That's Not What We Wanted

The unintended outcome of the fight against violent media.

'Parent seminar examines violent media content' was not the headline in the paper the other day. Though by all accounts it probably could have been, and maybe should have been. The parents who went to the seminar came back challenged and motivated. The informative presentations opened their eyes to some important new challenges. They felt empowered to deal with them.

It was probably worth an article in the news paper, except it wasn't really news. Parent seminars have been examining violent media content for years. The parents who went to this seminar could have been the children and grand children of parents who had gone to similarly informative and challenging seminars years before them.

I am of an age to remember when Marshall Dillon was the dangerous character who needed to be reined in lest impressionable children get the idea that the best solution to problems is to shoot the bad guy. And to some extent the campaign worked. The Gunslinger Sheriff gave way to heroes who thought, talked, or charmed their way through conflict. This was not an entirely bad thing as television told artistic and creative stories about characters like Columbo, Banacek, and Rockford. (Movies made a similar transition.)

But there's still a market for violent media. And since it's no longer fashionable for heroic role models to be the physically aggressive type, other kinds of characters have filled the void. In the old days, the violence of the sheriff or soldier taught us the proper use of force was to defend others. The message was use your violence for a noble purpose, not for your own advancement but for the good of others. These are the sorts of people others admire.

In these new days, sheriffs and soldiers have given way to outlandish characters like those in the WWE. The "matches" staged under the WWE banner feature people showing precious little self-discipline. With what seems to be reckless abandon, they act out unrestrained, atavistic aggression. Observers are entitled to ask if civilization has really advanced much beyond the Roman Coliseum.

It has advanced at least to this extent: the performers practise and train to avoid any lethal danger in their combat. But even this is no real advantage, for the audience of impressionable children who watch don't see it. They just see one fighter pounding an opponent's face into the mat. And they get the message loud and clear: use your violence to do what ever it takes, by any means necessary, to get what you want and be the last person standing in the ring. Then you will receive the cheers of an admiring audience.

Now a new generation of parents must learn to cope with the violent images children face. But now it's a much more dangerous kind. Marshall Dillon could be persuaded to lay down his gun for the sake of the greater good. But for the new, nihilistic, impulsive violence, such appeals are literally nonsense. It wonders, How would laying down my gun help me get what I want? and dismisses the request. The new violence can only be restrained by someone using violence against it. Which society must figure out how to do, and quickly.

Maybe we need to welcome Marshall Dillon back to clean up Dodge…

That's my child… or is it?

It's all in the eye of the beholder — but should it be?

The lead from Sky News sets up the tragic disagreement:

A woman left infertile after cancer treatment says she feels "distraught" after losing a five-year legal battle to try to become a mother using her own embryos.

In 2001, Natallie Evans and Howard Johnston went through an in-vitro fertilization procedure and had six embryos created. Evans hoped to use the embryos to become a mother after she completed treatment for ovarian cancer.

Just a year later, though, Evans and Johnston had an irreconcilable split, and he was no longer willing to be the father of her children. Unfortunately, because of her cancer treatment, those embryos were her only chance to carry and give birth to her children. As a result of her loss at the European Court of Human Rights, the embryos probably will be destroyed within the month.

She said: "I am distraught at the court's decision. It is very hard for me to accept that the embryos will now be destroyed and I will never become a mother....
I would ask Howard to consider whether he could ever permit me to have the children I so dearly long for, and which he was happy to consent to when the procedure took place to create these embryos."

Johnston, on the other hand, was glad the court affirmed his argument. "I want to be able to choose when and with who I become a parent."

Evans seems to feel Johnston made that choice when he consented to create the embryos was a decision to become a parent. And there's a kind of logic to that. What did Johnston think he was choosing to do when he agreed to help create the embryos? What did he think the goal of the process was?

But Johnston is living within the letter of the current law in the United Kingdom: the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act requires consent from both man and woman at every stage of the process. Anna Smajdor, researcher in medical ethics at Imperial College, London, seems to think the letter of the law doesn't reflect real life:

No couple can guarantee an ongoing relationship, and both parties need to understand and accept that the creation of embryos together is a reproductive endeavour which cannot simply be revoked.
If this seems risky or unpalatable, consent should not be given in the first place.

Parenting, the act of creating and nurturing a child, is a project that can't be revoked. It is an unbroken flow of events extending across years. In the normal order of things, the only stage of parenting where consent can be given is at the beginning. After that, ongoing consent is not necessary — no matter how much a parent might complain "If I'd know this was what I was getting into, I'd have made some different decisions."

Only the intervention of science creates discrete "stages" at which consent must be reaffirmed. They are artificial in the most literal sense of the term: products of human artifice. For Evans, the embryos were the children she hoped for, children she was committed to bear and rear. For Johnston, those embryos were just a burden, binding him to a bad memory. Who is seeing reality clearly?

Science has created a new reality that encourages people there are places where the decision to become a parent can be revoked. Perhaps it's just the eye of this beholder, but that seems to be a rather more dangerous and uncertain environment for a growing child

A whole mission: make both poverty and greed history

The theological conflict in the worldwide Anglican communion has produced its share of intense heat. But that’s a post for another day. The encouraging thing is the conflict has also produced its share of intense light. The conflict has provoked some deep thinking about just what the purpose of a church is.

Ugandan Archbishop Henry Orombi offered this reflection

It is not enough, however, to “make poverty history.” We must also “make greed history.” That is why it is not enough to substitute support for the Millennium Development Goals for the fullness of the Biblical understanding of God’s mission in the world. Evangelism, repentance, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and Biblical discipleship are as much a key to the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals as all the programmes and strategies we will put in place. And we have and will continue to put them in place. But, the whole counsel of God in Scripture must be proclaimed and embraced as the only way to the full and abundant life that Jesus promises.

For a generation, the church has had difficulty striking a proper balance between its temporal and eternal mission goals. On the one hand, some focus on the command to feed the hungry. On the other are those who observe people don’t live by bread alone but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

The conflict between personal morality and social justice is a false one. The church needs both to be powerfully faithful in its mission. A church that focuses on social justice to the exclusion of personal morality tends to have little relevance in the day to day lives of members. On the other hand, faithful teaching personal righteousness is never just about the individual; it always includes the duties and obligations we have to each other.

Does God really send people to hell?

The new movie (and earlier book) The Bridge to Terebithia offers lots of opportunities for reflecting on ultimate issues.

If you don’t believe the Bible, one girl tells another, God will send you to hell. The other girl can’t believe that. Waving an appreciative gesture at the beautiful creation around them, she says God doesn’t have time to send anyone to hell. He’s busy creating all this beauty and wonder.

The notion that God sends people to hell continues to astound me. Surely people find their way to hell through their own choices and actions.

Wherever the Bible describes God’s action, design or desire regarding salvation, it talks about how God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4, ESV)

Admittedly, all people do not come to that knowledge and find salvation. But that’s because of their choices; it wasn’t God’s idea for it to turn out that way.

The original consequence of sin was very specific. God tells Adam, “cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life... By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19, ESV)

God does not say he is cursing the ground because of the man’s sin. The connection between the man’s sin and the curse is more direct, more immediate. The curse comes from the sin, not from God’s action. As the Bard might have said, "The fault lies not in our God, but in ourselves."

God’s desire is to bless us and lead us to an eternal promise. Continuing to blame God for things that are truly and properly our fault simply gets in the way of seeing his offer of salvation.