Dear Christians: You do not, I repeat, NOT, own "sacrifice," "virtue," and "honor."

[elfs]

There are few things that make me more furious than the idea that one group of people "owns" virtue. So I sorta Hulked out on the radio this morning when the director of the movie "October Baby," about a woman who goes on a road trip to discover the woman who "courageously refused abortion and sadly gave her up for adoption," said of his movie:

"I think that the values that we hold dear as Christians are immensely appealing — things like sacrifice and virtue and honor and destiny and things like that. ... I think when they're presented correctly, they're appealing to everybody."

Here's a secret, Christian America: the culture wars will stop when you stop claiming you own all of the good human values for yourself, and anyone who doesn't buy into your tribal beliefs cannot possibly be a good human being.

The Greeks discovered honor and virtue and sacrifice without you. So did the Chinese. So did American Natives, and the Hindus, and the Romans, and the Nordic peoples, and the early Japanese.

This, more than anything else, is what repulses me about modern American Christianity: a claim on the last word in goodness. That to be a good person, to have virtue and honor one must buy into all the bullshit about talking snakes, burning bushes, and a god who loves you so much he'll cast you into a pit, and if you defy him:

The riders not thrown leaped from their horses and tried to control them with the reins, but even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted, and their tongues disintegrated. Tthe soldiers stood briefly as skeletons in now-baggy uniforms, then dropped in heaps of bones as the blinded horses continued to fume and rant and rave. Seconds later the same plague afflicted the horses, their flesh and eyes and tongues melting away, leaving grotesque skeletons standing, before they too rattled to the pavement. [Tim LaHaye, Left Behind: Glorious Appearing, p 273]

Claiming to own honor and virtue is a claim to special privelege, one American Christianity has consistently failed to demonstrate it deserves.

Comments

mistaking?

[skylos (from livejournal.com)]

Are you mistaking 'values that we hold dear' as 'values that we alone in the world hold and hold dear'?

Seriously. Your entire rant is based on an implication that doesn't even exist in the original statement.

And I'm no lover of Christianity, I assure you - just a stickler for accuracy.

Re: mistaking?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think so. The whole idea that they have to be "presented correctly" in order to be "appealing to everybody" speaks volumes about where this guy positions himself.

Re: mistaking?

[wendor.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you. Looking at the context of the quote you pulled makes a difference.

The quote was addressing the increasing mainstream popularity of christian films. ("...why he thinks Christian films are resonating"). It was not addressing an increase in popularity of those values.

I interpreted his quote as indicating that in the past christian films have portrayed those values in a heavy-handed and overbearing manner that has turned off most mainstream audiences, but that by presenting them correctly, the film can be appealing to everybody.

In short I took "...when they're presented correctly, they're appealing to everybody" as another way to say "when they're presented incorrectly, they're not appealing to everybody and therefore limit the mainstream appeal of the film"

I have trouble trying to see your interpretation without having to first assume a radical position on his part...and then use the assumed position to color the interpretation of the quote to support the assumed position.

Re: mistaking?

[tagryn]

Yeah, reading the article itself, it comes across as the opposite of Elf's interpretation. What I got from what he said is "hey, everybody shares these values that we value too, we've just done a bad job as filmmakers portraying them effectively in 'Christian' films which is why people beyond a limited audience didn't want to watch them. When we do a better job of emphasizing the values that everybody shares with us, that's when the movies are able to break out of the genre's niche."

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

So you're saying that "they" refers to the films, not the values? It's hard to read it that way, but that could be editing.

«"No. 1," Erwin says, "I think that the values that we hold dear as Christians are immensely appealing — things like sacrifice and virtue and honor and destiny and things like that. ... I think when they're presented correctly, they're appealing to everybody."»

"the values that we hold dear as Christians are immensely appealing [...] when they're presented correctly, they're appealing to everybody." That reads like he's talking about the values, not the films. See the parallels in the word choice and grammar there? Sounds like he's talking about the values, to me.

[wendor.livejournal.com]

I'll agree that if you take that one quote...completely out of context...the grammar could lead to a difference in interpretation.

But I still maintain that if you read the whole article it seems quite clear what he was trying to say.

Also, in my opinion, your interpretation fails even if that sentence is talking about the values. You seem to be taking "... I think when they're presented correctly, they're appealing to everybody." as meaning that the values are not appealing to everyone without his presentation. I think that the more logical meaning in context is that even those values can be unappealing if presented INCORRECTLY. (a problem that has been apparent for years with traditional "Christian" films and had severely hampered their mainstream acceptance)

An even simpler way to look at it is to read the question that the quote was the answer to. The question was about "...why he thinks Christian films are resonating" with mainstream audiences, not about "why these values are resonating". He's addressing the appeal of "christian films", not the appeal of "christian values".