To R. Scott Clark and his blogpost that significantly criticizes Gillette’s commercial calling on men to treat women with respect and to stop bullying others. This appeared in Heidelblog
It seems that the above reaction to the Gillette commercial is rather defensive and seems to indicate a turf battle over who gets to challenge people to be better. I see no branding in this commercial nor the idea that buying Gillette products is a way of civilizing men as Clark claims. And certainly Gillette is neither a church nor an organization like the B.S.A., but so what?
And as for what the commercial depicts, it explicitly says that it is addressing issues like sexual harassment and assault along with bullying the latter of which explains why the "rough housing" between two boys was broken up. Should we allow bullying between boys because it challenges them to be tougher?
We should ask why the effort to discredit the film? For example, consider the line below:
It is quite likely, however, that this slick, expensive commercial was certainly tested in “focus groups”
How is it logically consistent to say that the testing of this commercial was both 'quite likely' and 'certainly.' Certainly Clark knows the Scriptural warnings against bearing false witness. And to avoid doing so, don't we need evidence rather than speculation to make a claim against another.
Finally, we do need to apply redemptive history to the subject of what men should be. Yes we need people, not just men, who can stand up to evil. But redemptive history seems to have a changing view of the evil in people which must be confronted. When God's people consisted of a collection of tribes or a nation, evil was more likely to be attributed to those outside the tribes or nation. Yes, evil was attributed to evil kings, false prophets, and other disobedient people. But those who opposed God's people were all described as being evil. Deliverance from evil then consisted of deliverance from others.
But New Testament redemptive history attributes evil to all by calling us sinners. So today when people take up arms to confront perceived evil, they must also look in a mirror lest they too be counted with the enemy. WW II, for example, was aptly called a war between empires. Certainly the Axis powers had to be stopped. But opposing the Axis power did not imply one's own nation was good. And not only was the Soviet Union a vintage example of that idea, the US also practiced evil both during and after WW II. Our firebombing of German and Japanese cities, the use of nuclear weapons, and our land acquisitions in the Pacific gave a more complete picture of our true colors. And something similar can be said of our allies such as Great Britain and France.
So why the defensive reaction to the Gillette commercial? Perhaps the above post is more of a self-description than a protest against Gillette along with Proctor and Gamble.
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To Joseph Mussomeli and his blogpost that describes the shutdown as a failure of both the Republican President and the Democratic House members of being unwilling to compromise even despite the fact that federal workers pay the price for that unwillingness. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
What seems to be missing from the above discussion is Trump's history at stiffing workers (see https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/ ). What we see with the shutdown is just another example of the same. And it isn't just the internet that can tell us this history, some who worked in NYC before Trump became President can as well. For example, I met a person who worked as a paralegal during some of the time when Trump was there who told me that many people know of Trump's history at stiffing workers.
The shutdown isn't about two sides who won't compromise. The shutdown is about a President who is using the plight of federal workers as pawns in his version of a nuclear option. The House of Representatives is a collective voice of democracy. So by utilizing the partial shutdown, what Trump has said is that if any collective voice of democracy does not give in to his demands, a partial shutdown of the government, remains an option for him to use. The issue of the wall is not pertinent here. The issue here is a President who rejects a historical and legal voice of democracy and doesn't care who is hurt by the action.
In addition we should note how Trump told Schumer and Pelosi that he would not only shutdown the government, but that he would take credit for that shutdown. But now he blames Democrats for his actions. When will conservatives fully connect with the fact that their Republican President is a man who has no regard for the truth?
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