Abiding and Answered Prayer

At church this morning, the theme was prayer.  The pastor was commenting on John 15:7, which states (in the KJV): “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

My pastor was saying what I’ve heard a lot of Christians say: that John 15:7 does not mean that God gives us everything we ask for, but rather that abiding in Christ influences us to desire and to ask for the right things, and God grants us those things. 

But this sort of spiel does not resonate with me, for it strikes me as an escape clause: If you did not get what you want, that’s due to you wanting the wrong things because you don’t sufficiently abide in Christ.  (My pastor did not say that, but I feel that conditioning answered prayer on abiding in Christ can eventually go in that direction.)  Consequently, if, say, you’re praying for a loved-one to recover from an illness, and the loved-one dies, are you supposed to blame yourself for the loved-one’s death, since God may not have answered your prayer due to your poor spiritual condition?  I hope God’s not like that!

Moreover, what exactly is the “right thing” to pray for?  I think that it’s appropriate to pray for a job or for healing, for oneself or others.  A person who abides in Christ can do this, as can one with a weak spiritual condition.  I think that a person who abides in Christ would actually be encouraged by her faith to do so, since Christianity teaches compassion for others.  So why would God choose not to grant such a petition?  In my opinion, it can’t be because such requests do not flow from Christ-like desires, for they do.

One may say that God knows best.  Fine.  But, if God knows best and will do what he wants anyway, why does Jesus go out of his way to tell us that God will answer our requests?  Why should we even make requests, when God will do what he wants?

Do I think that God answers the prayers of people who are especially righteous?  I’ve thought about this issue a couple of times lately.  First, I was watching the episode of Highway to Heaven in which Dick Van Dyke plays a hobo named Wally who loves people and gives to them.  Because of Wally’s continuous concern for others, God considers him to be a saint, and God answers Wally’s prayer to heal a sick boy.  Second, I saw a movie (for the second time) entitled The Third Miracle, which is about a debate in the Catholic church about whether or not to declare a woman to be a saint.  Part of sainthood is being so close to God that God hears your prayers for others and answers them.  That’s presumably why there are many Catholics who ask saints to intercede for them.

I’d like to think that God honors a person who goes the extra mile in showing concern for other people.  Do I think that God hears her prayers over those of others?  Part of me hopes not.  I know I’m not perfect, but I would hope that God loves me and listens to my prayers, plus I would not want to carry around a load of guilt if my prayers were to go ungranted and bad things were to happen.

I liked something that my pastor said in the sermon: He told about a little boy who asked if it’s all right to talk to God, even if he doesn’t want God to do something for him.  The answer was absolutely!  That’s one reason I pray: for the company.

A Good Impression; Life-Saving Transgressions; Women Learning Torah

I have three items for my write-up today on Joseph Telushkin’s A Code of Jewish Ethics, Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy.

1.  Telushkin talks about how Jews are supposed to make a good impression on Gentiles so as to sanctify God’s name in their daily life.  On pages 459-460, Telushkin says that this entails Jews making Gentiles aware of the Torah’s teachings so that the Gentiles will see the wisdom of Israel’s God (Deuteronomy 4:6), and Jews refraining from laws that discriminate against Gentiles, for discriminatory laws give the Torah and the God who revealed it a bad name.  For an example of the latter principle, Telushkin cites a story in Jerusalem Talmud Mava Mezia 2:5 and Deuteronomy Rabbah 3:3, in which Rabbi Shimon ben Shetach insisted that his pupils return a jewel that belonged to an Arab (which was found in a donkey that the Arab sold to them) even though keeping it would not be stealing, and Jews were not legally mandated to return lost items to Gentiles.  The idea was that returning the jewel to the Gentile would bring glory to the God of Israel.  Telushkin’s discussion intrigued me on account of a teaching in rabbinic literature that Gentiles are not allowed to learn the Torah, as well as halakhot in rabbinic literature that discriminate against Gentiles.

2.  On page 471, Telushkin refers to the principle in Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 74a that says that Jews can transgress any command of the Torah if doing the command would cost them their lives, except for the commands against idolatry, murder, and sexual transgressions such as incest.  Telushkin then discusses contrary voices within Judaism.  There is a view in Sanhedrin 74a that Jews should be willing to be martyred for less serious commandments of the Torah in times when Judaism is being persecuted.  And in II Maccabees 6, a devout Jew is martyred when the choice Antiochus IV’s regime lays before him is to eat pork or to be killed.  Rabbi Ishmael in Sanhedrin 74a, however, says that a Jew can even perform an idolatrous act if threatened, as long as he does so in private; the idea is probably that the Jew doing the act publicly would be more likely to undermine Judaism.

On pages 473-474, Telushkin tackles the question of what Jews should do when oppressive Gentile authorities ask them what their religion is.  Should they disclose that they are Jews and face martyrdom, or should they keep their Jewish identity a secret?  The Shulchan Aruch (Yoreh Deah 157:2) states that Jews at risk of martyrdom should not claim to be idolaters to avoid death.  Telushkin then goes on to refer to another viewpoint: “On the other hand, it is permitted to offer ambiguous, intentionally misleading answers when an enemy asks our religion, and some Rabbis ruled that it was permitted to wear Christian garb to mislead antisemites (see Ramah Yoreh Deah 157:2…).”  This discussion reminded me of the Muslim concept of taqiyyah, which affirms (as I understand it) that Muslims can lie about being practitioners of Islam if doing so will save their lives.

3.  A while back, I wrote a post about whether or not Judaism permits women to learn the Torah.  See here.  Remember the movie Yentl, in which Barbara Streisand plays a Jewish woman who pretends to be a man so that she can study Torah and Talmud?  On page 499, Telushkin offers a take on the issue:

“…even highly conservative elements within the Jewish community acknowledge that women must be taught the laws that apply to them (see, for example, the eighteenth century Shulchan Aruch ha-Rav, ‘Laws of Torah Study’ 1:4).  For much of Jewish history, this ruling was interpreted restrictively, as if the only laws women need to know concern commandments such as lighting Shabbat candles or the prohibition of sexual, and all physical, contact between a couple during and after a woman’s period.  The truth is, however, that the large majority of Jewish laws pertain to men and women alike.  Thus a woman who has not studied Judaism’s interpersonal laws will not know the laws concerning charity, unfair speech, and judging others fairly.  Similarly, women are obligated, as are men, to observe the Jewish holidays, recite blessings, fear and love God, and observe Kashrut; therefore they must learn these laws.”

A Contract with the Earth 10: Trash and Manure as Fuel

In my last reading of A Contract with the Earth, by Newt Gingrich and Terry Maple, I read that trash and manure can be used as a power source and are being used as such in some areas (or at least there were plans for that to happen when this book was written in 2007).  I think that’s cool.  I remember the closing scene of Back to the Future, when Doc Brown threw trash into his fuel-tank to refuel the Delorian.

“So How Was Your Easter…Really?” My Responses

In this post, I’ll be using as a lauch-pad Rachel Held Evans’ recent post, So how was your Easter…really?   I’ll quote Rachel’s post, then I’ll discuss how her thoughts resonate or don’t resonate with my own experience of Easter this year.

“I had my moments of faith: at the little Catholic church down the road on Good Friday, pressing my forehead into the wooden cross at the front of the sanctuary and silently praying, ‘God, I don’t understand this, but I believe, and I am thankful.’”

I went to a Catholic service with my Mom and her husband on Saturday night.  Were there elements of the service that I could believe or identify with spiritually?  Well, one piece of the liturgy talked about restoring fallen people to innocence.  I do not know if the story of the Fall in Genesis 3 is historical—-certainly many scientists and historians do not think so!  But I cannot escape the fact that the world is imperfect, and that includes me.  We have all done things that we shouldn’t, and we crave wholeness, or innocence. 

I felt a little put-off by the part of the service in which we were asking saints to intercede for us before God.  For one, after watching the depiction of St. Cyril of Alexandria in the movie Agora last week, I have my doubts that all of the saints were really that saintly!  Second, as a Protestant, I have a hard time talking to anyone in prayer except for God, plus I am leery about praying to any intercessor except for Jesus Christ.  But, as I thought some more, I could appreciate the ritual of talking to the saints of the past.  Many of us want people to pray for us.  We ask for other Christians to pray for us and to show us that they care.  What’s wrong, then, with thinking that our Christian family goes back many centuries, and that saints in the past pray for us?  I’m not sure if I buy that, but I can understand how such a concept would give Catholics a feeling of connection.

There was a baptism at the Catholic church, and the initiate was asked if he renounced Satan with all of his lies.  I wondered if I did so.  Christianity essentially portrays sexual desire (“lusting after a woman”) as adultery of the heart, but I have a hard time renouncing that.  It just seems unnatural to ask any man to do so!  But does Satan lie to me?  When I am taught to look to people and things for my sense of self-worth, is that not a lie of Satan?  When I am tempted to disregard the dignity of others, am I not being accosted by one of Satan’s lies?

“I had my moments of doubt: in the evangelical church of my childhood on Easter morning, struggling to listen to the familiar resurrection story that suddenly strikes me as a rather inventive way to escape our fear of death.”

I especially felt this way at the Catholic service: I wondered if Jesus truly rose from the dead, or if that were merely one religious story amidst a host of religious stories that are in the world—-many of which Christians would consider untrue because they fall outside of Christianity.  I decided to just kick back and observe what other people believe, and I found that I was especially moved by the music of the service—-how it was loud and powerful, and thereby majestic.

My Mom has struggled with Christianity, and, after the service, she remarked that she believes that something happened on Easter morning to give people hope.  To that, I say “Why not?”  I believe that there are things that occur in all sorts of religions or in life that give people hope—-hope that the future will be brighter, or that they can have a new beginning.  It’s even built into nature, as spring follows winter.  Perhaps that sort of event occurred for the early Christians.

“I had my moments of connection: holding hands with my neighbors during the Lord’s prayer, sharing a meal with family, watching the lady in the wheelchair in the pew in front of me pull herself up, determined to stand through ‘Christ the Lord Has Risen Today,’ seeing fellow Christians raise their hands in joy.”

I especially felt connected during the passing-of-the-peace part of the Catholic service.  I often dread that part of the service.  In fact, I was thinking of staying home specifically to avoid that part of the service!  I fear being ignored, or extending my hand at the wrong time and getting rebuffed.  But the people at the Catholic service were friendly, and so I felt connected.

“I had my moments of disconnect: sitting out the Eucharist because I’m not Catholic, hearing the gospel reduced to salvation from hell, welcomes that felt patronizing from people who have been praying that I come to my senses and go back to believing, behaving, and voting just like them.”

Probably the only time I felt this was when the priest was saying that Christ brings forgiveness to believers.  I thought, “What about everyone else?”  And what about someone like me, who is not even sure what he believes?

10 Significant Mike Wallace Moments

Mike Wallace has passed on.  In this post, I’ll list what I consider to be ten significant Mike Wallace moments.

1. 60 Minutes would be on in my household every Sunday night.  And Mike Wallace would be the first anchor to introduce himself in the lineup.  He’d say “I’m Mike Wallace” as his head went up and down.  My Dad once said that he saw 60 Minutes preach the Gospel more than the self-appointed Armstrongite preachers who thought that they had a divine mandate.  What my Dad meant by that was that 60 Minutes did us a service by exposing corruption.

2.  As someone with an Armstongite background, I absolutely have to mention Mike Wallace taking down Stanley Rader, who was a key figure in Herbert Armstrong’s movement.  See here and here for information on that.  Not only did I watch the 60 Minutes story, but I also listened via cassette to Wallace’s unedited interview of Rader.  (A relative of mine somehow had a copy of that.)  Rader was a sharp lawyer and accountant who gave Wallace some good back-and-forth, but, ultimately, the interview made neither Rader nor the Worldwide Church of God look that good.

3.  My Grandma told me that she once saw Mike Wallace at the airport.

4.  In his book Born Again, Charles Colson talked about Mike Wallace’s interview of him during the Nixon years.  Colson said that Mike Wallace was quite affable, but then the interview started and it was like “ding, ding, ding”, as Mike jumped on Colson and reminded him of the bad things Colson did or was accused of doing.

5.  At the Hebrew Union College library, I looked at a book that Mike Wallace wrote about his interviews.  Wallace talked about his interview with Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Wallace asked Reagan tough questions, such as how many African-Americans Reagan appointed as Governor, as well as confronted Reagan with an extreme statement that Reagan made about the Vietnam War (I think it was Reagan’s statement that “we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas”).  Wallace acknowledged in retrospect that he was a little unfair to do that, since a lot of people made dumb remarks during the Vietnam War!  When Wallace took a break from the interview, Nancy asked him why he was being so tough on Ronnie when she thought he was their friend, and Ronald Reagan stood near her looking disapprovingly at Mike.  Mike told them that he was just doing his job, and that he wasn’t trying to be mean!

6.  In a Mike Wallace book that I was looking through, Wallace said that he knew he had someone on the ropes when the interviewee kept saying Mike’s name.  “Mike.”  “Mike.”

7.  Mike Wallace in 1979 was interviewing the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, which probably took a lot of courage, considering how intimidating the Ayatollah looked.  Wallace challenged Khomeini with a statement by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, whom Wallace called a devout Muslim.  Essentially, Sadat said that the Ayatollah Khomeini was a lunatic.  A few years later, Sadat was assassinated.

8. I remember Wallace interviewing an author who was claiming that Abraham Lincoln was gay.  I recall Mike having an odd expression on his face when the author was saying that, as if Wallace were skeptical.  But maybe I was reading too much into Wallace’s facial expression!  (This article goes into Mike Wallace’s views on homosexuality.  If you read it, be sure to read the whole thing.)

9.  I recall seeing Mike Wallace in the 1957 movie, A Face in the Crowd, in which Andy Griffith plays a power-hungry guy who gets a TV show and works with the right-wing.

10.  I’d like to watch sometime Mike Wallace’s 1959 interview with Ayn Rand (see here).  Both were tough cookies!

R.I.P. Mike Wallace.

The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships 2

For my write-up today on The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, by Temple Grandin and Sean Barron, I will quote something that Temple says on page 6:

“I wasn’t shy about putting myself in social situations, or anxious about making mistakes, probably because there were so many, many chances to do this that I got all the practice I needed.”

Temple is talking about how she, notwithstanding her autism, has been able to live a fulfilling life with friends and career.  One reason was that she as a child in the 1950s-1960s socialized a lot, rather than being by herself watching television or playing on the computer.  That way, she was able to learn how to socialize.

I have different reactions to this:

1.  The way that Temple describes herself in this book differs somewhat from how her character was depicted in the movie Temple Grandin.  In this book, the way that she tells it, she was socially together.  She interacted with people, went to their parties, and played games with them, and, when she did something inappropriate (like talking repeatedly about a cigarette that came out of a donkey’s rear-end), she was told that she was behaving inappropriately.  In the movie, by contrast, she appears to be more socially inept.  She does not like going to dinner parties.  She greeted a cowboy by asking “Are you a cowboy?” rather than introducing herself and saying she was pleased to meet him.  She appeared to be rather isolated (with some exceptions) because her behavior was off-putting to people around her.  Which was it?  Was Temple socially-competent or socially inept?  I do not know.  Speaking for myself, as I look back, it was much easier for me to socialize when I was a kid and a teenager than it is for me now, as an adult.  I look back and I wonder how I did it.

(UPDATE: Later, she says that she had more social difficulties when she entered high school.)

2.  A solution that people often have for those who are socially inept is to throw them into social situations.  I wonder if that by itself will work the wonders that people are expecting.  I can be in numerous social situations, but, if I do not know how to act in them, I will continue to feel uncomfortable and unsuccessful, and I will tend to withdraw from them.  That’s why people who struggle socially need a game plan or some positive and constructive outlook towards their situation, rather than just being thrown into a situation and being expected to swim somehow.

3.  I liked what Temple said about not being anxious about making mistakes, since she had enough opportunities to practice socializing.  That’s one reason to socialize a lot: there could be positive moments.  Instead, I tend not to socialize too much, with the result that I beat myself up for saying or doing the wrong thing in the rare occasions that I do socialize.  Another point I’d like to make is that people will not necessarily give you another chance: if you make a social mistake, it’s not easy for you to recover from that with certain people and to have a fresh start.  But some people are more understanding.

Atlas Shrugged, Part I

I watched Atlas Shrugged, Part I last night.  Although the movie got bad reviews, and there is talk that Atlas Shrugged, Part II will get a new cast, I decided to watch the movie for three reasons.

First, I absolutely love the trailer for the movie—-its music, its drama, its powerful characters, its sense of mystery, and its reference to Ayn Rand.  Second, I watched some clips of the movie on YouTube (see, for example, here and here), some of which accompanied comments by a consultant to the movie about how the scenes illustrate Rand’s philosophy (see here, here, and here).  What I saw wasn’t that bad.  The acting was all right, I guess, or at least it was on the same level as the acting in other movies that I have seen.  Plus, the actress playing Dagny was nice to look at.  Third, I loved the book, Atlas Shrugged, which I read over a decade ago.

But when I actually watched the movie, I did not care for it that much, for a variety of reasons.  For one, the acting appeared to me to be stiff, and the characters struck me as cold.  I had a hard time feeling anything for them.  Whereas I could tolerate watching scenes in isolation, sitting through the entire movie was quite an ordeal.

Second, parts of the movie seemed to me to be unrealistic.  I find it hard to believe that James Taggart could meet with a handful of political cronies and get legislation passed as fast as he did.  Moreover, some of the legislation struck me as contradictory and as arbitrary: the antagonists wanted to stop or prevent monopolies, yet they passed an “anti-dog-eat-dog” rule to suppress competition and to force people to use the services of Taggart Transcontinental.  The movie was trying to show that these antagonists preached equality and the common good, but I wish that they spent more time demonstrating why they thought that their policies would promote the common good.  And my critique on this point extends to the book as well: Ayn Rand tended to present the proponents of views with which she disagreed as caricatures rather than as people who supported their viewpoints, as mistaken as those viewpoints were.  Reading the book, that was not a problem for me.  Watching it on my TV, it was.

Third, I thought that the movie took away the sense of mystery that propelled me to keep on reading the book.  When I was reading the book, I was wondering who John Galt was, and I kept on reading in order to find out.  But Part I of the movie has already strongly hinted at who John Galt is: John Galt is taking the wealthy industrialists of the world to a utopia where they can achieve with minimal government interference standing in their way.  Plus, the movie strongly hints that Galt was the one who invented a motor that would stop the motors of the world.  If my memory is correct, this stuff appeared later in the book, which was why I kept on reading.  But Part I, by including this stuff early on in the story, takes away that sense of mystery.

There was one part of the movie that moved me: When Dagny at the end shows up at Wyatt’s oil fields, which he has burned up in protest against collectivism.  Dagny screams “No!”  The reason I found this scene poignant is that Dagny and Hank Rearden are being left behind to make the best of a bad situation—-to achieve and to stimulate the economy in a world where the government is stifling that. 

The Shooting of Trayvon Martin

This post is about the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin.

1.  George Will and Donna Brazile had insightful comments on ABC This Week.  Click here for the transcript.

George Will said: “That the law in question, the so-called Stand Your Ground law, is a bad idea, because it tries to codify a right of self-defense, but it really confers upon citizens the illusion at least that they have something like powers exercised by highly trained police officers. Mr. Zimmerman says he was acting under this self-defense law, but he is said to have been recorded saying that he was in pursuit of the person. You cannot be in pursuit and acting in self-defense…But the problem, of course, is at this point we all ought to remember something. The last time everyone in the media and certain well-known agitators got up on their high horses and galloped off in all directions was the Duke lacrosse case, and everyone was wrong.”

Donna Brazile remarked: “Neighborhood — I’m a Neighborhood — I belong to a Neighborhood Watch. We don’t — we don’t carry pistols. We don’t carry guns. We try to protect the streets. We try to protect the neighborhood. We don’t profile people. We just try to make sure everybody is safe, get in and out.  But this has, of course, awakened some wounds, some wounds that go back generations, where young black boys are taught and told at a very early age — I heard my mom, it’s called the talk, my father, the code. The talk is, of course, watch yourself, be careful of your surroundings. If you’re stopped by the cops, protect your pride, but act with humility, and try not to run, to flee. But in Trayvon’s case, he didn’t know who George Zimmerman was. He didn’t know what this guy was up to.”

I don’t know exactly what the events were that surrounded George Zimmerman’s shooting of Trayvon Martin.  I read wikipedia’s article on it this morning, and it was well-documented, going so far as to include sound-clips from George Zimmerman’s call to the police and 9-1-1 calls.  The wikipedia article states the following:

“When the police arrived, they reported finding Martin face-down and unresponsive, with a gunshot wound in the chest. The police report states that they attempted CPR, paramedics arrived and continued CPR, finally declaring him dead at 7:30 p.m. Statements by the police say Zimmerman had grass on his back and his back was wet. Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose and the back of the head; subsequently his lawyer stated that Zimmerman’s nose was broken.^[48][49] However, the police report does not indicate that Zimmerman required medical attention. Zimmerman claimed self-defense, telling police he had stepped out of his truck to check the name of the street he was on, when Martin attacked him from behind as he walked back to his truck. He said he fired the semiautomatic handgun because he feared for his life.^[50] Martin was unarmed, and was carrying a bag of Skittles candy and a can of Arizona brand iced tea.^[50][51]“

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some physical altercation between Martin and Zimmerman.  As Donna Brazile said, Martin didn’t know who Zimmerman was, and Martin wondered why this guy was following him.  An altercation may have broken out, and that escalated into Zimmerman shooting Martin.  I don’t think either person was evil.  From what I have read, Zimmerman deeply regrets shooting Martin.  Could that be because Zimmerman looks back and sees that this action was unnecessary, over-reactive, and impulsive?  While he was fighting with Martin, Zimmerman may have felt that his life was in danger, when it really wasn’t, since he’s much bigger than Martin.  But he acted on impulse, with tragic results. 

If that’s what happened, does that mean Zimmerman should be let off?  I can understand why Martin’s family and many others would be outraged at such a possibility, for an innocent person lost his life—-and it all started when Zimmerman thought that Martin looked suspicious for highly nebulous reasons.  I can feel for both sides.  Some have wondered why the American evangelical community has been largely silent about this tragedy.  What could evangelical pastors do?  I think that they should do what Sister Helen Prejean (played by Susan Sarandon) did in the movie, Dead Man Walking: reach out to the victim’s family, and also the perpetrator and his family.  Both are suffering.

UPDATE: Evangelical pastor John Piper has spoken about the tragedy.  See here.

2.  Newt Gingrich is criticizing Barack Obama for highlighting the race of Trayvon Martin.  Obama said that, if he had a son, the son would look like Trayvon Martin.  Newt Gingrich finds Obama’s remarks to be disgraceful because Newt does not think that Trayvon Martin’s race is relevant: that it would have been a tragedy, whatever Trayvon’s race was.

Indeed, it would have been a tragedy, even if Trayvon Martin were white.  But I don’t think that race should be considered irrelevant in a discussion of this issue.  For one, African-American males are often racially profiled and suspected in American society, and that could have been what was going on when Zimmerman called the police about Martin.  Second, I don’t see why it’s wrong for President Obama to speak as an African-American man about a tragedy that befell another African-American man, and that befalls other African-American men as well.  Should we expect people to leave their racial and ethnic backgrounds at the door when commenting on issues, when that is a significant part of who they are?  And should we pretend that racism had absolutely nothing to do with this tragedy, when it very well could have?

Shepherds and Spiritual Experiences

My church had its Bible study last night.  We’re going through Margaret Feinberg’s Scouting the Divine: My Search for God in Wine, Wool, and Wild Honey.  I have two items:

1.  I enjoyed the DVD that we watched, in which Margaret talks about how shepherds were marginalized in ancient times, and yet God chose them to be present at Jesus’ birth.  According to Margaret, shepherds were marginalized for a variety of reasons: they smelled like sheep, they were socially awkward because their profession placed them away from human contact for long periods of time, they could not observe aspects of the Jewish law, etc.  Margaret also states that the youngest was usually stuck with the task of shepherding, since that job was looked down upon.

I’ve heard similar things in academia.  I remember Harvey Cox saying that shepherds could not keep the Sabbath, for the sheep had to be watched at all times (including Sabbaths).  How that worked in a society whose Torah mandated the death penalty for Sabbath-breaking, I do not know.  But what Harvey Cox said overlapped with Margaret’s point.  At the same time, I do not think that societies in the ancient world totally scoffed at shepherds, and that the Bible is an exception in that its depiction of shepherds is positive.  Other ancient Near Eastern nations also depicted their kings as shepherds.  However shepherds were regarded in the ancient world, they were deemed to be an excellent metaphor for discussing the relationship of leaders with their people.

Margaret said that the lesson of the nativity stories and the inclusion of shepherds in the Lukan one is that God is with us, even when we are alone and marginalized.  When we absorb that, Margaret said, we will then reach out to those who are marginalized and alone. I hope to arrive at that point.  I can easily find myself reaching out to those who can help me, or whose importance makes me feel important.  But if I find my self-esteem in God’s love for me, I can reach out to those who don’t make me feel important and who cannot help me.  This is not to say that I should wait for some “aha” moment before I can help others, though.

What Margaret said on the DVD reminded me of a movie that I watched a few nights ago: Joe Gould’s Secret.  In this movie, which is based on a true story, Ian Holm plays Joe Gould, a vagrant who believes that he’s collecting an oral history about the marginalized of society.  A friend of his, an artist (played by Susan Sarandon), thinks that it’s important for Joe Gould’s oral history to be published, for there are people in society who are lonely and who “have not been asked”, and she feels that their stories need to be heard.

2.  I don’t say a whole lot in Bible study.  I suppose that I can say some of the things that others in the group say, but I want to speak from the heart, and, while the things that others say may come from their hearts, these things wouldn’t come from mine.  Moreover, I do not know how exactly God relates to me, and so I don’t make dogmatic statements about that.  But I’m open to hearing what others have to say about how they believe God relates to them.  In my opinion, the reason this study is better than the last one we went through is that people in the group are sharing more about their faith and spiritual lives.

Here’s an example of where I have a hard time answering questions about my spiritual life: the pastor asked us if we believe that God disciplines us.  In my opinion, maybe he does.  But I don’t identify specific incidents as God disciplining me, for I do not know what is from God and what is simply from life.  In some cases, my own actions lead to consequences that can discipline me.  And trials, whether they are sent directly by God or not, can still make me a better person, or provide me with an opportunity to experience God.  The pastor talked about how he believed that God was with him after his first wife passed on.

Especially comforting to me were the stories that people in the group told about experiences with the supernatural.  The pastor said that, after his first wife passed on, his mother-in-law was having a difficult time dealing with her daughter’s death.  But the mother-in-law at night saw an apparition of her late daughter, who was telling her that she was all right, and that comforted her.  A lady in the group then told a story about someone who was on his deathbed, and he saw his late mother sit at his bedside (just like she did when she was alive) and offer him words of encouragement.  When I was growing up in Armstrongism and attending Adventist churches, I was taught to regard these things with suspicion, to see them as Satan or demons trying to deceive people.  Nowadays, I don’t see the issue that way.  I’m encouraged by stories about experiences with the supernatural as well as the hope that there is an afterlife: that we never truly say good-bye to our loved-ones.

Susan Faludi, Backlash 7

In my latest reading of Susan Faludi’s 1991 book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, Faludi talks about the backlash against the advancement of women that is occurring in the movies.

In the 1970s, Faludi points out, films tended to glorify the independence of women and depicted strong heroines who stood up for human rights, workers’ rights, equal pay, nuclear safety, and other humanitarian or political causes, even as films presented women who were “driven batty by subordination, repression, drudgery, and neglect” within the domestic sphere.  In the 1980s, however, there was a backlash, as professional women (but not professional men) were portrayed as tired and burnt-out, and female characters longed to have a husband and kids.

Faludi talks at length about the movie Fatal Attraction, which is about a man (played by Michael Douglas) who slept with a woman at work, even though he was married.  In this movie, the villain was the single professional woman with whom the man had the affair, and she was set in contrast with his meek wife.  Faludi documents the changes in the story over the course of the revisions—-as the man became more and more sympathetic, and the single professional woman became more and more villainous.  Whereas earlier versions were resolved with the professional woman’s suicide, that did not resonate with test audiences, and so the ending was changed so that she’d be killed off at the end.  Faludi says that men at movie theaters cheered on the death of the professional woman, and Faludi also quotes anti-feminist remarks made by director Adrian Lyne and actor Michael Douglas.

According to Faludi, the backlash in the movies has occurred before.  At one point, strong women such as Mae West were on the movie screen, but, in the 1950s, the women who were prominent were “good girls” such as Debbie Reynolds and Sandra Dee.

When I was more of a right-winger, I often felt that the entertainment industry was leftist, and the New Right figures whom I read asserted that what we saw on movie screens did not line up with real life.  I remember Phyllis Schlafly referring to a study that indicated that 70 per cent of American married couples had never been divorced, which contrasted with what was on TV and in films, where divorce was rampant.  But what’s interesting is that I also recall Phyllis Schlafly praising certain films and treating them as accurate representations of real life.  She liked Kramer vs. Kramer because it was about the ill effects of divorce on husbands and children, and it depicted a woman who left her family to pursue her own self-fulfillment as selfish.  Schlafly also praised the movie Working Girl because it contradicted the myth that working women’s main problem was male bosses, in that it portrayed a female employer as the one who was hindering her female employee’s success.  And, sure enough, these are movies that Faludi criticizes!

One thing that reading Faludi has called to my attention is how I am influenced by the media—-both news and entertainment—-as I arrive at a conception of what reality is like.  Do women long to remain in the domestic sphere, or do they want a career?  What is the truth, and how can I know?  I suppose that, on a personal level, I know all sorts of women—-those who are satisfied with careers, those who choose to stay home, those who have done different things at different stages of their lives, etc.  Faludi’s main source for discerning reality, as far as I can see, is studies, surveys, and statistics.