14AR19-16

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Apologia Report 19:16 (1,199)

May 21, 2014

Subject: The death of death at the movies

In this issue:

CULTURE - Hollywood's revision of death and resurrection

+ A "host" of recent movies and television shows are now finding there's more to love than romance

FREEDOM OF SPEECH - liberal feminists suspiciously quiet over the censorship of Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali

WRIGHT, N.T. - a profile that balances accolades and criticism

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CULTURE

"How Hollywood Killed Death" by Alexander Huls -- reports that "death at the movies has died. The movie industry has corrupted one of cinema's - if not all of fiction's - most emotionally taxing moments into hollow formula....

"Filmmakers don't seem to realize that plot mechanics are no shortcut to pathos. ...

"Death has become a mere transition device. ...

"Formula may have atrophied death at the movies, but resurrection has killed it. And an unholy coalition between comic-book publishers and an economically weakened Hollywood is to blame.

"Perhaps you've noticed that your local multiplex might as well be Comic Con. Amid rapid shifts in the media-buying public's preferences, comic-book adaptations have proved incredibly lucrative for movie studios, practically becoming Hollywood's main business model. ...

"The timing of the rise of resurrection in blockbusters is no accident - it's an inheritance. Along with the rise of superhero movies came comic books' notorious revolving-door attitude toward death. Given the medium's sprawling, practically interminable story lines, publishers like Marvel and DC Comics often need ways to bring major upheaval to their worlds. So they kill off major characters. ... But Marvel and DC are financially dependent on characters that are too popular to leave dead. As a result, death to comic readers has become something of a joke: a tolerated pretense that means nothing more than a cash grab....

"Death is no longer just a transparent formula; it has been hybridized with something worse: Business strategy." Huls adds that "killing death threatens to undermine the movie business's reason for being. ...

"No matter how much movies or comics depart into realities with superpowered beings, technologically advanced futures or fantastical worlds full of impossible creatures, they still need to do what all good stories should: Tell us something about being human. But most of today's movies are telling us death doesn't matter. And it's hard to imagine a more inhuman observation than that." New York Times Magazine, Apr 20 '14, pp44-45. <www.ow.ly/wW7CV>

And in another media role reversal - in contrast with the secular press criticizing Hollywood for the change described above - Christianity Today praises the American film industry in "Long Live True Love" (Apr '14, pp72-73) by Alissa Wilkinson, assistant professor of English and humanities at The King's College, editor of QIdeas.org, and chief film critic for CT. Wilkinson reports that "A host of recent movies and television shows - from About Time to Frozen to Parks and Recreation - tell a new story: Romance is not the only kind of love that makes life worth living. ...

"Against all odds, Hollywood seems to be discovering that when we make romance the highest form of love, we're missing what love is all about." Wilkinson adds that "Real love occupies our whole lives.

"This is something we learn in friendship, a relationship that, unlike romance, has no natural peak. There's no final goal for friendship. Rather, friendship is an ongoing process of pursuing intimacy." <www.ow.ly/wWbpw>

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FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Silencing a critic of Islam" (no byline) -- Is there a woman alive who has more courage than Ayaan Hirsi Ali? "Born into a Muslim family in Somalia, she was subjected to genital mutilation as a child, fled to the Netherlands to avoid a forced marriage, and became an outspoken critic of Islam and its treatment of women. Death threats followed, and she had to go into hiding afer a Muslim fanatic murdered a filmmaker with whom she had worked and warned her that she was next. Now living in the U.S. under 24-hour police protection, Hirsi Ali remains a 'heroic example to women around the world' - but not to Brandeis University. Last week, under pressure from Muslim groups, Brandeis canceled plans to award Hirsi Ali an honorary doctorate, claiming that her attacks on Islam went against the university's 'core values.' It was another depressing example of the 'thought police' on college campuses squelching free speech. ...

"But Brandeis has honored controversial figures before, said William Kristol in The Weekly Standard. Previous recipients include playwright Tony Kushner, who once labeled the creation of Israel 'a mistake,' and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has compared Israel to Hitler. Is there one rule for critics of Judaism, and another for critics of Islam?

"One group has remained shamefully quiet over the muzzling of Hirsi Ali, said Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe: liberal feminists. They call opposition to employer-provided contraceptives 'a war on women.' But 'the savagery of honor killings or child marriages'? It does not stir their outrage. ... Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times [said it best]: The best response to offensive speech isn't censorship - it's 'more speech.'"

A photo-caption under Hirsi Ali's image indicates that she refers to Islam as "a cult of death." The Week, Apr 25 '14, p17.

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WRIGHT, N.T.

"Surprised by NT Wright" ("The Bible scholar's goal is to massively revise the way we talk about the Christian faith. By many accounts, he's already succeeded."), by Jason Byassee -- the best, most concise Wright profile we've seen. "Some say he is the most important apologist for the Christian faith since C. S. Lewis."

In a nutshell, Wright's revision says: "The church has misread Paul so severely, it seems, that no one fully understood the gospel from the time of the apostle to the time a certain British scholar started reading Paul in Greek in graduate school." And that's why Wright is earning a lot of criticism - and it's not just coming from conservatives. In reference to Wright, "Bart Ehrman, Barnes & Noble's favorite Bible disdainer, told [Byassee], 'He's a very bright and learned scholar - deeply read, widely knowledgeable, and rigorous. And I disagree with about everything he says.' ...

"Wright's newest accolade is that he has written the most extensive work on Paul in the history of Christianity," one portion of which is the recent two-volume Paul and the Faithfulness of God (PFG).[1] Richard Hays, the New Testament scholar to whom PFG is dedicated and dean of Duke Divinity School, "believes his friend has surpassed Bultmann. Wright has published more, in more areas, with more influence, than the one who had so impressed the professors who taught my family members. Soon students in Bible courses may sneer less and worship more."

Byassee asks: "So what does Wright actually teach about Paul? ...

"Theology does the work for Paul that circumcision, food laws, and Sabbath did for the old Paul, the zealous Jew Saul of Tarsus. It marked out a community as distinct from the world. ...

"Paul was not worried about where believers' souls would go after death. ...

"Paul is centrally teaching about God's faithfulness to Israel. He is showing that Yahweh is a God who keeps his promises, and so can be trusted to fulfill his promises in history. ...

"Wright argues that Christians believed Jesus was Lord very early in church history - not centuries later, after councils had 'decided' that he was so. ...

"Righteousness in Scripture does not refer to the righteous Judge passing his righteousness to the defendant. According to Wright, passages like [Romans 4, Galatians 2, and 2 Corinthians 5:21] are about God fulfilling his promises to Israel in Christ to remake the world through one Jew-plus-Gentile family." For Wright, the doctrine of justification "is not everything in Paul. It appears in only a few places in his letters. It is the wheel of the car, Wright says - not the whole vehicle.

"So if Paul's courtroom metaphors are not about imputed righteousness, what are they about?

"They have a much narrower frame of reference, says Wright. ... So Paul's courtroom references mean only that the judge rules the defendant is in the right, vindicated over against any accusation, and assured of resurrection on the last day. "This is where fellow Christians have objected most strenuously." Here Byassee gives examples from Albert Mohler, D.A. Carson, and John Piper. Byassee adds that "critics are right in one way: Many portions of Scripture sound much closer to the traditional understanding of Paul than Wright ever lets on. ... If we deem Wright correct, we as Western Christians will indeed have to redo much of our accepted thinking on atonement, justification, salvation, and church."

However, Wright is unique in another important way. "Most scholars talk about other scholars. Only a blessed few talk about the Bible. Fewer still talk about God." Byassee shows how Wright is definitely a member of the last group.

The passage which reads "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved," (Romans 10:9, ESV) "is central to Wright's reading of Paul and of his gospel. Law court and substitution, yes. And especially lordship and obedience, with resurrection showing that God is faithful to his promises to Israel, and so to the whole world. ...

"Our being saved is bound up with our pointing to, and embodying in advance, the forthcoming kingdom," says Wright, who, notes Byassee, holds ten honorary doctorates in addition to those he has earned the conventional way. Cover story. Christianity Today, Apr '14, pp36-43. <www.ow.ly/wRl96>

For a detailed critique of Wright and his stance on the controversial "New Perspective on Paul," see <www.ow.ly/x4Ys3>.

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - Paul and the Faithfulness of God, by N.T. Wright (Fortress, 2013, paperback, 1700 pages) <www.ow.ly/wXKBU>

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