Around May 4
To Helen Freeh and her article that attacks Disney because she thinks that it is trying to sexualizing children. She then proceeds to critically attack some standard Disney cartoon stories. This appeared in the Imaginative Conservative blog.
I never liked Disney, especially the theme parks. But the cartoons can in no way compete with Rocky and Bullwinkle, Looney Tunes, and some Hanna-Barbara cartoons.
But the above article just tries too hard to attack Disney.. Freeh reads way too much into the Disney films critiqued above and shows a hyper-vigilance as to the displaying of men and families in Disney films. Like music, films aren't there to always portray the ideal, sometimes they portray realities that kids from dysfunctional homes have already been living through. And yet, families and men are not always portrayed in the same way in Disney films.
But worst of all is the motive for the above article. it is retaliation for Disney introducing male-male or female-female romantic relationships or characters who are displayed as being gay. Those male-male or female-female romantic relationships no more sexualizes children than seeing Mickey kiss Minnie, Ariel becoming able to enjoy life with the man of her dreams, or the marriages of Cinderella and Sleepy Beauty to their respective princes.
The real issue here is that many of my fellow religiously conservative Christians are angry when homosexuality is depicted as being normal in society. And that is the reason for the above demonization of Disney. I guess treating those in the LGBT community as being fully equal in society is what has stirred Freeh's anger toward Disney. And it seems that Disney is bad enough without being demonized.
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May 7
To Dr. Glenn Arbery and his article that starts off as social commentary on abortion in our society and ends up being an advertisement for Wyoming Catholic College, which he is the President of. This article appeared in the Imaginative Conservative Blog.
So the above article is merely an advertisement for WCC while initially posing as social commentary. The above article is merely preaching to those who ware considering becoming part of the choir.
As a product of a Christian college, I'll put in my 2 cents. We in the Church, which consists of all who believe in Christ, need to get our facts straight when it comes to interpreting and speaking to society. We need to remember that we are believers while society is a mix of us with unbelievers. So not only do we have to interpret our culture credibly, we have distinguish between what we can expect from society and what is unfair to expect.
Certainly we want our society to have a basic culture of life. But we will get nowhere with that unless we acknowledge that women should have self-ownership over their bodies. The Sexual Revolution, for all of its errors, got its basic thrust right--opposing the relegating of women to 2nd class citizens by recognizing them as equals in society. Thus, our challenge as Christians is how to keep both a culture of life and the rightful recognition of women as equal persons to men in society.
One of the reasons for the Sexual Revolution is the failure of the Church to embrace and promote the recognition of women as equal persons to men in society. Rather the Church and the rest of the society was content with the idea that men had place of privilege and supremacy over women in society. Women were made overly dependent on men in a number of ways. And since women only were recognized as having the right to vote in the early part of the 20th century shows that the subjugation of women in society has roots going back to the days of Colonial America.
So when it comes to abortion, we have to associate women's right to self-ownership of their bodies with a culture of life that recognizes the right to life for the unborn. And until we can cogently make that association, we won't get a fair hearing in society
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May 9
To Kevin Brown and his article on how certain lessons that can be taught from a Christian Liberal Arts perspective can solve the problem our society has with incivility, division, and lack of universal agreement on reality. This appeared in the MereOrthodoxy blog.
Since my first attempt was not accepted, I will try one more time. Each time that Christianity claims to have an exclusive solution to a problem, we find that quite a few Christians have been part of the problem.
It was claimed that the solution to slavery was to increase the number of Christians. But there were many Christians who either owned slaves or supported slavery. It has been claimed that Christianity is the solution to racism. But not only did many Christians use their religion to defend Jim Crow, many current Christians deny the existence of systemic racism. And now this article says that besides a Christian led skeptical view of ourselves will help solve the current incivility in today's society and that Christian tradition and authority will help solve that problem and help people find their moorings in absolute truth.
The problem with the proposed solution made by the article above is that it perpetuates the problem. The problem is partially described in the following quote from the above article:
The inclination to narrate reality in a self-serving manner seems endemic, with growing momentum in recent decades.
By pointing to itself as the solution, isn't the proposed Christian solution merely repeating the mistake identified in the quote? In addition, have Christians, especially those who have been educated by Christian liberal arts taught in Christian schools, provided enough examples to support the above claims especially when we consider the percentage of Christians who provide counterexamples?
Also, 2 of the real causes for today's incivility are furthered by the article's suggestion. What we see in today's reliance on relativity and its hostility toward outside views is in large part caused by tribalism and authoritarianism. While tribalism is based on a high degree of loyalty to a group regardless of what the group is about, a large part of tribalism is group authoritarianism. And much of the incivility that we see today matches up well with the traits of the authoritarian personality (see https://www.psychologistworld.com/influence-personality/authoritarian-personality ).
In addition, Post Modernism, though not offering any viable solutions, has rightly drawn our attention to the works of those who claim to have exclusive ownership of truth. And those works, even by Christians, do not support what the above article is saying. In addition, the Christian participation in the January 6th insurrection, the Christian support for Trump, and the Christian portion of the anti-tax movement also bears witness against the claims of the article
It's not that Christianity and Christian liberal arts can't contribute to our society's current state of incivility and lack of universally held view of reality. The article is right in saying that it has a role to play. But pointing to ourselves without noticing our failures or pointing to us alone is what we see in tribalism and adding authority based on ideology, which is what we see in authoritarianism, is not a solution to a society that is suffering in significant part because an authoritarianism has crossed all ideological boundaries.
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