The Rise of the Anti-Hero

"If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation."1 – Andrew Fletcher.

It is no secret that we're in the midst of a cultural revolution. As western society pushes more aggressively towards post-Christian secularism, we are beginning to see changes in more obvious ways than before, so much so that others are beginning to take notice.

An Op-Ed column by writer Greg Burke appeared  in today's Los Angeles Times entitled "Disney's 'Maleficent': Romancing the devil." There, Burke observes that the movie company known for its family-friendly fare is now "risking the wrath of monochrome Christians everywhere."2

Disney has portrayed evil with interesting specificity in previous films. Even in 1940's Fantasia, evil demons in the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence were clearly depicted, especially when juxtaposed with the hallowed blurriness of "Ave Maria" which is supposed to counteract the evil frivolity. For fallen men, evil is always easier to see than holiness.

But, as even Burke notes, in Malificent there's a fundamental shift in the understanding of evil. Not only does he claim that "Jesus has lost some reputational ground," but he believes "It's easier to identify with a Maleficent than a messiah."3 He writes:

Once a force of pure evil, the demonic Maleficent (played by Angelina Jolie) has morphed into a sympathetic Earth goddess akin to Demeter, cursing yet protecting her Persephone-like surrogate daughter, the sleeping beauty Aurora.

In endowing the horned Maleficent with motherly love, veteran Disney writer Linda Woolverton takes a stance similar to that of Scandinavian/European black-metal bands such as Immortal, Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth: They embrace darkness in order to align themselves against those who claim to represent the "Light" — the legions who invoked Christ while destroying primeval cultures and slaughtering the metal folk's tribal forebears. Maleficent's brutish screen opponents, crowned with medieval helmets, lack only crosses on their chests to identify them directly as Crusaders.4

The mistaken history and pejoratives aside, I think Burke is onto something and this change in the public's self-understanding is not exclusive to Disney. The anti-hero is the rule of thumb in entertainment today. One has to look no further than hit television shows such as Dexter, Breaking Bad, or The Walking Dead to see how heroes with moral clarity have been replaced by protagonists (if one can use the word) who week after week are playing by their own rules and using demonstrably evil means to achieve their individual ends.

In Book II of The Republic, Plato was deeply concerned with the popular entertainment of his day. He felt that the stories people told had a profound impact on the society as a whole. He states that the most stories were having a corrupting influence on those who partake of them by not only being false, but offering dangerous lies by making what is naturally bad good and vice-versa . He calls such corruptions "ugly and immoral as well as false—misrepresenting the nature of gods and heroes, like an artist whose picture is unlike the object he sets out to draw." 5

Unlike Plato, I don't see state-governed censorship as the solution. However, while our entertainment reflects our declining values, it also reinforces those "ugly and immoral as well as false" views on just what a hero should be. We know that children who watch these shows are affected in many ways,6and such representations are multiplying exponentially. I think it demonstrates that we are truly in an age that Paul warned us of in II Timothy 3.

We need good, educated Christians and apologist to not only debate Christianity's values in the public square, but we need more educated Christian artists to create thoughtful entertainment that can support and exemplify Christian principles. Otherwise, we may lose our culture entirely.

References

1 Fletcher, Andrew M. An Account of a Conversation Concerning a Right Regulation of Governments for the Common Good of Mankind. Volume 11. (Edinburgh, 1704.) 10. Available online at http://books.google.com/books/about/An_Account_of_a_Conversation_Concerning.html?id=Mg0VAAAAQAAJ
2 Burke, Greg. "Disney's 'Maleficent': Romancing the devil." The Los Angeles Times. 13 June 2014.LATimes.com. Web. Accessed 13 June 2014.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Cornford, Francis MacDonald. The Republic of Plato. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.) 69.
6 Wilson, Barbara J. "Media and Children's Aggression, Fear, and Altruism." Children and Electronic Media Volume 18 Number 1 Spring 2008. The Future of Children. Web. http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/index.xml?journalid=32&articleid=58&sectionid=269 Accessed 13 June 2014.

How will children be valued if Christianity is lost?

I've written before about how modern culture takes for granted many of the values and benefits that are specifically rooted in Christianity.1 Christianity has single-handedly improved the world in multiple ways. One very clear example of that is how Christians were unique in abolishing infanticide and child abandonment.

George Grant in his book The Third Time Around  writes, "Virtually every culture in antiquity was stained with the blood of innocent children." 2 Alvin Schmidt agrees, writing:

Frederic Farrar has noted that "infanticide was infamously universal" among the Greeks and Romans during the early years of Christianity. Infants were killed for various reasons. Those born deformed or physically frail were especially prone to being willfully killed, often by drowning. Some were killed more brutally. For instance, Plutarch (ca. A.D. 46 - 120) mentions the Carthaginians, who, he says, "offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan" (Moralia 2.171D). Cicero (106 - 43 B.C.) justified infanticide, at least for the deformed, by citing the ancient Twelve Tables of Roman law when he says that "deformed infants shall be killed" (De Legibus 3.8). Even Seneca (4 B.C.? - A.D. 65), whose moral philosophy was on a higher plane than that of his culture, said, "We drown children who at birth are weakly and abnormal" (De Ira 1.15). So common was infanticide that Polybius (205? - 118 B.C.) blamed the population decline of ancient Greece on it (Histories 6). Large families were rare in Greco-Roman society in part because of infanticide.3

Schmidt goes on to catalog that this practice wasn't reserved by the ancient near-eastern societies but that  "it was common in India, China, Japan, and the Brazilian jungles as well as among the Eskimos" as well as the pagan parts of Africa until Christian missionaries reached them.4

George Grant offers a list of just some of the Christians who changed this practice, even to their own detriment. He writes:

The heroes of the faith who demonstrated the grace of Christ through such deeds of kindness during the apostolic era were legion:

• Addai ofEdessa was one of the Apostle Thomas's earliest disciples. Sometime at the end of the first century he was sent to what is now Urfa in Iraq. There he established the church and launched innumerable evangelistic enterprises. He also was forced to confront the barbarous program of child limitation and elimination practiced in that region. Eventually, he was martyred for his refusal to temper his pro-life fulminations.
• Benignus of Dijon was a missionary from Lyons who was martyred in Epagny in the late second century. He was renowned for his generosity and charity especially to the sick and suffering. A mob of superstitious citizens in that pre-Christian Gallic region slew him because he nursed, supported, and protected a number of deformed and crippled children that had been saved from death after failed abortions or exposures.
• Callistus of Rome was a Christian slave who was imprisoned and sentenced to hard labor in the Sardinian quarries late in the second century after becoming involved in a scandalous financial scheme. After his release he was emancipated and put in charge of the church's shelter and cemetery on the Appian Way which still bears his name. He faithfully occupied himself with his duties-caring for the poor, comforting the bereaved, and giving refuge to the dispossessed. His compassion for abandoned children was especially noteworthy-it was Callistus that helped to organize the famed "Life Watches" that placed hundreds of exposed children into Christian homes. Eventually, he was chosen to serve as Bishop of Rome.
• Alban of Verlamium is widely venerated as the first Christian martyr on the island of Britain. During the last few decades of the second century he offered refuge to those fleeing the persecution against the church. He succored the sick, cared for the poor, and saved abandoned children from certain death. Bede the historian records his brutal martyrdom on Holmhurst Hill after he tried to intercede on behalf of a pitiful family of refugees.
• Late in the third century, Afra of Augsburg developed a ministry to the abandoned children of prisoners, thieves, smugglers, pirates, runaway slaves, and brigands. Herself a former prostitute, she cared for the despised and the rejected with a special fervor, taking them into her home, creating an adoption network, and sacrificing all she had-that out of her lack they might be satisfied. Ultimately, her work came under the scrutiny of the authorities, and she was martyred during the great persecution of Diocletian.
• George of Diospolis, patron of both England and Lebanon, was a Christian soldier who gained fame after several daring rescues of children in distress. He was known as the "Dragonslayer," not so much because of exploits with rare and dangerous reptiles, but because of his willingness to snatch innocent life out of the jaws of death. Eventually, he too fell victim to Diocletian's wrath in the persecution of 304, and was beheaded in Nicomedia. Later, innumerable legends made much of his exploits-romantically associating him with damsels and dragons-but it was his willingness to risk all for the sake of the sanctity of life that earned him his place in history.
• Barlaam of Antioch was a cobbler for the imperial forces who devoted all his free time to the care of orphans and widows in his church. Because he himself had been saved from the infanticide wall outside the city, he was especially concerned for exposed children. Even though he was not a pastor or church leader, his good deeds were so widely known that the enemies of the faith sought to have his witness silenced. During the calamitous persecution in 304, they succeeded in having him martyred.5

It is Christianity's view that every person bears the image of God that stopped the horrific practice of killing or disposing of infants. As our culture now seeks to abort Christianity from its social moral fabric, they also abort the foundation that roots the equal value of all human life. How will the weakest among us fare in such an expulsion?

References

1. For an extended quote on this from scholar Alvin J. Schmidt, see my previous post "The Effects of Jesus on the Western World." http://apologetics-notes.comereason.org/2014/03/the-effects-of-jesus-on-western-world.html
2. Grant, George. The Third Time Around: A History of the Pro-Life Movement from the First Century to the Present (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt Pub., 1991).27-29. http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/third_time_around.pdf
3. Schmidt, Alvin J. How Christianity Changed the World. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).49.
4. Schmidt. Ibid.
5. Grant. Ibid.27-29.

Watching The Car Crash of Colleges Purging Christians

Imagine living in a town with a moderate population of 20,000 people. The town has several traffic signals that seem to take far too long to turn green. Townspeople complain that the signals are slowing down their commutes, even when no one else is on the road. Why should they be held up when they have important things to do?

The city council members, hearing from this vocal minority and wishing to be reelected, begin to justify the idea of removing the signals and selling the idea to all the townspeople. Drivers are smart; they will be careful when crossing the intersection, they argue, because no one wishes to get into an accident. They will slow down and stop, giving deference to others who were there first.

So, the leaders issue a command to take down the signals, proclaiming that everyone now has more freedom. They can now enjoy an unencumbered driving experience and they may make better time since they don't have to stop unnecessarily. They even begin to say that commerce should increase because of the time savings.

As you can imagine, that isn't going to be what actually happens. More people begin to traffic through these intersections because there are no signals and those in a time crunch think they can save a few seconds off their commute. Accidents at the intersections go up; sometimes this is because a rogue speedster simply didn't want to stop, but more often because everyone has a different opinion of who was to have the right-of-way. Stymied, city officials decry the actions of anyone who gets into an accident and set up special panels to fund out why drivers wouldn't stop. They then begin to focus more blame on sports car owners for being at fault because they obviously want to go faster than anyone else. Why else would they be driving such a performance-oriented vehicle? It's no matter, though. Accidents will continue to rise and people will continue to be hurt.

Today's Colleges Have Removed the Traffic Lights

This is what our college students are facing today. Institutions of higher education used to understand that they had a responsibility to educate the entire person. Part of that education included religious and moral instruction. Alvin J. Schmidt notes that even as recently as 1932, 92% of the 182 colleges and universities in America were founded by Christian denominations.1 However, things have changed. Not only have many of those institutions abandoning their Christian roots but, colleges across the country are forcibly pushing for amore liberal sexual acceptance policy. Even the New York Times is reporting, campuses are ejecting Christian clubs because their stand on sexuality is being classified as “discriminatory.”

At the same time, we are seeing reports that sexual assault on college campuses is rising.2 While some of this is due to sketchy reporting methods, there is no doubt that the number of casual sexual encounters has grown on campuses across the country.

One function of Christian teaching is that it provides certain guidelines on moral behavior. It is like those traffic signals in the parable above. The Judeo-Christian understanding of sexuality is that it should be considered holy and exclusively reserved for married couples. But such views make people wait instead of receiving immediate gratification. So, colleges have adopted a position to remove any traffic signals and allow everyone to judge for themselves when and how they should engage in sexual relations. Sexual encounters went up and so did complaints of unwanted sex. Colleges tried to enforce an idea of mutual consent, but what constitutes mutual consent can be interpreted differently by those involved. Policies have been revised (such as Cornell's and Yale's) to say that one must verbally say yes. So, to have sex, the college expects two twenty-year-olds in the heat of passion to go through the same motions as the assent one must give to sit in an emergency exit row of an airplane. But that consent doesn't count when one person is intoxicated. And this is considered rational and based in reality?

Will any of these gyrations matter? Of course not. Just like our imaginary town, there will be legal battles and squabbles, but it should surprise no one when problems go up and people get hurt. Colleges, just at the time where they need clear guidelines to restore order and protect all of their students are removing the last vestiges of restraint they had. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion.

References

1. Schmidt, Alvin, J. How Christianity Changed the World. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004.) 190.
2. Associated Press. “Sexual assault reports on U.S. college campuses increased by 51 percent in 10 years, report shows.” PennLive.com http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/06/sexual_assault_reports_on_us_c.html Accessed 6/11/2014.

Photo credit: Damnsoft 09

Without God, How Can One Explain the Origin of Life?

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk on the origin of life and how it is providing incredibly serious problems for naturalists who seek to eliminate God from the scene. Modern biology has discovered quite a bit about the cell and its complexity, but in so discovering, they have also created quite a conundrum for themselves. How do you get any kind of life, with its requisite DNA code that carries the instructions for how things work operating together with the proteins that carry out the work? David Berlinski, who classifies himself as an agnostic, puts the problem in clear terms. He first identifies the different functions that go into creating proteins in the cell.1:

Replication duplicates the genetic message in DNA.
Transcription copies the genetic message from DNA to RNA.
Translation conveys the genetic message from RNA to the amino acids—whereupon in a fourth and final step, the amino acids are assembled into proteins.

None of the above is controversial. Biologists know that proteins are the things that do all the work of life. The description of DNA to RNA to amino acids to proteins is simple and directional. But Berlinski then notes that when we are talking about the origin of life, the description is reversed. In order to get a replication process, one must have proteins already. In fact, the famous Miller-Urey experiment sought to show that amino acids, not DNA chains, could be produced using natural processes. They were assuming that with amino acids, one can begin the replication process. Berlinski then makes an astute observation:

If nucleic acids are the cell's administrators, the proteins are its chemical executives: both the staff and stuff of life. The molecular arrow goes one way with respect to information, but it goes the other way with respect to chemistry.

Replication, transcription, and translation represent the grand unfolding of the central dogma as it proceeds in one direction. The chemical activities initiated by the enzymes represent the grand unfolding of the central dogma as it goes in the other. Within the cell, the two halves of the central dogma combine to reveal a system of coded chemistry, an exquisitely intricate but remarkably coherent temporal tableau suggesting a great army in action.

From these considerations a familiar figure now emerges: the figure of a chicken and its egg. Replication, transcription, and translation are all under the control of various enzymes, but enzymes are proteins, and these particular proteins are specified by the cell s nucleic acids, DNA requires the enzymes in order to undertake the work of replication, transcription, and translation and the enzymes require DNA in order to initiate it. The nucleic acids and the proteins are thus profoundly coordinated, each depending upon the other. Without amino-acyl-tRNA synthetase, there is no translation from RNA; but without DNA, there is no amino-acyl-tRNA synthetase.
…
On the level of intuition and experience, these facts suggest nothing more mysterious than the longstanding truism that life comes only from life. Omnia viva ex vivo, as Latin writers said. It is only when they are embedded in various theories about the origins of life that the facts engender a paradox, or at least a question: in the receding molecular spiral, which came first—the chicken in the form of DNA, or its egg in the form of various proteins? And if neither came first, how could life have begun?2 (Emphases in the original.)

References

1. Berlinski, David. “on the Origin of Life.” The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science. Bruce L. Gordon and William A. Dembski, Eds. (Wilmington DE: ISI Books, 2012). 280.
2. Ibid. 281.

Want a Democracy? Send A Christian Missionary!

I've spent the last couple of posts debunking the idea that "Christianity did not become a major religion by the quality of its truth, but by the quantity of its violence." You can read why this idea isn't true historically here and here. Today, I'd like to focus on a point that isn't immediately considered by such a screed. It turns out that in the 21st century, in the era of advanced science and instant information, the fasted growing religion in the world is: Christianity! That's right. Even today, Christianity is gaining more new adherents than any other faith system, according to Baylor University's Phillip Jenkins.1

Photo courtesy GPcardenas

Jenkins notes that while Islam has increased faster than Christianity in proportion to the total population of the earth (growing from about 12% of the population to approximately 22% today) while Christianity has maintained its 33% status, the real difference comes in the way that new adherents were added.2 Islam has expanded in its traditional countries simply through rising fertility rates. Christianity continues to expand in historically non-Christian countries, such as those on the African continent, where missionaries have been doing the work of spreading the Christian message.

Let me be clear that the truth value of any belief system is not determined by how many people believe in it. Simply holding to the majority position proves nothing. It is easy, though, to show that Christianity is not growing either by compulsion or by fertility. The Christian strongholds of Europe and other western countries are in a famously rapid population decline. In the last century, Europe went from comprising 66% of the world's Christians to making up only 25% today.3 The African continent has seen a boom, though. According to Jenkins, Christianity has exploded an astounding 4,930%.4

The Effects of Evangelization: Stable Democracies

Why does this matter? It turns out, it matters quite a bit. A very meticulous study by Robert Woodberry shows convincingly that those Christian missionaries that sought to evangelize Africa had an incredibly positive effect for the nations where they flourished.5 Woodberry's data clearly shows that nations who had conversionary Protestant missionaries do their work set those nations on a road to literacy and stable democracy.

A recent article in Christianity Today highlights some of the advantages:

"Areas where Protestant missionaries had a significant presence in the past are on average more economically developed today, with comparatively better health, lower infant mortality, lower corruption, greater literacy, higher educational attainment (especially for women), and more robust membership in nongovernmental associations.

In short: Want a blossoming democracy today? The solution is simple—if you have a time machine: Send a 19th-century missionary."6

The Christian worldview has proven itself time and again as the single best way to ease suffering and raise the standard of living for its adherents. This as it continues to spread even today through the same means it did for the past 19 centuries. No violence necessary.

So, to claim that Christianity spread through violence is demonstrably false. As to the claim about the truth value of Christianity, I've provided many arguments as to why Christianity is a faith based on evidence. No one threatened me to believe or else! I am convinced by the truth of Christianity's arguments and I'm not alone. I know of many atheists who looked at the evidence and converted to Christianity because of its truth value. And we have the real world effects of Christian missionaries spreading the Christian worldview to countries where the measurable effects are the betterment of lives.

References

1. Phillip Jenkins. "The World's Fastest Growing Religion." Real Clear Religion. 11/13/2012. http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2012/11/13/the_worlds_fastest_growing_religion.html Accessed 6/9/2014.
2. "The Numbers." FastestGrowingReligion.com. http://fastestgrowingreligion.com/numbers.html Accessed 6/9/2014.
3. "Global Christianity – A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World's Christian Population." Pew Center of Religion and Public Life. 12/19/2011. http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-exec/  Accessed 6/9/2014.
4. Jenkins, Ibid.
5. Andrea Palpant Dilley. "The Surprising Discovery About Those Colonialist, Proselytizing Missionaries." Christianity Today. 1/8/2014. https://www.disciplenations.org/media/CT-Article-On-Missionaries-And-Global-Democracy.pdf Accessed 6/9/2014.
6. Dilley, Ibid.