AUGUST 2013

    Here’s another way to demonstrate how our society has been reluctant to accept the super feminine characters over the last few decades: Even the embarrassing super guy flicks were far better received than their corresponding super gal ones. The cheesy and parody-style Superman III of 1983 was the #12 grossing movie while the next year’s Supergirl (1984) was #66. The completely abysmal Batman and Robin was still the twelfth highest grossing movie for 1997, but again, Catwoman in 2004 – probably, all told, a better movie – was #75. Similarly, the campy and implausible 2003 Daredevil inexplicably ranked #27 for that year, while again, its spawn Elektra the next year was ranked #103.

    Some may argue that these movies didn’t find traction not because our culture isn’t into superheroines, but because the scripts, effects, casting, plot, etc. for movies like Supergirl and Catwoman were so poor. But that somewhat proves the point: film directors and producers didn’t put the same effort into these female protagonists that they did into male vigilantes because they knew that the superheroines would have a harder time finding footing in a culture that simply prefers its super males.

    Heroine efforts in TV land over the last decade have also floundered, such as the heroine-rich 2002 series Birds of Prey, which only ran for 13 episodes, or the 2007 NBC series Bionic Woman (eight episodes). Though not strictly superheroes, one could also point to the Charley’s Angels franchise to see America’s declining affection for strong female protagonists. This popular and influential TV series – as with Wonder Woman – had its heyday in the late 1970s, running for five seasons from 1976-1981. The next iteration of the franchise was more lukewarm, with movie versions of Charley’s Angels in 2000 and 2003, ranking at #14 and #29 per year respectively. The franchise ran aground with a dismal four-episode TV reboot in 2011.

    Other TV endeavors with super or quasi-super heroines were only slightly more successful including 2000’s Dark Angel, which ran for a mere two seasons, and Doll House, which only ran from February 2009 to January 2010. Two heroine shows that premiered in 2010, namely Nikita and Lost Girl are still both running, but only on relatively obscure networks, namely, The CW Television Network and the Canadian specialty channel Showcase respectively. All of this points to the reality that it is difficult to find popular traction for heroine shows and movies in the contemporary American mainstream.

    Recent Marvel movies have tried to change this. For instance, Black Widow provides a strong kick-rear-end-ish presence in Ironman 2 (2010) and Avengers (2012). Even Pepper Pots has some tough-girl moments in Ironman 3 (2013). But for her, this isolated incident is an unusual and unexpected status. That is, while Black Widow’s opportunities to beat up the bad guys are just another day at the office, Pots is clearly out of her comfort zone in a tough-girl role.  Either way, there still seems to be a sense that Americans are fine with strong females, but only alongside strong male leads, and not so much in leading roles themselves.

    People can talk as politically correct as they want about modern female roles and gender equality. But the reality of how society perceives women’s roles is better reflected in our art and cinema than by our talking heads on either CNN or FOX. This analysis of superhero films demonstrates that while we say we are OK with female athletes, politicians, or CEOs, in reality, Americans still have a hard time embracing its superheroines.

INSIGHTS ON ISLAM: Radical At Heart, or “Come See the Violence Inherent in the System!”

    How can we forget that old Monty Python sketch where King Arthur starts roughing up a peasant, recognizing the pesant to be an obvious intellectual superior to himself. The peasant yells “Come see the violence inherent in the system,” and then repeats, “I’m being repressed!”    I couldn’t help think about this sketch as I wrote about the violence in Islam. Talking-heads in the media want us to believe that it is just the radical Islamic fringe that wants to blow up things. However, the problem is that the radical fringe is not that far away from the core of Islam. Islam is radical at its heart, and I want to invite you to open your eyes and “come see the violence inherent in the system.”

    Let me back up and admit what many others will not: Every religion has its strange characters, individuals who are pretty weird, hold odd beliefs, and are generally well out of the mainstream of that religion. The technical name we give these people in academic circles is religious “kooks.” My own dear Christian faith has a number of folk who are somewhat kooky; believe me . . . I’ve met many of them!

    Beyond that, however, all religions have their militant radical fringe. For the purpose of this article, I will differentiate between the non-mainstream kooks and the “radical fringe.” For instance, Christian groups who are more in the kooky category would include those who: use only the King James Version, are snake-handlers (a misinterpretation of Mark 16:18), refuse to use electricity or medicine, or still listen to Sandi Patti. These kind of people are odd, to be sure, but otherwise harmless.

    The radical fringe, however, is far more militant and destructive, and is not considered to represent in any way the heart of that faith. For Christianity, our radical fringe includes leaders of sects that ultimately lead people to their deaths (such as David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite) and those who bomb abortion clinics; essentially, someone who kills or claims that they are willing to do so in the name of their faith.

    Islam, too, has its radical fringe that is militant and willing to kill for the advancement of the Muslim faith. However, there are two factors about the radical fringe of Islam that distinguish it from that of other faith systems.

    First, the percentage of those in the radical fringe of Islam is disproportionately high. It is impossible to ascertain exact figures, but this reality can be discerned simply by enumerating the destructive actions of militant Muslims over the last fifty years. The radical fringe of Christianity is a minuscule fraction of a percent, including the abortion-doctor killers, the dangerous cultists, the non-military militias, etc. However, the radical fringe of Islam is obviously much larger, including, terrorists, those in sleeper cells, and suicide bombers.  Most people have nothing personally against the typical Muslim who is hard working, contributing positively to society, and peacefully practicing their faith. But a radical fringe that makes headlines so frequently represents a widespread and high percentage of the Muslim population around the world and here in America.

    There is a second, and perhaps, more sobering reality about the radical fringe of Islam. By way of contrast, Christians eagerly and heartily condemn the radical Christian fringe and its most despicable acts. While that fringe executes ridiculous atrocities in the name of Christ and Christianity, the overwhelming majority of those who claim the name of Christ agree that such acts are not representative of Christian truth and virtue. Pastors, professors, and Christian political leaders then publicly decry those radicals and their acts. However, minimal outcry exists by “mainstream” Muslim clerics about the violent and despicable acts of the “radical” Islamic fringe. Sometimes, mainstream Muslim leaders praise the radicals, making one feel like the radicals were not too distant from the heart of Islam in the first place.

    A typical example is found in the MSNBC article, “Muslim scholars praise killer of Pakistan governor” by Babar Dogar. Five hundred scholars celebrated the murder of Punjab province Governor Salman Taseer at the hands of Mumtaz Qadri. Again, all faiths have their blood-thirsty radicals. But most faiths do not celebrate and dignify their radicals. The article reports, “The group of scholars and clerics known as Jamat Ahle Sunnat is affiliated with a moderate school of Islam and represents the mainstream Barelvi sect.” Did you catch that? These five hundred people are affiliated with a “moderate” branch of Islam, and they represent a “mainstream” sect . . . and yet, they praise an assassin!  [Update: the MSNBC article has significantly reworded this article since it first came out, but the quote immediately above is well attested elsewhere]. 

    A radical fringe this large, this active, and this ennobled is unspeakably dangerous. But, more to the point, the Muslim radical fringe is much closer to representing the true heart of Islam than the distant and decried “Christian” fringe is to representing Christianity. So, it’s a cyclical issue: Muslims who are radical at heart, become heroes of Islam as they carry out their radicalism. Thus the “heart” and core of Islam becomes more radical, or at least, more tolerant of the characteristic deeds of radicals. This creates more radicals at heart, and more radicals at the heart of Islam.

QUOTE FOR CONTEMPLATION: A Nod to Brian McLaren

    I have all but excoriated Brian McLaren in The Eclectic Kasper for his ridiculous Emergent views and his dangerous and over-the-top rhetoric (I won’t even list all the times I’ve criticized him; just type in “Brian McLaren” in the “Search this site” box at the top of this page and you can see several references to him in this web journal). I continue to disagree with many of his views and acts.

    However, my first interaction with McLaren’s writings was very positive. In fact, the first thing that I read from his pen was so profoundly meaningful to me, that I quoted him in my Master’s thesis in 2002.

    While doing ridiculous amounts of research about contemporary worship music for my thesis I stumbled upon McLaren’s “Open Letter to Worship Leaders.” Not only did I have a hard time believing that someone would write so strongly and pointedly about the distressing state of contemporary worship, but I couldn’t believe that they actually published McLaren’s comments in Worship Leader Magazine!  I certainly don’t agree with everything he says in his article, but it is somewhat refreshing nonetheless. 

    McLaren is a great communicator. Of course, it is his content that many of us have had problems with over the years. Anyway, what follows is just a few paragraphs from his 2001 open letter to worship leaders. Enjoy . . .

Too many of our lyrics are embarrassingly personalistic, about Jesus and me. Personal intimacy with God is such a wonderful step above a cold, abstract, wooden recitation of dogma. But it isn’t the whole story. In fact – this might shock you – it isn’t, in the emerging new postmodern world, necessarily the main point of the story. A popular worship song I’ve heard in many venues in the last few years (and which we used to sing at Cedar Ridge, where I was a pastor) says that worship is “all about You, Jesus,” but apart from that line, it really feels like worship and Christianity in general have become “all about me, me, me.”

If you doubt what I’m saying, listen next time you’re singing in worship. It’s about how Jesus forgives me, embraces me, makes me feel his presence, strengthens me, forgives me, holds me close, touches me, revives me, etc., etc. Now this is all fine. But if an extraterrestrial outsider from Mars were to observe us, I think he would say either a) that these people are all mildly dysfunctional and need a lot of hug therapy (which is ironic, because they are among the most affluent in the world, having been materially blessed in every way more than any group in history), or b) that they don’t give a rip about the rest of the world, that their religion/spirituality makes them as selfish as any non Christian, but just in spiritual things rather than material ones. . . .

Sadly, while many of our songs have better and better music, but the lyrics still feel like “cliché train” – one linked to another, with a sickening recycling of plastic language and paper triteness.

- Brian McLaren, “An Open Letter to Worship Songwriters,”

Worship Leader 10, no. 1 (January/ February 2001): 44-45.

DATE SETTERS: The Multiple Failed Prophecies of Charles Taze Russell

    While you may not be familiar with the name Charles Taze Russell, you have almost certainly met some of his followers. In fact, many of them have probably knocked on your front door.

    Charles Taze Russell, born in 1852, is known both for his wild end-of-the-world predictions and for being the founder of the organization that became known as Jehovah Witnesses (JWs for short). JWs are a cult that rejects the Trinity and the deity of Christ, and adheres to other controversial beliefs, such as refusing blood transfusions. Initially, JWs combined interpretations about Biblical prophecy with “Pyramidology,” which utilizes measurements from Egyptian pyramids as a basis for interpreting prophecy (Irving Hexham, Concise Dictionary of Religion, 119, 179). Thus, from the very beginning JWs were obsessed with calculating dates and triangulating the end of the world.

    As a young man Russell rejected the conservative beliefs of his upbringing and started his own church in 1878 on the premise that the Second Coming of Christ occurred invisibly in 1874. He started publishing a journal called Zion’s Watchtower and Herald of Christ’s Presence in 1879, and became the first president of newly formed Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society in 1884. Russell died in 1916, but his prophecy-focused followers adopted the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” in 1931, purporting that “Jehovah” is God’s true name.

    Russell was heavily influenced by the teaching of William Miller, another date setter from the 1840s, whom we mentioned in the first installment of this series in our January 2012 edition. In this vein, Russell set some fluid dates for the beginning of the apocalyptic era, and set 1914 as the definitive end of the dominance of world powers. Note the following quotes, and the disturbing certainty with which he asserts these dates without Biblical proof (these quotes and their contexts can be accessed through a digitized library of Russell’s writings here):

• “In view of this strong Bible evidence concerning the Times of the Gentiles, we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be accomplished near the end of A.D. 1914 [though some editions read “1915”]. Then the prayer of the Church, ever since her Lord took his departure—‘Thy Kingdom come’—will be answered” (Studies in the Scriptures, Vol 2, 99).

• “Be not surprised, then, when in subsequent chapters we present proofs that the setting up of the Kingdom of God is already begun, that it is pointed out in prophecy as due to begin the exercise of power in A.D. 1878, and that the ‘battle of the great day of God Almighty’ (Rev. 16:14), which will end in A.D. 1915, with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulership, is already commenced. The gathering of the armies is plainly visible from the standpoint of God’s Word” (ibid., 101).

• “We need not here repeat the evidences that the ‘seventh trump’ began its sounding A.D. 1840, and will continue until the end of the time of trouble, and the end of ‘The times of the Gentiles,’ A.D. 1914, and that it is the trouble of this ‘Great day,’ which is here symbolically called the voice of the Archangel when he begins the deliverance of fleshly Israel” (Zion’s Watchtower, November 1880)

• “The date of the close of that ‘battle’ is definitely marked in Scripture as October, 1914. It is already in progress, its beginning dating from October, 1874” (Zion’s Watchtower, January 15, 1892, 22).

    Despite drawing criticism from his own readership as well as others, Russell dug in his theological heels regarding his 1914 date: “We see no reason for changing the figures-- nor could we change them if we would. They are, we believe, God’s dates, not ours. But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble. We see no reason for changing from our opinion” (Zion’s Watchtower, July 1, 1894, 226).

    It is amazing how wrong and delusional a man can be. Not only was 1914 not the end of conflict, but rather it was the beginning of a brutal conflict, mainly in Europe, that lasted three years, created decades of tensions, and produced a second, even more widespread set of conflicts known as World War II from 1939 to 1945.

    But not only was Russell deluded by his own misinterpretation of Scripture and inability to predict dates. Millions of Jehovah’s Witnesses have continued to follow his teachings despite his evident and obvious date-setting errors. They continue to cling to this false teacher and perpetuate his erroneous convictions.

    Sociologist Joseph F. Zygmunt wrote a fascinating, if dated, article called “Prophetic Failure and Chiliastic Identity: The Case of Jehovah’s Witnesses” (American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 75, No. 6 [May, 1970]). In that article he describes Russell’s followers and how they dealt with and grew despite a series of date-setting failures, including those related to 1881, the aforementioned 1914, as well as 1918, and 1925 (and now, we could even throw 1975 into this list). The tactic that was used when each “prophecy” didn’t come true as stated was re-interpretation. Russell and his students claimed that certain events that were predicted occurred in a way that was “supernatural and hence not open to disconfirmation” (Zygmunt 934). For instance, when the end of world powers didn’t occur in 1918 as predicted, that prophecy was retrospectively redefined by Joseph Franklin Rutherford, Russell’s successor, as the time when Christ “entered the temple for the purpose of judgment” (Rutherford, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1920; thanks again to Zygmunt 934 for this reference). But, again, this interpretation was not subject to “disconfirmation”; that is, there was no way to confirm or deny whether this prophecy had come true. In this manner JWs were able to assimilate failed prophecies by recasting them as impossible-to-refute speculations.

    Delusionalism and conjecture breeds more of the same. That is why it is so important to focus on the truths and virtues that are certain from Scripture and to avoid wandering into speculation about exactly when certain apocalyptic dates will occur.