A hymn for the beginning of the baseball season:
Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
That used to be a stanza that one could well imagine a Cubs’ fan singing poignantly. This year, it may well apply to the Fightin’s faithful.
I continue to find amusing pieces in H. L. Mencken’s oeuvre as I try to frame a book on the Baltimore journalist and the conventions of American Christianity that conflicted with his own enjoyment of life. The latest comes from a book he co-wrote, Europe after 8:15, a guide to night life in various cities. Mencken took responsibility for Munich and wrote the following:
Let the most important facts come first. The best beer in Munich is Spatenbräu; the best place to get it is at the Hoftheatre Café in the Residenzstrasse; the best time to drink it is after 10 P.M., and the best of all girls to serve it is Fräulein Sophie, that tall and resilient creature, with her appetizing smile, her distinguished bearing and her superbly manicured hands.
I have, in my time, sat under many and many superior kellnerinen, some as regal as grand duchesses, some as demure as shoplifters, some as graceful as prime ballerini, but none reaching so high a general level of merit, none so thoroughly satisfying to eye and soul as Fräulein Sophie. She is a lady, every inch of her, a lady presenting to all gentlemanly clients the ideal blend of cordiality and dignity, and she serves the best beer in Christendom. Take away that beer, and it is possible, of course, that Sophie would lose some minute granule or globule of her charm; but take away Sophie and I fear the beer would lose even more. . . .
In the Hofbräuhaus and in the open air bierkneipen (for instance, the Mathäser joint, of which more anon) one drinks out of earthen cylinders which resemble nothing so much as the gaunt towers of Munich cathedral; and elsewhere the orthodox goblet is a glass edifice following the lines of an old-fashioned silver water pitcher—you know the sort the innocently criminal used to give as wedding presents!—but at the Hoftheatre there is a vessel of special design, hexagonal in cross section and unusually graceful in general aspect. On top, a pewter lid, ground to an optical fit and highly polished—by Sophie, Rosa et al., poor girls! To starboard, a stout handle, apparently of reinforced onyx. Above the handle, and attached to the lid, a metal flange or thumbpiece. Grasp the handle, press your thumb on the thumbpiece—and presto, the lid heaves up. And then, to the tune of a Strauss waltz, played passionately by tone artists in oleaginous dress suits, down goes the Spatenbräu—gurgle, gurgle—burble, burble—down goes the Spatenbräu—exquisite, ineffable!—to drench the heart in its nut brown flood and fill the arteries with its benign alkaloids and antitoxins.
Well, well, maybe I grow too eloquent! Such memories loose and craze the tongue. A man pulls himself up suddenly, to find that he has been vulgar. If so here, so be it! I refuse to plead to the indictment; sentence me and be hanged to you! I am by nature a vulgar fellow. I prefer “Tom Jones” to “The Rosary,” Rabelais to the Elsie books, the Old Testament to the New, the expurgated parts of “Gulliver’s Travels” to those that are left. I delight in beef stews, limericks, burlesque shows, New York City and the music of Haydn, that beery and delightful old rascal! I swear in the presence of ladies and archdeacons. When the mercury is above ninety-five I dine in my shirt sleeves and write poetry naked. I associate habitually with dramatists, bartenders, medical men and musicians. I once, in early youth, kissed a waitress at Dennett’s. So don’t accuse me of vulgarity; I admit it and flout you. Not, of course, that I have no pruderies, no fastidious metes and bounds. Far from it. Babies, for example, are too vulgar for me; I cannot bring myself to touch them. And actors. And evangelists. And the obstetrical anecdotes of ancient dames. But in general, as I have said, I joy in vulgarity, whether it take the form of divorce proceedings or of “Tristan und Isolde,” of an Odd Fellows’ funeral or of Munich beer.
How much did Christianity frame Mencken’s experience of the world? Enough for him to claim that the Old Testament is vulgar compared to the New. What Christian could come up with that astute remark?
From the archives of Modern Reformation, excerpt from “The Incarnation and Multiculturalism“:
One of the ways, however, where the church has become conformed to the world concerns this very notion of how Christ is like us. One of the assumptions which governs so much of our lives is the idea that it is impossible for an individual of a particular race, gender, or sexual orientation to understand the experience of someone different. Or put differently, that people from one kind of background cannot identify with someone from a different background. This perspective tells us that the conditions of knowledge change according to differences in gender, race, ethnicity and whatever else distinguishes individuals in the census data. This is the outlook behind various political initiatives to affirm the rights and livelihoods of various minorities, advertisements which portray living white European men as little more than unthinking, uncaring louses, and various efforts in the academic and artistic worlds to include the expressions of oppressed outsiders and demonize the expressions of dead white, European men. Conversely, the idea that the experience of a particular human being is somehow universal or representative is increasinly regarded as arguable if not downright foolish.
That followers of Jesus Christ would capitulate to such thinking is well nigh remarkable. Yet, evidence continues to mount which shows that Christians are more and more faithful to the dogma of multiculturalism than to orthodox Christian teaching. Mainline Protestants have been at this game the longest. When those communions embraced the idea that Protestant orthodoxy was the product of a bygone age with little relevance for the knowledge and social arrangements of the modern world, mainstream Protestantism opened the door of the household of faith to arguments which deny that theological truth, religious practice, and ecclesiastical office transcend the time and place. Still, conservative Protestants, even conservative Presbyterians have made up for lost time. At many conservative colleges and seminaries one hears an increasing number of calls for greater racial and gender diversity within the faculty, student body and curriculum. White male professors and the traditional theological curriculum, it is said, are neither representative nor affirming of the peoples to whom the church is called to minister. Along the same lines run some of the arguments for home missions and church growth. If we try to establish churches among either urban minorities or suburban baby boomers, can we really expect the truths of the Westminster Confession of Faith or the piety of seventeenth century Puritans to make any sense? Don’t we need to contextualize the gospel in a way that makes the gospel relevant to the problems which confront African Americans, Hispanics and unchurched Harry and his wife? So many church planting experts devise strategies for establishing churches that will appeal to different age or ethnic groups. Then there is the steady stream of study Bibles which evangelical publishers continue to produce, the woman’s study Bible, the men’s study Bible, the Bible for teens, and the Bible for seniors. So too does worship suffer at the hands of multiculturalism. Advocates of contemporary worship forms insist that older patterns and forms of corporate worship are meaningless and hence oppressive to younger believers who have grown up with television and rock ‘n roll. And to take but one more example, the debates in some Reformed denominations about the ordination of women follows from the logic that human experience is not universal but rather partial or specific to different kinds of people. So many who favor women’s ordination argue that women clergy are much better equipped to address the needs of the church’s largest constituency, other women because they, and only they know what it is like to be a woman. So, if you think that the question of cultural diversity is only one for the politicians in Washington or the professors at our leading universities, think again. More and more God’s people are succumbing to the notion that men and women, African-Americans and whites, young and old, and urbanites and suburbanites are fundamentally different, with little in human experience binding them together or giving them a common frame of reference.
The reason for going on at such length about this is not the problem it poses for public life. To be sure this is a problem. But the church has a different task than to make the United States a harmonious place to live. Rather, the danger of such thinking is that it flies in the face of the gospel. It directly contradicts what our text here teaches, that is, that Jesus is like us.
If we were to capitulate entirely to the habits of our culture about personal identity, that we are merely products of our various physical traits such as skin color, family background, sex, socio-economic status, or career, then we would be people of little hope. For we would not be able to identify with Jesus or he with us. The Christ whom we worship, who calls us into his presence and makes it possible because of his sacrifice for us to enter into the holy of holies surrounded though invisible by the saints and angels, is really very different from according to the contemporary mindset. This Christ, who is supposed to belike us in all things, except for sin, is far removed from us. After all, he was and in some sense still is in his glorified body a single, male, Jew who lived in first-century Palestine and worked throughout most of his life as a carpenter. All that he has in common with Americans living in the late twentieth-century is not much more than a pulse. And this is the real danger of such ways of thinking. Because if Christ is so different from us, then he really could not have identified with us and cannot set us free from our guilt and misery.
The way Americans commonly identify themselves has little to do with what the Bible teaches. The incarnation, the truth that the second person of the trinity took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, teaches that what matters most in human experience is not what physical characteristics divide us but rather it teaches what is universal to the human condition. Our physical traits may matter to the world and so hurt or help our chances of find a job and living a well-adjusted life. But these concerns are insignificant in the light of eternity. What matters most men and women is that they are created in God’s image and for the purpose of having fellowship with him. Of course the possibilities for that fellowship have been ruptured by sin. That is why Christ took human form, why he assumed the image of God given to humanity, that he might restore his beloved to fellowship with God. This is the real significance of the human form that Jesus took, that it was a form given for the purpose of glorifying and enjoying God, not for the purpose of wielding power over others or proving our standing as victims of oppression. Jesus was and is like us in his humanity despite his being a Jewish, male heterosexual bachelor from working class background. And his similarity to us is crucial to our salvation.
The missus and I finally polished off Walter White, the high school chemistry teacher turned meth cooker and dealer, the principal character of Breaking Bad. As I have indicated several times, Breaking Bad always left me (and the wife) feeling manipulated. Walt never seemed like a real character with genuine demons. He came across, instead, as a vehicle for writers to fashion for the purpose of extending a story line. Schuyler, his wife, also never seemed credible in her transformation from vapid housewife to gangster spouse. But then, the operation that Walt worked with either to cook, distribute, or make money never seemed credible, as if he could stand up to existing drug cartels and assorted kingpins and live to tell about it. The only likable characters were Saul, the lawyer, who is more cartoonish than real, Mike, the hitman who clearly would have cleaned Walt’s clock any number of times had it not been for the writer’s hi-jinks, and Hank, who seemed competent until he learned that Walt was the object of his long search and turned into a brooding bowl of jello for several episodes.
I am glad the series is over. We stayed with it only to see what the writers would try next.
But to compare this to the Sopranos (which I haven’t seen much) or The Wire defies belief. First, the characters in both of those shows seem plausible and are likable, even with their faults and wickedness. Second, the writers seemed to know something about organized crime and that you don’t simply decide one day to open up a drug operation and keep your life without gangstering up with a lot of protection. Third, in The Wire, as I’ve said, you like almost every character even if they are against each other — from Jimmy to Stringer Bell, from Prop Joe to Avon Barksdale, from Bubbles to Omar. And as the wife said, never has a show had so many African-American characters that you were sad to see go when the series ended (or when they died).
Of late, some commentators have wondered about the problem of binge viewing — the practice of watching numerous episodes over the course of one evening rather than seeing them in real time when they originally air. This may be a problem in the television series genre but I have no idea how anyone will remedy it. What concerns me is the knowledge that viewers have about the number of episodes left in a given season or show. In Homeland’s second season, for instance, several significant plot twists occur in the first two episodes in a way that leaves you wondering how the writers will get through all twelve episodes. The same happened at the beginning of the second part of Breaking Bad’s last season — though the habit of showing the result of a plot line, say Walt arranging his bacon into a 52 and then backing up to show how Walt got there felt contrived (as did too much of the show — have I already said that?). At least in a movie, even if you know how long it is supposed to be, you have a sense that before you is a complete unit that will resolve itself and let you walk away. With a television series, you have too much time to wonder what the writers are scheming and whether they are doing so simply to secure a contract for another season.
Unless, of course, you’re watching The Wire, in which case, you’re only left hoping that David Simon might consider another visit to Baltimore to update the doings of Gus, Bunk, Bubbles, and Marlowe.
Which would be an argument for lighting up, at least judging by this review:
Oh, what fun smokers won’t be having in 2014. As of New Year’s Day, Boston joined six other large cities banning smoking in its 251 city parks. The fine for violation is $250 and includes anyone caught “vaping” a smokeless electronic cigarette. In Oregon, there is now a $500 fine for smoking in a private automobile with a person 18 years old or younger on board; and in Illinois, flicking a cigarette butt out a car window—what was called “dinching” in the Bogie and Bacall era—could result in a $1,500 fine. The CVS pharmaceutical chain has announced that it will stop selling cigarettes this year.
On the bright side, however, you can smoke dope to your heart’s content in Colorado. And yet, only a generation ago, cigarette smoking was considered normal behavior, while lighting a joint was regarded as the act of a deviant.
Consistency and coherence are overrated. We need more hybridity.
Asked differently, should we put a smile on our faces for a hour and a half on Sunday mornings when things are truly chaotic in the home? No sooner than we depart the church building, we are met by disobedient children and dueling spouses. Our pornography addiction resurfaces; our anger meets us again; we are back in reality.
I wonder if in some of our churches there is no place for grieving, mourning, lamenting, suffering, and acknowledging sin in more places than the corporate confession? While I have not conducted an analysis of every Reformed and Presbyterian Church in the US, I know this to be true from my personal experience and in my conversations with other pastors. Sunday mornings are the time to be on your best behavior. You cannot show weakness; you cannot fail. Lest the corporate confession of sin, there is no place for brokenness. There is an imaginary sign above the entrance of the church that says, “This is the place for those in perfect health.”
Could the reason be a piety in which earnestness only counts as genuine faith?
Prelaw, a publication of the National Jurist, which seems to be a Chamber-of-Commerce-like magazine for the law school industry, recently ranked the best religious law schools for the U.S. In some ways, the lists were unsurprising (even if a tad humorous):
Most Devout Roman Catholic Schools
Ave Maria School of Law
University of St. Thomas – Minnesota
St. Johns University
Catholic University
Fordham University
Most Devout Christian Schools (other than Roman Catholic)
Liberty University
Trinity Law School
Regent University
Pepperdine University
Baylor University
Most Devout Mormon Schools
Brigham Young University
Creighton University
Gonzaga University
George Washington University
University of Utah
Most Devout Jewish Schools
Cardozo School of Law
Touro College Law Center
Emory University
American University
George Washington University
Most Devout Muslim Schools — wait for it
UCLA
Michigan State University
George Washington University
University of Michigan
Yale University
A couple of odd things stand out, aside from GWU being the most religion friendly of all (since it shows up twice). First, why are two Roman Catholic law schools particularly hospitable to Mormons (Gonzaga and Creighton)?
Second, and more importantly, if UCLA, MSU, GWU, UofM, and Yale are good enough for Muslims, why not for evangelical Protestants? Is it really the case that those five schools are particularly friendly to Sharia law or could it be that Muslims in America can figure out how to obtain an education suitable for work in a secular society without needing that institutions offer devotional pick-me-ups on the side?
I suppose Doug Wilson thinks he won a battle since one of his posts about Duck Dynasty made it on the radar of Rush Limbaugh. The gist of it — as we’ve heard so many times from the BeeBee’s — is that if you’re not fighting the culture war the way Doug Wilson does, you’re gutless, have let your education run rough shod of your love of Jesus, and have taken vows to the church of respectability.
The need of the hour is Christian leadership that is willing to show some intelligent fight. As Chocolate Knox put it in a recent tweet, “Homo’s know what Christians believe there’s no secret, yet they get surprised every time they hear us say it. Time to lean in.”
Time to lean in. This is why I want to come back to the third point I made about this imbroglio yesterday. This whole thing makes me think it is some kind of reprise of the Chick Fil A uproar. Somebody strayed from the Appointed Way, the homolobby flexed in order to shut up a critic, middle America responded by buying so many metric tons of chicken sandwiches, and then sophisticated Christians sneered at this inadequate and “entirely predictable” and “red statey” response. . . .
So what do we need? We don’t need generals. We have that. We need generals who fight. We don’t need leadership councils. We have those. We need national leaders who fight. We don’t need pretty boy preachers. We have those. We need preachers who fight. We don’t need evangelical regiments of pajamaboys. We have that. We need fight, and we need to fight with everything we have — heart, strength, and brains. All in.
Show me your forearms. Unless there are scars all over them, then I honestly don’t want to hear your views of the inadequacy of these cultural clashes (Gal. 6:17). When the barbarians are throwing their scaling ladders against the city walls, if the only defenders at the top of those walls are Chick Fil A employees in paper hats and hot grease from the deep fryer, and rednecks with their beards and shotguns, and nobody at all there from Red Brick Memorial Reformed, Rev. Forsythe P. Snodgrass, D.Min, minister, then let us be frank. We shouldn’t blame the folks who are there.
This is, by the way, the same tactic used by the left. Unless you conceive of a woman’s freedom, or race relations, or global warming the way we do, you are a mysoginist, racist, and ignorant. Fundamentalism is the word often used to describe this kind of all-or-nothing w-w. But I think, having been reared by two of them, fundamentalists were smarter than this. At least my parents didn’t blog.
What Doug Wilson fails to see is that many other believers do fight but some of us don’t evaluate the enemies the way Wilson does. Some us actually contend with our own demons — we struggle against the flesh. Some of us also fight the principalities of this age by supporting the Christian ministry. Some of us also think that a cable television show and the star’s contract is going to amount to a hill of beans in six months, let alone two millennia.
So go ahead, Doug. Fight your battle. It’s a free country (irony noted). And I’m going to fight your inadequacy to discern the times and your capacity to distract your followers from the less obvious but more serious battles that confront the gospel. And please note. I am not fighting Phil Robertson. From some 700 miles away and not having cable television (boo hoo), I don’t know enough to evaluate Phil’s situation. (Not sure you do either.)
Postscript: Geography and denomination alert!
Wilson adds:
The contrast must not be between how unsophisticated Christians fight and how sophisticated Christians . . . what do they do? At most, they demur, with a throat-clearing caveat or two. Theologians and ecclesiastical eggheads can make merry over this kind of pop culture melee if they like. The material is there — “look at those rubes, standing against the principalities and powers with their duck calls, zz top beards, and chicken sammich haute cuisine, hold the mayo.”
But the lack of self-awareness in this criticism is staggering. These are shepherds who feed only themselves (Ezek. 34:2). When shepherds have neglected the flock for so long, and the wolves are ravaging them, and the sheep come up with some kind of strategy to defend themselves, and the shepherds sit up on the ridge, laughing at the tactical inadequacy of what the sheep are attempting, what shall we call that?
Is Doug Wilson, a CREC minister in Moscow, Idaho, feeding Phil Robertson, a professing Christian in Louisiana who attends White’s Ferry Church of Christ? Talk about self-aware.
Word from the local radio station that today in 1966 was the last airing of Rawhide sent me on a goose chase that reveals (to me anyway) how remarkable and idiotic Hollywood can be.
First, I have never understood the appeal of Westerns. Sure, I watched Gunsmoke and I guess I got caught up in the recurring plot twist of whether Sheriff Dillon would rescue Kitty (a woman whom I always thought a little loose). But I couldn’t imagine life on the frontier (and public school history courses gave me no reference). How could any baby boomer living in the suburbs relate to one-sheriff towns with one saloon and perhaps a brothel, populated by ranchers? The only ranchers I knew were the ones designed by William Levitt.
Second, what’s up with Rawhide’s theme song’s lyrics:
Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’
Keep movin’, movin’, movin’,
Though they’re disapprovin’,
Keep them doggies movin’ Rawhide!
Don’t try to understand ’em,
Just rope and throw and grab ’em,
Soon we’ll be living high and wide.
Boy my heart’s calculatin’
My true love will be waitin’, be waiting at the end of my ride.Move ’em on, head ’em up,
Head ’em up, move ’em out,
Move ’em on, head ’em out Rawhide!
Set ’em out, ride ’em in
Ride ’em in, let ’em out,
Cut ’em out, ride ’em in Rawhide.Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Rawhide!Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’
Though the streams are swollen
Keep them dogies rollin’
Rawhide!
Rain and wind and weather
Hell-bent for leather
Wishin’ my gal was by my side.
All the things I’m missin’,
Good vittles, love, and kissin’,
Are waiting at the end of my rideCHORUS
Move ’em on, head ’em up
Head ’em up, move ’em on
Move ’em on, head ’em up
Rawhide
Count ’em out, ride ’em in,
Ride ’em in, count ’em out,
Count ’em out, ride ’em in
Rawhide!Keep movin’, movin’, movin’
Though they’re disapprovin’
Keep them dogies movin’
Rawhide!
Don’t try to understand ’em
Just rope, throw, and brand ’em
Soon we’ll be living high and wide.
My hearts calculatin’
My true love will be waitin’,
Be waitin’ at the end of my ride.Rawhide!
Rawhide!
Finally, as odd as Westerns are and as little as Rawhide’s lyrics have to say, the singer who sang for the series, Frankie Laine, made the song one that you not only can’t get out of your head (in a good way) but also tempted you to emulate the song’s object and herd your cat. Here’s a little background on Mr. Laine (that may engage our Roman Catholic readers):
Singer, composer and author Frankie Laine was born March 30, 1913 in Chicago. His real name was Francesco Paulo LoVecchio and he lived in Chicago’s Little Italy. Frankie was the oldest of eight children born to Sicilian immigrants John and Anna Lo Vecchio, who had come from Monreale, Sicily near Palermo. His father first worked as a water-boy for the Chicago Railroad and he was eventually promoted to laying rails. His father subsequently went to a Trade School and became a barber. One of his most famous clients was gangster Al Capone. Frankie made his first appearance in a choir at the Immaculate Conception Church where he was an altar boy. At 15, he performed at the Merry Garden Ballroom in Chicago while attending Lane Technical School. He supported himself by working as a car salesman, bouncer in a beer parlor and as a machinist. He also sang at a weekly radio station (wins) for $5.00 per week. The program director for wins convinced him to change his name to Frankie Laine after he auditioned for the radio. His name was stretched out to Frankie because opera singer Frances Lane (Dorothy Kirsten) and Fanny Rose (Dinah Shore) were singing at nearby radio station WNEW. At 18, he went to Baltimore and participated in a marathon dance contest after coming off the heels of winning ones in Stamford, CT. and Chicago. Laine set an all-time marathon dance record of 3501 hours in 145 consecutive days in 1932 at Wilson’s Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey and his competition was an Olympic miler named Joey Ray and included 101 other contestants. Altogether, he participated in 14 marathons, winning three, second once and fifth twice. His last contest was back in Chicago at the Arcadia where a 14-year-old girl was disqualified because the judges found out her age. She later became successful singer, Anita O’Day.
Laine’s nicknames were Mr. Rhythm, America’s Number One Song Stylist, Old Man Jazz, and Old Leather Lungs. Those are not names that come to mind with the song, Rawhide. Maybe Gene Autry?
As tempting as it is to kvetch about Hollywood’s artificiality and its materialist cultural appropriations, the buck actually stops with (all about) us, the people glued to our television sets as 8-year olds, the grad school student watching a romantic comedy for a distraction from dissertation writing, or the middle-aged small town dweller who continues to be fascinated by the comings and goings of Daniel Day Lewis. Whether the big screen at the local movie house or the small one at home, that shining screen beckons as enticingly as Jay Gatsby’s green light.
The Big Kahuna is not necessarily the movie to see on Christmas Day. The options for the Harts are to re-watch Family Man (which is a very clever retread of It’s A Wonderful Life set in contemporary New Joisey) or Metropolitan, both with Christmas themes. (Unfortunately, the copies that we own of each are in VHS, which means having to find the old video cassette player — chore one — and then reckon with the existing shelves and wires — chore two on steroids.) If neither of these is available for free at Amazon Prime, we may trot out My Architect, a wonderful documentary about the Philadelphia architect, Louis Kahn, made by his illegitimate son, Nathaniel. What does My Architect have to do with Christmas? Not much, except that at holidays we turn nostalgic and Philadelphia’s presence in the movie reminds the Harts of our life there. (At the risk of going stream of consciousness, a recent viewing of Stories We Tell, by Sarah Polley, another poignant documentary about fathers and mother, reminded the Harts of My Architect and put us in the mood.)
Speaking of nostalgia during the holiday season, an outing to Ann Arbor yesterday allowed us to see a double-feature (for the price of two admissions, mind you) of Nebraska and Saving Mr. Banks. Nebraska has its charms, as do most of Alexander Payne‘s movies (among them Sideways, About Schmidt, and Descendants). But Saving Mr. Banks stole the show. I for one cannot get enough of Emma Thompson. But the portrayal of a proper Londoner (via Australia) having to reckon with Hollywood was priceless. It was in several respects the flipside of My Week with Marilyn, a movie about Marilyn Monroe’s starring in a Sir Laurence Olivier production, filmed at Pinewood Studios, The Prince and the Showgirl. (Seeing Kenneth Branagh play Olivier is wonderful.) Watching the clash between English formality and American casualness in both these movies is priceless.
This is a long-winded way of making available to Oldlifers — and especially Roman Catholic critics of Oldlife errors — a clip from The Big Kahuna that is arguably the best scene from a movie that gets evangelicalism right and portrays it surprisingly sympathetically. (For those pressed for time, the really poignant lines come around minute 2:50 and run for a minute or so.) And what the movie gets right is a born-again innocence that exalts in its own righteousness without noticing the log protruding from an outlook that overlooks the fundamental tension of the Christian life — being both saint-and-sinner. The scene also exposes the sort of self-righteousness that we often see in Protestants who convert to Roman Catholicism — an exaltation of the “true” church while ignoring all the warts that make Rome less than appealing and the claims of converts less than believable. Modesty is incumbent on all Christians. But for those with a church whose past is as tainted as Rome’s is (give Protestants time, we only have 500 years experience), such modesty is not simply becoming but necessary. The way Phil looks at Bob in this clip is the way I often feel when reading Jason and the Callers.
What does any of this have to do with Christmas? Nothing, really. No problem, though, it’s a secular holiday and I am grateful for the time off to watch movies.
Old Life 