A Couple of Interesting Movie Trailers...

The other night, I came across the trailer for Snow White and the Huntsman, which can basically be summed up as "Snow White done in the style of Lord of the Rings."



I'd heard about how they intended to remake Snow White with a more overtly-feminist SW who even goes into battle in full armor and I thought that was goofy and heavy-handed.  I have no objection to feminism--see my repeated denunciations of complementarianism--but given how most women aren't as physically strong as most men, medieval-style combat in heavy armor is not something they're especially suited for unless we're talking someone like Brienne of Tarth from the A Song of Ice and Fire novels who is unusually big and strong.

However, having watched the trailer, this actually looks kind of cool.  Epic battle sequences, the evil queen providing a very strong incentive for the Huntsman to kill Snow White, the much spookier Magic Mirror, a reason for the evil queen to want Snow White's heart specifically, monsters, etc.

My friend Korsgaard warned about Kristen Stewart's acting prowess.  I've never seen any of the Twilight films, so I cannot comment intelligently on whether or not she can act.  Let's hope she can pull this off.

And now we're onto the Hunger Games trailer...



I haven't been interested in the Hunger Games novels because I figured they were intended for younger people, but then, so is Harry Potter and that didn't stop me from writing two novel-length HP fan-fics.

However, a member of my writing group and my friend Jamie have both gotten really interested in THG, so writing it off as kids' stuff would be rather foolish.  Furthermore, in discussions of just what genre Battle for the Wastelands would fit into, someone pointed out that young adult fiction is predicated on the protagonist's age, not the content.  THG features teenagers taken as tribute by an evil government and forced to fight to the death, plus YA fiction from my own childhood (Gruel and Unusual Punishment and Weasel) could get pretty disturbing.

Oh well.  We'll see what happens when it's done and polished and sent to publishers.

The Sovereign Grace Meltdown Continues...

Things are getting more interesting at Sovereign Grace these days.  Here's something I found today at SGMSurvivors.

http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=2779&cp=all

The Washington Post getting involved could make things very dicey for Mahaney and his allies, especially if, as many of the people at SGMSurvivors and its associated site SGMRefuge have alleged, real crimes have been committed or covered up, including sexual abuse.

And it seems to me the members of these sites, despite having rejected SGM's authoritarian ways, still haven't gotten all the Kool-aid out of their systems.  In addition to the comments on that thread indicating fear of the secular media, some people from SGMRefuge have announced they aren't cooperating at all.

http://sgmrefuge.com/2011/08/17/the-washington-post-the-blogs-and-sgm/#comments

Here's where I vent:

One strategy to maintain power if you are a tyrant is to create an enemy to keep people rallying around the flag and obedient to the leadership.  The Nazis in Germany used the USSR and the worldwide Communist movement, the Soviets used the Western powers, the more obnoxious left-wingers in this country use the threat of a Religious Right theocracy, and the more obnoxious right-wingers make it sound like al-Qaeda is going to impose Islamic law in the United States if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq or somesuch.

In this case, the secular world and the media are serving as the monster intended to keep the rank-and-file blind and deaf to problems experienced by others and silent about their own experiences, just like "the bloggers" were used by the less moral SGM leadership.  Until the identity of the reporter inquiring about the doings within SGM was revealed, many people thought the Post would use the SGM situation as a club to bash Christianity and turn people off to the Gospel.

(Never mind that if the doctrine of election is true, there is no need to worry about how people view the Gospel since God will save whom He wills.  For all their talk of soli dea gloria, the Calvinists seem to place an ideologically-inconsistent amount of responsibility on man.)

I'm a newspaper reporter.  I've been an editor at a weekly since last January and worked at a daily for three and a half years since I graduated from college.  Before that, I learned journalism from some damn fine people at the University of Georgia.

Nowhere was I taught to be biased in favor of one side or the other, in favor or against any religion or political ideology.  In fact, one of my professors told me it was none of my business who he voted for.  Even though many reporters I've worked with were not always especially religious or politically conservative, all of my editors and publishers are/were Christians and at least some of them were Republicans, even if none of them were foaming at the mouth ideologues.

In journalism, we are taught to be factually accurate and not take sides.  If what we report pisses someone off, pardon my language, then chances are we're goring someone's sacred cow rather than lying.

(This is not to say dishonest or biased people are not active in journalism.  There are some, to our shame.  However, at least we're trained not to be biased or to let our biases interfere with our work.)

Certain parties like Tim Challies as well as those who still have some Kool-aid in their systems are quoting Scriptures about publicizing disputes within the church, gossiping, etc.  I imagine they're quoting the same Scriptures the Catholic leadership did over the years to justify covering up the fact that there were sexual predators in the priesthood, that efforts to treat them in-house had failed, and they were reoffending wherever the church moved them.

Remember the Lord Himself said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).  Jesus, Paul, etc. were concerned that the good name of Christianity not be dragged through the mud by people's stupidity and pettiness, not that gross sins and outright crimes be covered up.  Remember the Old Testament prophets criticized misbehaving kings and prominent people in public and Paul named names at times, so the Bible does not teach that we should indulge in sordid coverups and victim-blaming whenever bad things happen within the church.

And of course, one can't discuss SGM without Joshua Harris.  Harris is one of the few people in the Reformed movement who have weighed in the situation who is showing significant integrity, as witnessed by Al Mohler and Ligon Duncan as well as Challies.  He has acknowledged critics have legitimate points and even apologized when one of his statements was misinterpreted in an insulting way.  Although I have my issues with Josh both professional (complementarianism) and personal (the "courtship" ideology has not been good for my social life), I can respect honor, backbone, and doing what is right no matter the cost.

And Harris has paid a price already.  He has resigned, I suspect under pressure, from the SGM board, and two of Mahaney's sons-in-law have left Covenant Life.  I have read that he and Mahaney have historically been very close, so this must not be fun at all.  And if a breach between SGM and Covenant Life comes--which is possible, given how other leaders at Covenant Life have reached out to SGM's critics--I imagine the wrath of the various Reformed leaders who have sided with Mahaney will come down on him and his.  These are people he respects, so that sure as heck won't be a picnic.

Of course, he's still got his flaws--rather than telling all church members to read the documents revealing all the behind-the-scenes shenanigans among SGM leadership and then make an informed decision about staying with the church, he said heads of households should do that.  Said heads being, I would imagine, husbands and fathers.  Patriarchal democracy is an improvement over oligarchy or outright dictatorship, true, but every believer is a priest before God, not just male heads of household.

(Many Reformed and complementarians seem to think the husband/father is the priest of their family before God, which contradicts the doctrine--based on 1 Peter 2:9--that all Christians are priests.  The Reformers who fought against the Catholic system of priesthood would be spinning in their graves at the notion that not each and every believer is a priest before God, even if they weren't the most female-friendly people.)

There.  I'm done.  Now, the Bible does tell us to pray, so we should pray for everyone concerned, that justice be done if needed, that hurts be healed, and that the truth would win out.

Female Independence...In The Old Testament

I was reading on SGM Survivors about how Joshua Harris had apologized for some of the bad practices in the Sovereign Grace churches and found the following link in a discussion about the situation.

The Bondage of Betrothal

The article cites some passages in the Old Testament that openly contradict one of the sacred cows of the so-called "courtship movement" -- the notion that adult women must have some male figure in charge of them, be it their father if available, the pastor of the church or someone else if not, and he has veto power over their marriage decisions.

In I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Harris states that if one wants to ask a woman to marry him, he must ask permission of those "responsible for the girl"--until that point, I agreed with a lot what the book was saying about not dating stupidly, but that passage jammed down on my personal Berserk Button something fierce.  He later modified his position to be less controlling and reactionary in Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello to Courtship, but the principle is still there, albeit expressed in a more benign and good-intentioned way.

(The father as a means of deterring scummy, dangerous men, not as owner of property to be passed around.)

Although the Biblical passages are linked within the article, I'll post the links here as well.  After all, the Bible should be the standard, not the words of a charismatic speaker or writer on one side of the issue or another.

Numbers 27-Daughters come after sons (as was usual in the context of pre-modern societies) but before other male relatives in inheriting property.  The need for a male protector was much greater in those days due to society being poorer and more violent, but the passage does not say to give the property to male relatives and insist they provide for/oversee single daughters until they are married.

Numbers 36-In which fatherless daughters who have inherited property may marry whomever they like, provided it is within the father's tribe (to avoid land being transferred from tribe to tribe).  I don't think land is really an issue now.

As the article states, there is no reference to adult women being treated as being under the authority/protection of a related male until they marry.  No references to male "covering" or any of that un-Biblical nonsense.

On Coed Wrestling In Iowa....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110217/ap_on_sp_ot/us_girl_wrestler_default

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110218/ap_on_sp_ot/us_girl_wrestler_default

Came across this online the other day. This is likely to get inflammatory so here goes...

Firstly, I will give Joel Northrup credit for having convictions he's willing to suffer for. He could have won this tournament had he been willing to bend on this issue. Furthermore, this might even jeopardize his position on the wrestling team and through that, college scholarships and the like.

A lot of people pay lip service to a particular code or creed but aren't willing to stick to it when the time comes to sacrifice for it. And I will also give him credit for, despite he and his family likely having ideas about proper female behavior I don't agree with (see who is supporting him on this), not talking trash about the two female wrestlers for being unladylike, rebelling against their "God-given" gender roles, etc. and claiming that he's preaching truth to power or whatever excuse people use to make offending people into a sacred act.

The father of Cassy Herkelman, the female wrester Northrup didn't want to face, agrees with me too. Despite how he looks to others (see some discussion below), the man's got class. So does his daughter, based on her comments. Given the amount of crap I imagine they get because she's a girl competing in what has traditionally been a boy's sport (heck, see some of the comments from the Freepers), I could imagine both of them having gigantic chips on their shoulder about the issue, but they don't. Bravo.

I wish I could say that everyone with an opinion on the issue is similarly honorable, but there are people on both sides who are acting like complete imbeciles. I think I'll break it down by category.

Northrup's Supporters

Northrup's pastor is a member of http://www.freerepublic.com/, an online conservative (although lately it's taken a turn for the wacko, being infested with birthers and Obama-is-a-Muslim conspiracy theorists) site and there is a heated discussion going on there.

I'm not going to link to individual threads and comments when there were so many of them, so I'll just link to the threads tagged "wrestling" and you'll find them all there.

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/wrestling/index

One person said that he didn't think women should wrestle, as that doesn't prepare them for what God wants them to be.

What does God allegedly want them to be? Spineless and unconfident? Weak and vulnerable and dependent on men for protection? Given how a lot of so-called "complementarians" seem to think women should live at home until they're married and not work if at all possible, I guess making women unprepared for the dangers of the outside world is a good way to make sure they stay within "God's bounds."

I'll go on the record and say if I had a daughter, I'd send her to karate (or to be really scary, Krav Maga) class from the age of five. That way, she'll be able to defend herself against bullies, slimy teenage boys who want only one thing, and psychopathic vagrants on the Applachian Trail.

(This is a reference to the case of Gary Michael Hilton, the vagrant in question, who robbed, raped, and murdered people on the Appalachian Trail. One of his victims was a grad student at the University of Georgia when I was a student.)

Another poster made some comment about Herkelman's parents not caring about her "respectability." Just because someone is a tomboy doesn't make them a slut. I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that the basis for this mindset is something like "she plays roughly with boys/she must not be a virgin/she's not worthy of marriage." Given my objection to attributing motives to people (see below), I will not claim this is what the person actually believes, but I will suggest that this is the origin of the social attitude.

Some people also took issue with Herkelman's dad, saying he looks like Charles Manson. Just because the guy's unkempt doesn't make him a bad person. Surely this person was taught in elementary school if not preschool not to judge by appearances.  They've also claimed both he and the daughter have no shame, the daughter is a gender-confused freak, etc.  Someone tell those characters to shut up, since they're bringing both the Christian religion and political conservatism into disrepute with their antics. 

(I will give credit to the Freepers for coming down on the guy who said if he was wrestling her, he would deliberately hurt her to deter her from wrestling again. Someone who would do that is utter scum and should be treated as such.)

A whole lot of people on FreeRepublic, especially the religious ones, are claiming coed wrestling is defying God's plan for the sexes or something like that. I challenge them to find Scripture backing that up, since right now, all they have backing them are their own opinions. Loudly insisting God is on your side doesn't win you any arguments against someone who isn't intimidated by bluster.

There's also the fact that John Piper, a member of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, has said in the past that Northrup's was the right course to take.

www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/over-my-dead-body-son

I would put "Biblical" in quotation marks because I don't think it is the only Biblical view or, for that matter, the correct one, but that might look like I was misrepresenting the organization's actual name.

Piper indulges in the usual "everyone knows deep down I'm right and the only reason they disagree is they're afraid of being criticized" B.S. common to Calvinism these days. In fact, he explicitly DENIES that defending female participation in wrestling is about committment to equality of the sexes but is really about fear of criticism. I once saw a video online of him claiming those who don't believe in salvation by grace through faith really want to be God and not for any other reason. His arrogance in claiming he knows what people *really* are thinking, without evidence, grinds my gears.

(That being said, he applies the same attitude to himself--he said if he ever abandoned the Christian faith, he meant he *must* have become a pastor only for the public praise and not because he had a sincere view and then changed his mind. At least he's consistent, even if he puts ideological correctness ahead of reaching a conclusion via examining evidence.)

It is entirely possible to disagree with someone for good reason (not wanting to deny women opportunities, not thinking the case against coed combat sports is strong enough to justify not participating), not bad ("fear of men" or secretly wanting to grope one's opponent). Piper needs to not assume everyone who disagrees with him is evil or cowardly. I will acknowledge even evil causes can have virtuous champions (Robert E. Lee for the Confederacy, Erwin Rommel for the Third Reich) and it would do Piper well to do the same.

Furthermore, I could argue the fact it would seem "weird" has nothing to do morality and everything to do with brainwashing by society at large. Piper invokes conscience, but the conscience is shaped by one's upbringing and culture and is therefore not always a reliable moral guide.

Northrup's Opponents

The issue is also being discussed on http://www.democraticunderground.com/, the left's equivalent of FreeRepublic. These are the guys claiming Bush would cancel elections and make himself dictator, that most people in the upper levels of the American economy and government are psychopaths (methinks because calling someone "evil" evokes concepts like sin and they don't like that), that Obama is governing in a more centrist manner because the people who assassinated JFK showed him footage proving their involvement and told him to moderate, etc. The one good thing about DU is that it's largely pro-gun-rights.

Since there are fewer DU threads discussing it, I'll just supply two links:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x439330

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x452646

One person on DU is claiming that Northrup should be ejected from the team, since he cost the team points and is not being a team player. Although there is some sense behind that argument, we should be wary of letting the group take precedence over the individual conscience--this was not the act of some petulant whiner or a coward afraid of losing to a girl.

Another person is claiming he was "scared shitless" that she would "beat his ass." He knows this how, precisely? If he gets tossed off the team next week, that's one thing, but the one making that comment has no basis beyond his or her own prejudices for thinking that.

On FreeRepublic, on DemocraticUnderground, and on the CNN site, there are people who are taking issue with Northrup participating on the high school team, since he is home-schooled. They're saying since he doesn't attend the school, he should not participate in the program.

However sensible that sounds, home-schooling parents pay taxes that support school athletics too. Furthermore, being on the wrestling team is something Northrup had to earn--he had to compete with everyone else to get it, it wasn't just a matter of signing up and automatically getting a spot.

Also, many opponents of home-schooling claim home-schooled kids are being isolated from "mainstream society" and indoctrinated and this is why home-schooling needs to be suppressed or at least closely regulated. As one of the Freepers pointed out, it's hypocritical for them to complain about alleged isolation going on and then when one home-schooler decides to un-isolate, not wanting him around.

Plus there's the usual trash-talking about alleged religious indoctrination. I will admit I find a lot of the religious home-schooling distasteful due to the stuff that's being taught (young-earth creationism, reactionary ideas on women's rights, etc), but there's no need to hate on Christian home-schooling in general.