissible doesn’t mean it’s beneficial (1 Cor. 6:12-20).

As I’ve shifted from judging film by the amount of immorality it portrays, to judging by the overarching worldview it embodies, I may have become a more mature critic, but in the process have I rationalized my own exposure to immorality? Where once I would have rejected a movie with brief nudity or even just too much swearing -- even if the story as a whole was redemptive -- today I’m more likely to do the opposite, forgiving almost any fault if the eventual goal is positive or thought-provoking. Granted, the world can be a messy and immoral place, and it is legitimate for film to acknowledge that, but have I drawn the line too far? If a film does include gratuitous nudity and excessive sexuality, can I justify dismissing that just because the story symbolizes some spiritual truth that, frankly, I could just as easily learn elsewhere? I’m not so sure anymore. “Mature” or not, perhaps I’m more a child of my culture than I’d like to believe.

Review of Everything Bad Is Good For You - Part 2

As mentioned in Part 1 of this review, there is much in Steven Johnson’s book that deserves consideration as we think about the potential and dangers of modern entertainment. Before getting there, however, we must first step back and examine the book’s presuppositions: Everything Bad is Good For You, regrettably, suffers from a kind of schizophrenia of purpose that deeply undermines its force.

As the provocative title implies, Johnson wants to be iconoclastic, but in the end he’s too smart for his own good. His book brims over with qualifiers and his conspicuous back-peddling strongly suggests that the thesis has been hyped to increase sales (a tactic which worked, by the way). Everything Bad is Good For You quickly becomes something like: Pop Culture Is Smarter Than It Used to Be – Though Maybe It Still Can’t Compare to High Art – and Can Be Part (But Only One Part) of a Healthy Media Diet. The latter statement is certainly closer to the truth, even if it makes for a lousy title. But in shifting towards this more nuanced stance, his point is nearly reduced to an empty shell aimed at a straw man. There is much worth pondering here, but it’s up to the reader to sort it out of the rubble.

The problem, it seems, is Johnson’s willingness to emphasize the positives while downplaying or ignoring the negative aspects of these “distractions.” For instance, you will search in vain for a discussion of the close connection between infant TV viewing and attention deficit disorder. Similarly, Neil Postman’s point that our overly visual culture has diminished our tolerance for sustained public discourse is all but dismissed as irrelevant (I wonder if Johnson learned his lesson promoting the book on various talk shows?). He elects to focus on how TV lets us see our politicians in more candid settings – providing “valuable” insight into their integrity – while completely ignoring the medium’s far broader implications on the political process.

But television's predisposition to replace substance with image must not be ignored: It’s no accident that flashy crime dramas like CSI – with their high tech gadgetry, attractive actors and tidy conclusions – far outperform true crime documentaries. Real life can’t live up to fiction in any form, but no previous medium provides a more convincing illusion that its truncated worldview is actually educational.

Finally, by focusing on structure rather than content, Johnson misses a great deal of what is most important in determining the potential benefits and dangers of these media. For instance, it’s hard to believe that anyone would try to judge the “cognitive value” of 24 based solely on the number of plotlines and significant relationships it juggles – yet this is precisely what Johnson does! Apparently, he hasn't considered that by this standard daytime soap operas would be the smartest thing on television. And when he starts praising Reality TV because it can teach “social IQ,” I’m tempted to respond: Sure, and you can learn risk-assessment betting on cock fights....

Despite all of this, however, Johnson is right to criticize those who appeal to poor content in dismissing television and gaming as media. Not all television, movies or games are mindless – far from it – and just because some popular choices are immoral or worthless, does not prove these media are irredeemable. One need only mention The Da Vinci Code to realize the same criteria would also eliminate reading as a waste of time. Indeed, doesn’t even the Bible include a rather large amount of immoral behavior? Clearly there is more to the value of a medium than whether all of its content is “family friendly,” and Johnson is right to insist upon this. In Part 3, then, we will consider the more positive aspects of his argument.

Review of Everything Bad Is Good For You - Part 1

The following is a review I wrote a couple years ago, but never published. I will post it in three parts over the next three days:

Have you noticed how cell phones have replaced lighters at concerts? Where once we lifted little flames, we now raise tribute to a new addiction: modern technology. Welcome to our digital world, where every 3rd grader has a computer, and we’re hooked on television before we can walk. Conventional wisdom (including mine) finds something particularly apt in this connection between addictive drugs and modern technology. According to Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, the rise of television and its many offshoots has dulled our minds and undermined public discourse of the sort that previous, book-focused cultures supposedly maintained.

But what if this conventional wisdom is misleading? What if the attraction of these flickering screens derives less from their propensity for mindless distraction, and more from their participatory nature and underlying challenge? Addictive though they are, what if there are important aspects of the mind that such technologies actually nourish better than reading?

In his intriguing little book, Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, Steven Johnson suggests that this may well be true. He argues that by focusing so exclusively on the immoral content and non-literary nature of modern entertainment, we have missed the benefits our society has gained from this addiction. He argues that we must balance pop culture’s perceived dangers with an even-handed assessment of its potential rewards if we are to make informed decisions about its role in our lives.

To that end, he offers an impressive catalogue of intellectual skills that modern media, especially video games, have been unconsciously teaching us. These include the abilities to probe and explore one’s environment, to problem-solve and hypothesize, to strategize and anticipate the future, to assess risks and make decisions, to overcome failure and pursue goals, and many more.

Johnson suggests that even the notoriously passive medium of television has been growing ever more interactive in recent decades. Increasingly demanding programming has been steadily abandoning the “flashing arrows” and predictable stories that Postman lamented, forcing its audience to “lean forward” and “fill in” to make sense of the complex plots and social situations depicted on screen.

He also provides some interesting (though controversial) reasons to connect this “Sleeper Curve” of quietly increasing complexity, with the rising IQ scores of the 20th century known as the Flynn Effect. For he notes that the types of IQ test which have shown the most improvement are precisely those which measure the pattern-recognition and problem-solving skills video games teach.

For all these reasons and more, this breezy but thought-provoking book deserves wide consideration to balance the derision of critics like Postman. While there is much to question in this volume, there is also much that is worth earnest reflection as we seek to make our way through this inescapably technological world.

Continued in Part 2.

Card's Game

One of my earliest memories is of playing “Crystal Quest” on our Apple computer when I was 3 or 4 years old (my dad was a programmer, so we had a computer earlier than most people). As I grew up, video games were constant features of my childhood, and if it weren’t for my wife’s disapproving (but always correct!) comments, this would probably still be the case to this day.

I’ll admit it, I’ve always had a mild addiction to computer games (though never as bad as my youngest brother; at age 14 he was already webmaster for a fan-site devoted to WarCraft 2, which averaged 16,000 hits a day. At one point he held the first and third highest ranked usernames in the world, simultaneously). Needless to say, such games can eat up a tremendous amount of time if you let them, which is why I finally decided to give them up when I started working on my thesis a few months ago. To be honest, I really don’t miss them as much as I expected. Occasionally I’ll feel a little nostalgia for World of Warcraft, but generally I’m just glad not to be bogged down by them anymore.

If I needed any encouragement that I had made the right decision, though, I’ve just found it. There is an interesting article in The New Atlantis (an excellent journal on technology and culture, by the way) which discusses the video game addiction of one of my favorite science fiction writers, Orson Scott Card. According to the article, Card (author of the Hugo Award winning Ender’s Game among other works) has long been obsessed with video games. This should perhaps surprise no one who has read his books, most of which include such games in one form or another, but the article offers an intriguing glimpse into the wider impact of this addiction on Card’s career and works:

Neither a scientist nor a futurist, Card is a humanist, a surveyor of man’s potential for great reason as well as devastating violence, a defender of both faith and skepticism, a believer in the permanence of human nature and traditional social institutions, an imaginative writer who looks to the future and wonders not how society will be different, but how its inhabitants will be the same. To the extent that he has indulged in the elements that characterize so much of the genre—the geeky gadgetry and the theories of social development, the space suits, attacking aliens, and oppressive governments—it has been in the service of a deeper exploration of man’s motivations. His interest has been less in the minutiae of technology’s operations—the hows and whats—than in their moral aftershocks and in the tiny ways they shape the day-to-day existence of families and individuals, the life of the mind, and, occasionally, the tumult of the heart. That is, until recently....

Ender’s Game provides a soulful and complex portrait of both man’s primal drive for violence and his revulsion toward it, and, along with its first two sequels, Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide, it represents the high point of Card’s thirty-year career. In these novels, the often adolescent science fiction conceits he employs—they all revolve around violence, technology, and games—were a means by which to approach larger ideas about human failings and struggles. But in his recent work, Card seems happy to deploy the same devices purely in their own service. The juvenilia has persisted, and it has overtaken all else.

If you’re a fan of Card’s books, or of video games more generally, the whole thing is worth reading. As for me, I need to go bury myself in my studies again. A thesis, it turns out, takes up an amazing amount of one’s time as well!

The Religious Nature of The New Atheism?

I’m a couple weeks late on this, but I just discovered this wide-ranging critique of the new atheism by John Gray (HT: David Keen). I'm exceptionally busy at the moment, so I'll just say that I think the article includes some good insights but it’s far from perfect. You can decide for yourselves; here are some excerpts:

For Dawkins and Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Martin Amis, Michel Onfray, Philip Pullman and others, religion in general is a poison that has fuelled violence and oppression throughout history, right up to the present day. The urgency with which they produce their anti-religious polemics suggests that a change has occurred as significant as the rise of terrorism: the tide of secularisation has turned. These writers come from a generation schooled to think of religion as a throwback to an earlier stage of human development, which is bound to dwindle away as knowledge continues to increase. In the 19th century, when the scientific and industrial revolutions were changing society very quickly, this may not have been an unreasonable assumption. Dawkins, Hitchens and the rest may still believe that, over the long run, the advance of science will drive religion to the margins of human life, but this is now an article of faith rather than a theory based on evidence....

The growth of knowledge is a fact only postmodern relativists deny. Science is the best tool we have for forming reliable beliefs about the world, but it does not differ from religion by revealing a bare truth that religions veil in dreams. Both science and religion are systems of symbols that serve human needs - in the case of science, for prediction and control. Religions have served many purposes, but at bottom they answer to a need for meaning that is met by myth rather than explanation. A great deal of modern thought consists of secular myths - hollowed-out religious narratives translated into pseudo-science....

Belief in progress is a relic of the Christian view of history as a universal narrative, and an intellectually rigorous atheism would start by questioning it. This is what Nietzsche did when he developed his critique of Christianity in the late 19th century, but almost none of today's secular missionaries have followed his example. One need not be a great fan of Nietzsche to wonder why this is so. The reason, no doubt, is that he did not assume any connection between atheism and liberal values - on the contrary, he viewed liberal values as an offspring of Christianity and condemned them partly for that reason. In contrast, evangelical atheists have positioned themselves as defenders of liberal freedoms - rarely inquiring where these freedoms have come from, and never allowing that religion may have had a part in creating them....

The attempt to eradicate religion, however, only leads to it reappearing in grotesque and degraded forms. A credulous belief in world revolution, universal democracy or the occult powers of mobile phones is more offensive to reason than the mysteries of religion, and less likely to survive in years to come. Victorian poet Matthew Arnold wrote of believers being left bereft as the tide of faith ebbs away. Today secular faith is ebbing, and it is the apostles of unbelief who are left stranded on the beach.

Newbigin on The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society:

The Christian believer is using the same faculty of reason as his unbelieving neighbor and he is using it in dealing with the same realities, which are those which every human being has to deal. But he is seeing them in a new light, in a new perspective. They fall for him into a different pattern. He cannot justify the new pattern in terms of the old; he can only say to his unbelieving neighbor, stand here with me and see if you don’t see the same pattern as I do. (pg. 11)

Hooked on Sex

Mere Comments links to a long but interesting (and distressing) interview with Kathleen A. Bogle, author of the book Hooking Up: Sex, Dating, and Relationships on Campus:

Q: Can traditional dating survive alongside “hooking up"? Should the two paradigms coexist, or are they merging into a single overall “script” that students follow?

A: I think traditional dating is surviving alongside of hooking up in the larger culture, but on campus hooking up has replaced dating as the primary means for students to meet and form sexual and romantic relationships. This does not mean that students never go out for dinner and a movie. The “date” still exists among college students, but it is couples who are already in an exclusive relationship who do it. In other words, the pathway to a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship where a couple might go on a date begins with hooking up. In the dating era, students would go on a date, which might lead to something sexual happening; in the hookup era, students hook up, which might lead to dating. This is a reversal of the traditional order of things. The problem is that many college men are pleased with the status quo; they can hook up and if they want to pursue an ongoing relationship they can, but they are under no obligation to do so. Women, on the other hand, get increasingly frustrated after freshman year with how often it seems that hooking up leads to “nothing.”

To put a human face on what she's talking about, I'll repost some excerpts from a heartbreaking article that appeared in Rolling Stone in 2006:

I've come to Durham, like hundreds of journalists, to report on the [lacrosse rape] scandal enveloping this campus. But in talking to women at Duke, particularly those who know or run in the same social circles as the lacrosse team, I've begun to see the story as not a ''he said/she said'' tale, nor a story about sexual violence, but rather a story about sex itself. Not sex in its nitty-gritty, anatomical sense, but more in the collective sense: sex as a sport, as a way of life, as a source of constant self-scrutiny and self-analysis....

These women, who had won admission to one of America's most selective universities, had grown up in an age of triumphant feminism, but as they talked about the rape case -- as well as their own sex lives -- there seemed to be a disconnect of sorts. Feminism, which most women saw as a throwback, a "past social inequality," as one girl phrased it, has very little relevance to their lives. It was as if the endless discussion about sexual equality these women had been subjected to growing up had resulted in an almost abstract view of the topic.

Today's female college students are the impressionable middle-schoolers of the late 1990s -- the ones who made Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera icons of sexy, powerful young-womanhood. Now, these girls, too, can have sex -- with whomever they choose and whenever they might want it, in a number of ways, without even thinking about what it all means. And they do, says a sophomore I'll call Naomi (like several of the other women interviewed for the story, she asked that her real name not be used). "Sometimes, girls will be like, 'I'm just horny and I want to have sex,'"....

Much to the disappointment of many students, female and male, there's no real dating scene at Duke -- true for a lot of colleges. ''I've never been asked out on a date in my entire life -- not once,'' says one stunning brunette. Nor has a guy ever bought her a drink. "I think that if anybody ever did that, I would ask him if he were on drugs," she says. Rather, there's the casual one-night stand, usually bolstered by heavy drinking and followed the next morning by -- well, nothing, usually. "You'll hook up with a guy, and you know that nothing will come out of it," says Anna. The best thing you can hope for, she says, "is that you'll get to hook up with him again." Some girls they know have managed to score a regular hookup -- meaning consistent sex -- but others play the field, bouncing from one guy to the next....

The women laugh. But it's part of an overall trend that worries professors like [director of Duke University's women's center Donna] Lisker. "Our undergraduate women at Duke are the best of the best," she says. "They're so smart, so driven, top of their class, student-government presidents, lettered in every sport." But when it comes to their personal lives, men set the social rules. "They throw the parties, they create the expectations, they create the standards, and these women -- these incredibly smart women -- on some level, being accepted by their peers is so important that they put aside their own values and standards. They dumb it down."...

"They've gotten this message from the media and other places that part of being a modern woman is sort of playing with your sexuality. But you get in this situation where they think at this party that they're exercising control. They think that they're showing these boys how it's done by pouring grain alcohol down their throats, by dressing in a sexy way. What they don't necessarily get," she adds, "is that you put on that Playboy-bunny outfit and you're stepping into a history of objectification."

Knocked Up and Juno, “Pro-Life” or Pro-Family?

Carmen has an interesting post on Knocked Up and the other “pro-life” movies that have come out lately, over at In the Open Space. I hope she is right that they indicate a growing feeling that we as a culture have treated life too cheaply. I do think this is true in some ways – just consider the widespread concern over the death-toll in Iraq – but we still have a long way to go.

Of the movies she mentions, I’ve only seen Knocked Up and Juno, and while I can’t really recommend the first one (it is extremely crude), it does make some good points about the pain and beauty of childbirth, the value of love, and the importance of growing up. Best of all, it is marketed to the very people who need to be reminded of those things (see my review here). Juno is also a bit crude at times, but nothing like Knocked Up, and I would heartily recommend it. It is quirky and fun, and not only presents a good story about growing up and learning to love, but it also leaves you pondering the decisions the characters made. Not too many comedies manage to leave you thinking afterwards, and Juno succeeds admirably.

I think both movies could teach the pro-life community something, as well. Though both films are decidedly “pro-life” in the sense that abortion is rejected, I think their popularity even outside pro-life circles lies precisely in the fact that they are not focused on getting that message across. Knocked Up barely even considers abortion; the woman simply chooses to have her baby, and though Juno does make that decision more explicite, it doesn't dwell on it. In other words, both films are more concerned with telling a story than with pushing an agenda, which is why they work.

That much is obvious, but I think there is another reason these films have done better than others: They are more concerned with showing the value of love and family in a broken world than they are with criticizing abortion. People don't want to be lectured about how evil abortion is, but they are open to seeing how a child can foster love and bring people together, even when the circunstances are not ideal. In their own ways, both Knocked Up and Juno accomplish that very well, and those who would like to see the prevalence of abortion diminish would do well to follow their example.