Tag: culture

John Piper on Glorifying God in Your Movie-Watching

~ Bob Hayton

Desiring God just posted John Piper’s thoughts on watching movies, from an Ask Pastor John live event from some time back. From my vantage point I see his thoughts as a helpful corrective to contemporary Christianity. When Christianity Today can publish a glowing review of the “Sex and the City” movie, something is obviously wrong. May we all take care in our entertainment choices and guard our hearts.

Here is the video clip of Pastor John answering the question. Below you’ll find the edited transcript of his answer.

Is it possible to glorify God through the enjoyment of music, movies, literature, etc. produced by secular artists?

Yes. I assume the computer you are holding there was probably not built by Christians, and I hope that you are glorifying God as you tap away at it. And of course out from there, there are a 1000 things that we use all day long, and God says, ‘whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God.’ And he knows that you are eating this meat that may have been sacrificed to idols, so that means it was probably butchered by an unbeliever, or handled by an unbeliever, shipped by an unbeliever, it may have been cooked by an unbelieving cook. And here you are savoring the product of all those unbelievers’ work because you are in that moment giving thanks to God for it, recognizing that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof and taking the strength and the joy that comes from it to render back to him.

Now with the arts and with media it is more morally complex than with food. But it is the same principle. The complexity of it is, in those moments what do you do with the moral elements of it that are so contrary to your faith?

I’ll just point out one principle because we can talk about this forever. What concerns me is the distinction between entertainment and cultural analysis. To watch something, to study the culture, learn from the culture, be more able to interact with unbelievers for the sake of the glory of Christ is one thing. To just sit and bask in nudity, or bask in fifty f-words, or bask in a world view that is shot through with arrogance to the core, and enjoy it? Hmm. That seems to point to something going on in the heart. And frankly, I have tasted it big time. I think today we are going to have to work at not being shaped by the world because the world has made its world view so scintillatingly attractive.

Movie after movie after movie has come out and most young reformed people are, I would say, indiscriminate. “Let’s go to a movie tonight.” OK, and then we just choose the best. None of the movies in that theater at that night are any good, probably. But you are just going to do it, because that is what you do. You go to the movies on Friday night, or whatever. And then of course you think, we’ve got to Christianize this thing somehow.

I just think we need to test our hearts big time. Big time. Why are we able to enjoy hell bound, God ignoring, Christ dishonoring, false world views because we can give it a little twist at the end that it taught us this or that about the world? So, I think the main thing I’m saying there is, test your heart as to whether entertainment is defaulting to the world, or to something more wholesome. We live in an age where we tend to default to the world for entertainment. [Quoted from Desiring God’s post, emphasis added]

[HT: Sharper Iron’s Filings]

Reading, Writing and The Internet

~ Bob Hayton ~ 2 Comments

Recently, I was discussing how blogging and book-reading complement each other. I find I read more theological books as a result of my blogging than I might otherwise. Yet blogging does eat up time and keep me from reading as much as I’d like. It’s more than just time, however. Blogging gives me bits and pieces of info which fascinate me and substitute the place of reading to some degree.

It’s not just blogging. All things internet promote a piecemeal view of the world. News and information, on the run, in bite size pieces. Immediate access. Unending links to yet more and more and more. The daily presence and impact of the internet on the majority of today’s culture, myself included, is shaping how we think and how we read.

In college, I was required to read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. In that book he argued that the various technological media of our day and any other, impact what and how we think far more than we realize. He showed how the printing press revolutionized the world, just as had the alphabet before it, and now the TV (and nightly news) after it. I think Neil’s work should be updated to include the internet’s influence. It will be interesting to see how dramatically it will shape our thinking and culture.

My thoughts here were spurred on by stumbling across an interesting article entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” [HT: Stephen Altrogge]. Nicholas Carr, who recently published a book on this topic, does a good job of explaining the problem in this column (published in The Atlantic). It’s definitely worth your time to read it all the way through (without skimming, mind you…).

I’m not so sure the internet’s influence is a huge problem, but I think we should all be aware as to just how much our reading habits are influenced by our internet usage. This makes me even more satisfied with my new focus on reading and reviewing more books on my blog. This will help my blog serve my aim to read more books. I hope you’ll join me in reading more books, because Christians after all, are people of The Book. It follows we need to preserve the art of reading and thinking (and even writing), since God communicated to us not in a movie, or a drama, not on the internet or a magazine, but through books, 66 of them.

Fundamentalists and Music

~ fundyreformed ~ 4 Comments

Will Dudding (the Reforming Baptist) has a great post on music. He challenges fundamentalists regarding their stance on music. I don’t agree 100% with everything he says, but his post is definitely worth a read if you are interested in reforming fundamentalism. I am happy for any who are reforming and growing in relation to the word, whether they are fundamentalist still or not. Will’s posts are always a blessing and often challenging. Here’s an excerpt.

What I see is that we have constructed a culture in fundamentalism that is an extreme opposite of the ever-developing worldly culture within new evangelicalism. It’s an atmosphere of “us vs. them”. We wear suits and ties, they don’t; we use classical style music, they don’t; we use a King James Bible, they use everything else but a KJV; we make our women wear dresses, they don’t care what their women wear; and so on and so forth…

Let me make something clear from the beginning: I am no fan of the modern gimmicks and fads that the weak, luke-warm broader evangelical church has to offer! They must turn to all their new methods (or waves, as Rick Warren puts it) to cover up their inadequate, watered-down gospel which has made them irrelevant in the true sense of the word. On that same note, I am no more a fan of the man-made, manufactured traditions and taboos of fundamentalism that so many feel that they have to defend in order to stay holy and separate from worldliness. Just as the Pharisees were clean on the outside, they neglected the weightier things of the law and we tend to do the same thing….

Music has been another component in the Christian sub-culture of Fundamentalism. You can take the most un-scriptural, theologically bankrupt song and sing it with a piano, organ and an opera singer and the song automatically passes fundamentalist standards.

The post is entitled “Music -Style, Emotion, Instruments and Associations“. Be sure to read the whole thing.

Holding on to the Cultural Norms of a Bygone Era: A Look at Fundamentalism's "No-Pants-on-Women" Oddity

~ fundyreformed ~ 51 Comments

Hardly anyone today would consider the wearing of pants by women to be a breach of decency or a sign of rebellion against the God-given roles of manhood & womanhood. This is the 21st century, women have been liberated, and times have certainly changed, haven’t they?

The Fundamentalist Position

Yet for many sincere and well-meaning Christian fundamentalists (& by that term I mean those who both hold to the fundamental doctrines of the faith & practice some form of secondary separation with regard to those doctrines–specifically the fundamentalist Baptist movement represented by Bob Jones University and a host of even more conservative institutions) today’s situation is lamentable. Feminism’s triumph, in their minds, is what is most responsible for the abandoning of a generally common distinct dress styles for men and women. After all, the bathroom signs distinguish the sexes on the basis of pants for men, and today’s abandonment of the long accepted cultural norm of pants for men only can only lead to a sinful unisex culture which promotes all kind of sexual sins and spurns the God-ordained unique roles for men and women.

While rooted in the biblical teaching of male headship/leadership in the home and church, this position finds support in these verses as well:

A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God. (Deu 22:5)

For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man…. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.
(1Co 11:7, 14-15)

From these verses comes a doctrine of “designed distinction” between the sexes. And specifically on the warrant of Deut. 22:5, it is deemed a grievous sin to blur the line between the sexes by donning the apparel of the opposite sex.

Now the above careful argument is often not what one finds with the more conservative fundamentalists. Often Deut. 22:5 is quoted with the harsh conclusion that women who wear pants are “sluts”. The position is not carefully taught, but rather enforced, with ushers trained to escort women caught wearing pants out the door! Visitors who carelessly forget to check the dress code, are asked to wear a dress or not come back. If you think I’m exaggerating, I’m not. Such is the sad case in all too many fundamentalist churches. They don’t want to be tolerating abominations to God!

Modern Attempts to Dodge the Force of Deut. 22:5

To get around this exegesis of Deut. 22:5, many modern Christians claim it is ceremonial law (like Deut. 22:10-11 for instance) . Others will stress that transvestism or cross-dressing is primarily in view, or that some practice associated with idolatry is in view, hence the strong “abomination” label. Yet these interpretations on the surface feel like a transparent attempt at dodging the force of the text.

The Historic Position on Deut. 22:5

Older commentators don’t flinch at offering some alternative views while at the same time affirming what Calvin says below:

This decree also commends modesty in general, and in it God anticipates the danger, lest women should harden themselves into forgetfulness of modesty, or men should degenerate into effeminacy unworthy of their nature. Garments are not in themselves of so much importance; but as it is disgraceful for men to become effeminate, and also for women to affect manliness in their dress and gestures, propriety and modesty are prescribed, not only for decency’s sake, but lest one kind of liberty should at length lead to something worse. The words of the heathen poet are very true: “What shame can she, who wears a helmet, show, her sex deserting?” Wherefore, decency in the fashion of the clothes is an excellent preservative of modesty. [from John Calvin’s online commentary here.]

Keil & Delitzsch, the Hebrew experts, are even stronger:

As the property of a neighbour was to be sacred in the estimation of an Israelite, so also the divine distinction of the sexes, which was kept sacred in civil life by the clothing peculiar to each sex, was to be not less but even more sacredly observed. “There shall not be man’s things upon a woman, and a man shall not put on a woman’s clothes.” כְּלִי does not signify clothing merely, nor arms only, but includes every kind of domestic and other utensils (as in Exo_22:6; Lev_11:32; Lev_13:49). The immediate design of this prohibition was not to prevent licentiousness, or to oppose idolatrous practices (the proofs which Spencer has adduced of the existence of such usages among heathen nations are very far-fetched); but to maintain the sanctity of that distinction of the sexes which was established by the creation of man and woman, and in relation to which Israel was not to sin. Every violation or wiping out of this distinction – such even, for example, as the emancipation of a woman – was unnatural, and therefore an abomination in the sight of God. [emphasis added, quoted from E-Sword‘s (free for download) Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament]

Examining the Fundamentalist Position

So why do I allow and encourage my wife and daughters to wear pants? Am I consciously violating Deut. 22:5 and blurring the distinction of the sexes? I don’t believe so. Upon a closer examination of the fundamentalist position, I hope you will agree with me. At the onset here, I should note that more and more modern fundamentalists disagree with this position, and I’m sure there have been exceptions for many years. Also, there are some conservative Baptists who don’t like being dubbed fundamentalists, preferring to be called historic Baptists, and avoid the perceived problems with fundamentalism today. Fine, whatever. Still I object to their position on Deut. 22:5, and most people would call them fundamentalists.

What Scripture Actually Teaches

Now if we accept the “designed distinction” view of Deut. 22:5 (which I do), here is what Scripture actually affirms. 1) The sexes should be distinct. 2) Christians shouldn’t wear garments or ornaments associated with the opposite sex. We could infer from this that we are to maintain culturally appropriate gender distinctions in dress.

Now Deut. 22:5 doesn’t teach that we must have male-specific items and female-specific items, per se, it just assumes that a culture has them. It doesn’t specify what the items look like, nor to what degree they are actually distinct. It just says don’t use the female or male items.

The 1 Cor. 11 passage seems to say there is a certain propriety which makes it “natural” for the sexes to be distinguished in some visible way. It doesn’t specify how long or short, “long” and “short” hair is, necessarily, however. Yet it asserts that women should have long hair, and men shouldn’t. (Again, I agree with this point here.)

The Role of Culture

Now we have this Scriptural teaching and we are to apply it to our present situation. Culture can obviously be immoral, and cultures promoting little or no clothes are obviously errant and should be corrected from a Biblical perspective. Yet culture by definition changes over time.

In Bible days, men and women wore long flowing robes. There were inner and outer robes, and a girdle for both men and women. Only men were said to “gird up their loins”, meaning hike up their robes to do manly actions, like fighting in a battle. But there is no indication that their robes were materially different than women’s robes. Instead it was the fit, decoration, and style of the robes that distinguished them from women’s robes.

In our culture 100 years ago, pants were a distinctly male item, but today men and women both wear pants. Still there are differences in fit, decoration, and style that differentiate male pants from female pants. Although it is true that a unisex pants style is in vogue these days. While 100 years ago wearing pants was a trespass of cultural norms with regard to gender distinction, today that is not necessarily the case.

In viewing culture, we hopefully can agree that the Bible doesn’t set up the culture of the 1800s as the most Godly culture ever. There is no reason to view it as more godly than present culture, necessarily. Each generation had its sins, and surely today’s generation has some awful flagrant ones, but there is no Scriptural justification for inferring from this that all present cultural norms should be abandoned in favor of those from the 1800s.

Consistency

In examining this topic, it appears that the clear cut, simple distinction provided by pants versus a dress is desirable by the fundamentalists. And so they have honed in on this item of clothing particularly for applying Deut. 22:5. But there are a host of items which have changed in their gender-designating function over the years. Stockings and T-Shirts were originally male-only dress items. Today stockings are generally regarded as female-only and T-shirts are used for both sexes. Fundamentalists often have no problem with their teenage or college-age girls wearing the high school or college sports jackets of their boyfriends, but wouldn’t that violate the mandates in Deut. 22:5 too? And what about women’s suits (even with a dress skirt rather than pants)?

Some view questions of consistency with suspicion. “It is just an attempt to dodge Deut. 22:5”, they assume. Yet these questions must be addressed. Just because an item doesn’t appear on a bathroom sign, doesn’t mean it has no gender distinction. And then again, why is a bathroom sign so definitive for culture? Isn’t it just a convenient tool for communicating which bathroom is which? It is not authoritative in any sense (well, unless I’m looking for a bathroom…).

Conclusion

Based on the above examination, I conclude that how one applies Deut. 22:5 is up for grabs. The specific application is not mandated by the text. You may feel that the weight of centuries of gender distinct use of pants warrants no pants on women. That may be important to you, especially as you study history and see that feminism and a desire to break the cultural norms in regard to distinction of the sexes played a big role in the modern use of pants by women. Yet Scripture does not specify that I must conclude like you do in my view of the cultural norms of a bygone era. In today’s world, many a woman doesn’t think twice about putting on a pair of pants, because that is what our culture does. I would encourage such women to dress femininely and maintain modesty in light of Scriptural principles, rather than simply condemning them on the basis of cultural norms of a hundred years ago.

It is fine if you disagree with me, but I am applying Deut. 22:5 and not rejecting Scripture.   And so, fundamentalists and others who insist that only their application of Deut. 22:5 constitutes obedience are really being schismatic. They are needlessly disrupting the unity of the faith, in their defense of their particular application of Scripture to today’s culture. The oddity of the traditional fundamentalist view on women and pants sadly often becomes a disgrace to the name of Christ.

Before I go, if you want to see some debates over this issue, where both sides (mine and the standard fundamentalist position) being defended and advocated, check out the links below.

Anyone else have more links for good discussions on this?