How Hollywood Views Christians

I've had a blog idea percolating for a long time on how Hollywood writers/producers, etc. view Christians. I may still get around to it, but for right now just take a look at this posting from Deadline Hollywood, specifically the comment section. Christianity is reviled unless it is a watered down, I'm okay-You're okay version. This is truly insightful.

Childhood Poetry

Though it’s been perilously close to 40 years ago, a poem I had to memorize in 6th grade came dancing through my memory this morning. It is itself a sweet and almost melancholy memory that captured my heart as a child and, for some reason, still has it today:

In School Days

Still sits the schoolhouse by the road,
A ragged beggar sleeping;
Around it still the sumacs grow,
And blackberry-vines are creeping.
Within, the master's desk is seen,
Deep-scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jackknife's carved initial;
The charcoal frescoes on its wall;
Its door's worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves' icy fretting.
It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
When all the school were leaving.
For near it stood the little boy
Her childish favor singled;
His cap pulled low upon a face
Where pride and shame were mingled.

Pushing with restless feet the snow
To right and left, he lingered;---
As restlessly her tiny hands
The blue-checked apron fingered.
He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hand's light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice,
As if a fault confessing.
"I'm sorry that I spelt the word:
I hate to go above you,
Because,"---the brown eyes lower fell,---
"Because, you see, I love you!"

Still memory to a gray-haired man
That sweet child-face is showing.
Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!
He lives to learn, in life's hard school,
How few who pass above him
Lament their triumph and his loss,
Like her, because they love him.

~ John Greenleaf Whittier

A Favorite Cleaning Gadget

I am a HUGE fan of the Mr. Clean Eraser blocks. They work like magic on a large variety of stains, spills and messes. In fact, here's a whole list. Here's another site praising this product. I'd add they are great at getting hair dye stains off sinks (not that I have personal experience in hair dying...) and wine splashes on walls or floors. I love it when a product actually lives up to its advertising!

Call the Tune, Pay the Fiddler?

As government entitlement programs grow (universal healthcare being just the latest), the tax burden gets larger and larger. At least for some. This report states only 47% of households pay income tax. With only half the people paying all the bills, a day of reckoning approaches.

With the "wealthy" class being defined down (the qualifying income bracket is getting lower and lower) while the corresponding tax rate keeps going up, the incentive to be a productive member of society is rapidly diminishing. What happens when the remaining 53% decide to stop paying everyone else's bills?

The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle

The World War II era has always intrigued me. I love everything about it – the music, the innocence, the patriotism. When Bobby and I married, he introduced me to what would become another area of interest from the 1940s – the emerging Air Force and those wonderful planes.

A precursor to my generation’s Top Gun F-14 Tomcats, the P-51 Mustangs were the fast, sexy fighters, but they weren’t my favorite plane. My heart was stolen by the B-17. The B-17 appeals to me because it’s basically a football team in the air. Every crew member is important. However unlike a lineman missing a tackle, if a crew member on the B-17 didn’t do his part the crew was in danger of losing not a game, but their very lives. This bomber would break the back of the Axis in Europe while her younger (and bigger) sisters, the B-25 and B29, would wreak havoc on Japan.

One of the most celebrated B-17s was the Memphis Belle. Famed director William Wyler even did a wartime documentary on the Belle. In the 1990s, Hollywood again put the Belle’s story on celluloid (although this time it was more fiction than fact).

A year or two after we married, Bobby and I attended an air show in Bowling Green where I had the pleasure of meeting Col. Robert Morgan, the pilot of the Memphis Belle. I was awestruck. (I actually cried afterwards.) So while browsing the clearance section at Joseph Beth Booksellers when I saw “The Man Who Flew the Memphis Belle,” I quickly brought it and began devouring it.

In the early part of the air war, the Allied campaign was sacrificing 2 out of 3 flights. The first three months of the Allied offensive, the loss rate reached 80%! To counter this devastating statistic, an incentive was dangled in front of the airmen: The 1st crew to complete 25 missions would be sent home. The crew of the Memphis Belle was the first to accomplish this feat.

Trying to put this in context, Col. Morgan writes, “We were participants in a style of warfare that had been made technically feasible less than half a century before it took form in the skies over Europe and the Pacific Ocean. We, and our enemies, were still improvising rules and tactics every time we left the ground for a new day of confrontation above the clouds. The air war demanded skills that even its best surviving practitioners found hard to communicate to their families, friends, and historians – levels of competence, concentration, physical endurance, discipline, and teamwork bordering on brotherhood. Over it all was the constant grim prospect of a sudden helpless spiraling descent to violent death. . .”

Written in a Sam Spade, first person narrative style which fits its content to a “T”, this book recounts the story of a young man from the mountains of North Carolina who attended parties at The Biltmore, flew bombing runs over Germany and partied with Clark Gable and then went on to fly in the first B-29 bombing runs over Japan. Morgan doesn’t hesitate to state his aerial prowess, but he is even quicker to heap praise and credit on his crew members. He writes of a sense of equality among the men each with an important job to do. Morgan is equally generous in his praise of the Belle’s maintenance crew chief, Joe Giambrone, crediting him with keeping the Belle going through her 25 missions.

Like most real-life heroes, Col. Morgan’s hat was not pure white, but grey. His valor in the air was not matched by fidelity on the ground. His womanizing and even adultery would be at odds with his complete faith in God and His Providence – a disconnect that would cause him later in life to ask Billy Graham why God had spared him when his life was at odds with God’s commandments. Morgan’s Cromwell-esque “warts and all” self portrait is a great glimpse into society in the 1930s-40s, as well as the beginnings of our Air Force. It reminded me somewhat of Tom Wolfe’s novel on the early days of the space program. Morgan certainly lacks Wolfe’s prowess as a writer, but he has given us a wonderful history lesson nonetheless.

Choose You This Day: God vs Socialism (Book Review)

Socialism is a buzz word today. Opponents of the President and the Democrat-controlled Congress are quick to shout, “Socialism” in opposition to many of the administration’s initiatives. Are they right? And if they are right, is socialism a bad thing?

Joel McDurmon has done a wonderful job in answering both those questions and many more you may not even realize needed to be asked in his book, God vs Socialism. The new Social Gospel is permeating our churches and it is vital that Christians know what it is and what the Bible has to say about it.

I write often on political matters and sometimes wonder if I should. McDurmon has been asked why he writes so much about “politics”. Here is his answer (which in the future will be mine):

“The answer goes far beyond the simple idea that we should apply God’s Word to every area of life. The answer must include the fact that if we don’t apply God’s Word to every area of life, the forces of darkness will push their word in the neglected areas. There is no neutrality. Either God reigns and His law is honored, or the enemy rules and humanists carry out their will in law, politics, and ethics. The reason for Christians in politics – and all other areas – begins with the answer to the question, “Who is King?”

Political decisions are ethical decisions. Scripture has much to say about just scales, contracts and monetary policy. Ownership is one of the main issues. McDurmon offers an abundance of scripture passages affirming private property. Socialism is the belief that individual private property and free-markets are bad ideas.

“Under this view, the individual has no protection from his neighbor if his neighbor is in the majority, or if the State somehow deems his neighbor is needful in some way, the State simply uses force to take that individual’s property and give it to someone else.” Thou shalt not steal doesn’t apply if a majority of representatives vote to do so in Congress. “Socialism is the belief that armed robbery is okay as long as you do it through the proxy of the government’s gun.”

Most Americans probably “wouldn’t walk over to their neighbor’s house and steal from him directly, but they have absolutely no problem with taking that money if a politician signs it their way...It is theft...”

Is it just hyperbolic language when conservatives warn of socialist or Marxist legislation? Not when you consider two tenets of the Communist Manifesto were (1) a heavy progressive or graduated income tax and (2) abolition of all right of inheritance. Sound familiar? The graduated income tax is envy based. Pure and simple. God commands all to give a tithe – 10%. He doesn’t command the rich to give more or the poor to give less. 10% across the board. To do otherwise is to favor or punish a segment of society which Scripture forbids. You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor. – Leviticus 19:15.

The so-called Social Gospel of Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and Ron Sider is much more socialism than it is Gospel. While each maintain a nonpartisan stance, their positions line up with liberal ideology time and again. Each is more interested in promoting political agendas than spreading the Gospel. Look no further than the issue of abortion. Rather than decrying it as immoral or, specifically, murder, Wallis urges Democrats to relax their language on abortion to accommodate pro-life views. In his book, God’s Politics, he says:

Such a respect of conscience on abortion and a less dismissive approach to conscientious dissenters to Democratic orthodoxy would allow many pro-life and progressive Christians the ‘permission’ they need to vote Democratic. Again, there are millions of votes at stake here.

Wallis isn’t concerned with the millions of unborn lives at stake – just the millions of votes. His message is not one of conviction but of political expediency.

Even atheist activist Edward Tabash understands the need for this “baptized” socialism. Speaking before the Atheist Alliance International conference in 2007, he said of liberal leaders going out of their way to speak in religious overtones:

We don’t care what they say in look to the rhetoric they need to pander to, remember what country they’re running in. I don’t care what kind order to get elected in this religious country. We care about what kind of judges they give us on the Supreme Court, because only the Supreme Court determines if we’ll have secular government…Don’t of verbal obeisance they pay to religion if that’s what it takes to get a person in the White House who will give us church-state separationists on the Supreme Court.

Naïve and unfortunately many times simple-minded, Christians are being duped into accepting an atheistic system presented in religious clothing. Quite appropriate when one considers the early American socialists, called Fabians, had as one of their symbols a wolf in sheep’s clothing!

McDurmon also interacts with liberal theologians, Tony Campolo and Ron Sider. Sometime between 1989 and 1991, the singles group at my home church went on an organized trip to hear Tony Campolo speak. Something about the man bothered me, but at the time I couldn’t put my finger on it. I now know what that something was – socialism wrapped in the language of the Gospel.

Over 20 years have passed, but instead of being exposed as a false teacher Mr. Campolo and his ilk, including Jim Wallis and Ron Sider, continue to promote so-called Christian socialism. [It must be noted that Jim Wallis is a “spiritual advisor” to President Obama who said Americans shouldn’t be concerned about Obama’s lack of a church as he provides the president with a devotion delivered to Obama’s Blackberry on a daily basis.]

Campolo’s recent book, Red Letter Christians, gives special importance to the “red letter” sections of Scripture, the words of Jesus, as the key to Christian social justice and political action. Curious how Campolo’s presentation always lines up point-by-point with the Democrat party platform. He stresses the Sermon on the Mount, but somehow neglects this section: Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Matthew 5:17-18. Seems Jesus put a premium on the black-letter words as well.

However, it’s in his reflection on Matthew 25 that Campolo’s political agenda is laid bare. He writes that on judgment day the Lord

“…will ask whether or not we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, received and cared for aliens, and brought deliverance to captive people…

Most important, when we reflect on all Jesus had to say about caring for the poor and oppressed, committing ourselves to His red-letter message just might drive us to see what we can do politically to help those he called, ‘the least of these’ (see Matthew 25:31-46).”

McDurmon asks, “Where in any of these passages about helping the poor or judgment day, or any other verse period, does it “drive us” to ask what we can do politically? Jesus’ message involves a commitment to help the poor, yes, but it has nothing to do with using government force to redistribute wealth from some people in order to help other people . . . The truth is Campolo couldn’t care less about the Evangel – that is, the Gospel – unless it advances his liberal agenda.”

This is quite evident in an interview Campolo did with Bill Moyers. Mr. Moyers questioned him about the issue of proselytizing (particularly of Jews) and Campolo essentially denied the uniqueness and power of the Gospel:

I am not about to pronounce who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. That is not within the realm of any of us. We are not here to declare who’s out and who’s in. All we’re here to do is to saw what is meaningful in our own lives, what has been significant in our own personal experiences with God. I have come to know God through Jesus Christ. He is the only way that I know God. And so I preach Jesus. I am not about to make judgments about my Jewish brothers, my Muslim brothers and sisters; I’m just not about to make those kinds of statements. I think that we ought to leave judgments up to God, and we ought to call people to obedient faith within their own traditions, even as we faithfully preach our own faith to others…I learn about Jesus from other religions. They speak to me about Christ as well.

Seems Mr. Campolo doesn’t put importance on this red-letter verse: Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6).

Campolo, like Wallis and Sider, loves to point out how “there are more than 2,000 verses of Scripture that call us to express love and justice for those who are poor and oppressed…” But he immediately makes the unwarranted jump from the Bible’s mandate for personal compassion to socialistic government action. [Campolo writes] “we promote legislation that turns biblical imperatives into social policy.”

It is an abdication of personal responsibility. One that is not unexpected from a liberal. Arthur C. Brooks, author of Who Really Cares, discovered and proved statistically and undeniably what the Bible promotes – the solution to poverty is organized voluntary giving. This book documented what many of us instinctively knew – religious conservatives give far more to private charity than liberals, no matter how the stats are tallied or how you divide the pie charts. Catholic author Richard John Neuhaus noted, “This remarkable book documents the dramatic gap between those who talk about caring and those who actually do it.”

While McDurmon interacts with Ron Sider, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, he really needn’t to have bothered. David Chilton devastated Sider’s class-envy driven book in his response, Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators. Sider has never acknowledged or interacted with Chilton’s book, but he has revised his book in response many, many times since its publication in 1977 as a result.

McDurmon sites one of the passages Sider uses in his argumentation, Jeremiah 22:13-19. Josiah’s son, King Jehoiakim is condemned for building himself a luxurious palace without compensating his workers (as commanded in Leviticus 19:3). The prophet contrasts this oppression and injustice with the proper justice shown by King Josiah. “ ‘He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy; Then it was well. Is not that what it means to know Me?’ Declares the Lord.” Sider says this passage proves governmental power should deliver the weak and guarantee the rights of the poor. True, if he means providing justice according to the law. If he means this to justify welfare and unemployment redistribution schemes, the passage says nothing about it. In fact, the real injustice here is the king breaking the law. The passage highlights a government that grew too powerful and began to oppress the people!

McDurmon sums up the purpose of his book thusly:

The Bible teaches about salvation. Yes, but what is salvation? Does salvation only concern the soul? To answer in this pietistic way is to ignore too much of Scripture. It ignores topics this book and many more deal with - very practical, down-to-earth matters of politics, property, money, reproduction, education, and inheritance that affect all of us. God vs Socialism has tried to show, Christians ignore these matters to their own peril, and to their children’s greater peril. As we neglect them, we destroy the foundations of a free society, and thus undermine the peace and prosperity of the nation our children will inherit…If the book of Judges teaches us anything, it teaches that the process of decline begins when Christians refuse to apply God’s laws to the very real and practical issues of social life. The negative results should ignite our souls to passionate action.

End of Global Warming Hysteria In Sight?

Admissions are coming slowly but surely from the global warming "scientists" that their "science" wasn't all it was cracked up to be. For the truth of the climate-gate fiasco one must head to the papers of jolly ol' England. Here's the Daily Express' coverage of the admission. The London Times ran another. The Daily Mail wasn't to be outdone and carried the same story here. Now if only a U.S. paper would man-up and admit it's a hoax.

Canadian Official comes to the US for surgery!

Newfoundland's Premier has headed south for his heart surgery. Makes you wonder what other Canadians would do if they could afford it! And we want to be like Canada?!?! Here's the story.

Build, Baby, Build

I've been pretty vocal in my opposition to the majority of President Obama's agenda. However, there is a proposal he's made recently which has my support - increasing nuclear power in the U.S. Here's the story from Bloomberg.

Yet Another Reason To Be A Global Warming Skeptic...

Backpedalling again from the UN report. It seems their "consensus" was an interview with a "single Indian glaciologist". That's ONE scientist. Oh, also, he admits there may very well be more errors in the report. This makes the second UN climate "expert" this month to cast doubt on the UN report.

The Blind Side

This movie is full of life lessons. I don't have to write about it, however - my good friend Rosie Booth has already done it and done it well. Read her take here.

Copenhagen Climate Change Cost Not Cheap

Sometimes you just have to laugh or you'll scream. At a time of outrageous budget deficits, double-digit unemployment, etc., here's an article about the cost of the Congressional delegation's trip to the Climate Change summit. (Mind you the facts were hard to come by as Speaker Pelosi was not forthcoming.) This isn't a partisan issue - Dems and Repubs were part of this group. This is particularly laughable considering a Hungarian physicist claims to have proven CO2 emissions are irrelevant to the earth's climate.

Global Cooling? Yep!

I'm part of the increasingly loud segment of the population who thinks global warming is a hoax. While warming may have occurred, it was part of the normal cyclical order of things. Now even a UN scientist is admiting so-called global warming may be giving way to global cooling. From this map, the response across much of the nation is "Duh!".

Trying to review Twilight

This past summer while being a chaperone on the TCA class of 2009’s Senior Trip, I spent an afternoon on our balcony listening to the ocean and absolutely devouring the first book in the Twilight series.

The writing is horrendous. I mean really amateur stuff here. BUT, Meyers did get me to care about the characters enough to want to know what happened next even as I wanted to shake Bella repeatedly and scream at Meyers for her obsessive love of adverbs.

I struggled with writing a review. I thought my friend Coral did a good job. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t quite nail down my feelings regarding the book. I knew my discomfort wasn’t in regard to the whole vampire thing (I’m a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan) and there are redeemable elements in the Twilight series (two lovers wait for marriage to consummate their relationship, Edward’s protection of Bella, the Cullen clan’s suppression of natural desire, i.e., drinking human blood, for greater good).

Rev. Doug Wilson is reading the book and doing a chapter by chapter review of it. I don’t think he is completely correct in his assessment of the book (aside from the lambasting of the writing!), but his reviews do provide food for thought. Here are the reviews for the first 8 chapters of Twilight. If interested, you can follow future reviews at Credenda Agenda:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8

The Man Behind Rudolph

For my generation, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is inextricably linked with my memories of Christmas. Sharing this is one of many things that make Rosie Booth a kindred spirit of the closest kind. In fact, we both blogged about it within days of each other back in 2006. Here’s her take and here’s mine.

I have Rose to thank for this entry. She recently blogged on her favorite Christmas movies. (I listed my top three here, here and here.) Being a writer at heart, Rosie’s blog made me curious – what group of writers do I have to thank for some of my favorite Christmas specials? The answer was singular – Romeo Muller.

If the show had real heart in it, chances are Mr. Muller wrote it. His credits read like a Who’s Who of favorite Christmas specials: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, The Stingiest Man In Town and several more Christmas specials. (Mr. Muller also penned a wonderful, although lesser known, holiday special for the Thanksgiving season called Mouse on the Mayflower.)

While writing for the legendary Jack Benny, Muller was discovered by CBS founder William Paley and tapped to write for the prestigious Studio One (he would go on to write one of the show’s most popular episodes). However, it was in 1963 that Muller’s true big break came when he met Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass and began a relationship that would produce iconic television specials.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is universally acknowledged as the most popular holiday special of all time. What isn’t as well known is most of the story was developed by Romeo Muller. Muller supplemented the well-known Johnny Marks song with his characters of Sam the Snowman, Hermey, Clarice, Yukon, the Abdominal Snow Monster, King Moonracer and the Misfit Toys, as well as the other Elves and reindeer.

A biography on RankinBass.com says of Muller: “Romeo was a simple man who enjoyed having dinner with friends and watching old movies. He would screen his old movie collection for friends and charitable organizations. He also collected old toy trains and whenever he could write a train into one of his screenplays, he did.”

Romeo Muller’s Christmas specials always seemed to reference the true meaning of Christmas. How appropriate for a man who in 1959 wrote an episode of one of the first religious television programs, Lamp Unto My Feet.

His last project was his favorite. It was a special called Noel about a Christmas Ornament named Noel that brought happiness to whatever household he joined. The oft-repeated line of the show was the cheerful ornament saying, “My name is Noel and I have happiness.” Noel, or Christmas, has as its Latin root natalis or birth. Once again Muller had reminded his viewers of the true meaning of Christmas as it is indeed a birth that brought happiness.

Muller treasured a Christmas card received from a fan with these words: “...Those specials were as much a tradition in my parents’ home as the Christmas tree itself, and have become a tradition with my own children. You must be very proud of the joy you have brought to children all over, even me, a simple girl from the Midwest. Without knowing it, your visit to our homes each Christmas through your specials, was just as important as a visit from Grandma and Grandpa. My son thinks you are the greatest thing since sliced bread and, in all honesty, his mom thinks so too. God bless you during this holiday season, and once again, ‘Thank you’ for everything you’ve given.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Muller was diagnosed with cancer shortly before he died of a heart attack in his sleep, ironically during the season for which he is most famous, Christmas.

Afghanistan Speech

It's Christmas and I'm avoiding political diatribes, so I'm just going to link to Der Spiegel's summary of President Obama's speech. I have friends in Afghanistan. I take this personally.

Money, Money, Money, Money

As most friends know, I have serious concerns about this administration's policies and practices especially regarding their economic effects. One economist I have great respect for is Peter Schiff. He's been right all along. Here's proof.

By the way, seems the Saturday Night Live writers may share some of my concerns. Seen this?

No kids for you - too much Carbon Footprint!

Here's a link to my girl's blog on this hogwash.

Canine Welcoming

For Veterans Day - Here are some great videos of soldiers being welcomed home by their dogs.

Callous Commander

Insensitivity has been a hallmark of this administration, though rarely pointed out by anyone but conservatives. The President's handling of the Ft. Hood shooting is the latest example. When the mainstream media has reports critical of President Obama, you know things are bad. Here's one of the stories.