Did you read that Wal-Mart and Procter and Gamble are joining forces to produce a family-friendly movie? It is about a single mom who moves her kids to the mountains (where's the dad?). I work part-time at Wal-Mart as a cashier. I am always surprised when a seemingly innocuous middle class family comes to the counter and plops down their choice of DVDs. Something about vampires sucking blood, something about killing and maiming people, something about torture. Books? By far the most popular are the vampire books by an author whose last name is Meyers.
Herbert Schlossberg reminds us in Idols for Destruction that biblical thinking underlay the values of our country as originally founded. Our country can survive (and often has) the "domination of wicked people in high places, but we cannot long survive the people's insistence that wickedness be dominant, the continual boast that evil is good," writes Schlossberg. He adds, "we must not be content to accept compliantly the continuing growth of evil."
Is our Christian faith merely what Schlossberg calls "mental assent to dogmatic statements?" If so, then we will be great at moralizing and focusing on sacraments. No, Schlossberg insists that the biblical message is about love, mercy, and a life commitment.
He elaborates: "calls for the reformation of society that do not insist upon both orthodoxy and orthopraxy, therefore, are futile." I looked up those two words. Orthopraxy means actions/activity, how we conduct ourselves. Orthodoxy is about having a correct belief, and the use of rituals. In other words, "faith without works is dead."
4 comments:
Re the vampires: what people like to read about is not the way they want to live. Being taken aback about all the unadulterated crap that goes through the check out line at Wal-Mart is not too useful. What does it measure? Lack of good sense, good taste? Shrug. We knew that mostly. Soap opera villains are a huge draw, or were. Murder mysteries have always attracted interest. But most people are not sociopathic nor wannabe murderers. They just like a good story.
I'm not sure that many people are overtly interested in biblical thinking. But hot damb, there are some great stories in the bible. They can be appreciated for the superficial story, and they can be plumbed for meaning, and direction to living well.
Faith without works is dead? I don't guess it's a true dichotomy. If Christians ascend to moral statements, can they live a loveless, merciless life? I suppose it's possible. But I'm hoping having the interest is in its own way a work.
"great stories in the Bible" -- Have you ever seen Angel and the Badman? The Friends give John Wayne's character a Bible which he gives to his sidekick who then becomes engrossed in reading it. "How did I miss this book?" he asks.
Meyers' books are touted by some as upholding morality, but it is a moral code without Christ. People can be moral on the bell curve, but there is none good but God. Instead of facing God's Word directly and allowing the light to penetrate, they seek a "consensus morality" from the popular culture that will allow them to feel good about themselves. There is no truth it in, and in the course of time, it spirals ever down in a kind of moral entropy.
Well done, Bob.
Here, I have downloaded quite a few "classic" movies from Youtube or other internet sites.
I shudder when I hear that my granddaughter is watching HBOAsia (not as bad as HBO US) with it's violence and twisted characters, and try to get her to watch good stuff.
Years ago I read a book about the Judean view of guardian angels. Seems when they knew they were going to a place where the guardian angel could not come, they would ask the angel to stand guard until they came out...I often wondered how many didn't come out? Just a thought if your guardian angel can't go with you, why on earth would you want to go?
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