I disagree that taking my comments from a public blog (Her.meneutics) posted on a website by a very well-known Christian publisher – Christianity Today – and using those comments for the basis of a column on The Cypress Times about what I perceive to be a threat to the spiritual health and well-being of the Church was my way of having the last word or of engaging in cyber gossip. I provided a hyperlink to the original blog in my column for the purpose of allowing those who wished to do so, to read for themselves what Professor Prior had said. Further, when I posted my comments on the Christianity Today blog I used my real name along with a link to my website where I posted the fact that I had written a column for The Cypress Times on this subject. From my website I provided a hyperlink to the column on The Cypress Times. That made it a simple task for anyone who wished to read what Prior had said. In fact, if Prior wished she could “find” me as easily as you did, something I would welcome.

You make the point that I might “feel misrepresented, taken out of context, if not wronged” if you published comments concerning me in a forum where your opinion is respected and I was unaware of it. Not really. The moment one writes an article or column and posts it online he becomes, to one degree or another, a public figure. Thus, what he has written can be and will be scrutinized and evaluated by others whether they ever inform the original author that they have done so.

As someone who openly and publically voices my thoughts and opinions I expect others, whether ethically or unethically, to use what I say, whether in voice or print, to agree with me, disagree with me, or, more likey, dismiss me as irrelevant.

Of course, the ethical way of responding to what someone has said or written is to make it as simple as possible for his readers to be able to access the original source so the proper context can be ascertained. I did that as you yourself can attest to.

I will make one more point about your response. (Again, I appreciate your honest feedback.) You said that my “article implies that Professor Prior, more or less, presents a moral hazard to the minds she molds at Liberty.” So that there is no confusion let me state unequivocally I believe Prior, because she is a professor at a Christian university and a frequent contributor to Christianity Today’s online publication, a publication that is well known and well respected in Christian circles, thus, lending weight to what she says and advocates, is not only a moral danger to the minds she molds at Liberty, but also to the spiritually immature and spiritually gullible.

For her, as a Christian, to believe that watching pornographic media, which “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is “was indeed the ‘girls' night out’ film my friends and I were looking for” (her words, not mine!) reveals a serious defect in spiritual discernment concerning good and evil. It may also sway others, given her prominence in the Body of Christ, to indulge their fleshly desires in violation of their consciences.

James tells us: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body” (James 3:1-2 ESV). I live with these verses in the back of my mind at all times. I understand that as one who has taken the name “Christian” and has taken on the role of teacher/preacher/pastor I will be (and should be) held to a higher standard than some others.

I also take seriously 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22: “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil” (NASU).

Andrew, the greatest threat to the spiritual vitality and future of the Church, the Body of Christ, comes not from atheists or those who are openly Anti-Christian, but from those who have taken the name “Christian” in vain. They claim to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, but their lives are indistinguishable from the lives of those who make no such claim. All too often Christians, contrary to Paul’s imperative in Romans 12:2 to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (NASU), goes unheeded. The result is at best a lukewarm church that becomes irrelevant to advancing the Kingdom of God upon this earth.

You may respond to this if you wish. I will give you the last word.

May the heavenly Father grant unto you wisdom, discernment, and insight into all that is holy and keep you safe in His love and mercy.

Terry

Hi, there Terry!

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comment. I very much see where you are coming from, and definitely respect your opinion. There is not doubt that you have a point in much of what you state when it comes to how Christians should react to sin, but I will simply and respectfully disagree with the broader conclusion that we've been mulling over.

Also, I when I brought up the fact about "recycling" the comment, I can see now that it did not convey what I meant it to, which is essentially that it left a bad taste in my mouth. The comment that was originally posted as a direct response to an article you disagree with, one that was written by Christian sister. Now, of course there is nothing wrong with healthy debate, but I felt that by taking that comment and publishing it as an article removes it from the context of the debate and places it in another context where appears to be more of an attack. I know this was not your intention, but it just came off poorly in my opinion, especially since your article implies that Professor Prior, more or less, presents a moral hazard to the minds she molds at Liberty. Again, there is nothing wrong with calling it like it is, and rebuking a brother/sister directly, and tactfully. But what spurred me on to write my initial comment in response to your article was the fact that your dissenting comment was transformed into an primary text outside of the context in which it was appropriate to express such concerns. It was my opinion that doing so was a way to have the last word by simply publishing your thoughts in a forum where you are the principal voice. In other words, it seemed to be cyber gossip, as it were, about a sister in Christ, and one that I know to be different than the picture painted of her above. I’m sure you can imagine how it would appear if I published my comments, expanded even, on another site –where I am a respected contributing author– without your knowledge. You might feel misrepresented, taken out of context, if not wronged.

Please know that I respect your opinion as well as Prior’s and chalk it up to Christ’s wonderfully diverse body of believers. And just as you believe Prior’s stance to be immoral, I’m not sure the method in which you followed up on your comment sits too well with me either.

Thanks again for continuing to dialogue with me, and I with you and your family a wonderful week! And thanks even more for your unwavering advocacy for Truth. PS., I'm Andrew, by the way.

Thank you for your comments and for the time you obviously took to read some of the articles on my website. I truly appreciate that as well as your honest feedback and concern that a sister in Christ is being “demonized”.

You mentioned the recycling of my comments I posted on the Her.meneutics blog to The Cypress Times. Recycling my comments from the christianitytoday.com blog (or other media such as Letters to the Editor that I write) whether in total or expanded for The Cypress Times (which is often the case) is an honor the publisher has given me. The Cypress Times has a far greater readership than my own website and likely a greater readership than the Her.meneutics blog on christianitytoday.com. This allows for a greater exposure to issues that I believe are of critical importance to Christians in general and to the Church in particular to counter the tsunami of evil that has been unleashed against the Kingdom of God.

From your comments I take it that you are personally acquainted with Karen Swallow Prior, the author of the article I responded to. I readily admit I do not personally know her. My knowledge of her comes from the frequent articles posted on the Her.meneutics blog. And with all due respect to both you and her, my impression of her judgment concerning spiritual matters is less than admirable.

In one of her previous postings she made light of the name of an ice cream flavor created by the Ben and Jerry’s company. They choose to name the ice cream “Schweddy Balls”. She responded by saying: “…the name of the latest Ben and Jerry’s flavor might be an offense against manners, but it’s not immoral.” I profoundly disagree with that assessment. It is immoral. I also know that what we laugh at or find humorous is every bit as much an indicator of ones spiritual health as what makes one angry.

Thus, her assessment of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” did not surprise me. You stated that Prior “does not begin by saying that she knew the film was full of bad content and went and watched it anyways.” In fact her knowledge of the film before she went to see it did include an awareness of at least some of its more repulsive scenes.

A woman who responded to her article said: “I can hardly imagine this as a "Girls Night Out" type of film, but I guess if you were unaware of the rape scenes...” To which Prior responded: “I was aware of the rape scenes and so-forth and, as I said in the post, it was indeed the "girls' night out" film my friends and I were looking for ("Promise delivered."). That seems to contradict, at least in part, your statement that, “the author (Prior) of the article does not say that the movie is good old fun, and that it was the perfect girls night out movie.”

True, Prior did not explicitly recommend the film. However, she does say: “I’m not saying Salander (or the book or the movie) should be boycotted, rallied against, or tarred and feathered.” I disagree. I believe this movie should be boycotted, rallied against, and tarred and feathered for the garbage it is.

It concerns me when a Christian with the influence of Prior, being a professor at a Christian university and frequent contributor to a Christian blog, apparently seems to believe consuming pornographic media (though she denies this movie is pornographic because the Motion Picture Association of America blessed it with an “R” rating rather than the more appropriate rating of “X”) can be a source of entertainment. However, to be fair she did say she would not see the film again. Her comment was: “The movie was entertaining, if dark and rough, but not one I’d see again.” My question to that would be: Why allow yourself to be poisoned in the first place, particularly when that action may cause “the least of these” to be poisoned too because they trust the moral judgments of made by you?

My article was not meant to demonize Prior, but I make no apologies for stating an opinion I believe is needed to correct a viewpoint that trivializing evil and its impact on society and the Church.


Terry

I saw your comment on the article about which you write above. Then, I viewed your website and saw this article. I expected something different from what you commented on the original article mentioned above, one that maybe expanded upon your original post in the comments section of the article you reference above. But that is not the case: I see you recycled your comment that was posted on the original article. I commend you for your many articles on your website. You bring up some great points in the ones I read, but here, I really do think you missed the point of the original article.

You judge the author of the article for seeing the movie, and then you go on to admonish the church for accepting sinful messages under the guise of art, among other things. And I completely agree that in today's culture we have come to accept less rigid standards of holiness in the Christian walk.

However, I believe your critique of the movie, and by extension, of the author of the article, is very much off topic. The author, the Liberty University professor, does not begin by saying that she knew the film was full of bad content and went and watched it anyways. In fact, she does not even go on to recommend the film. She just says she simply watched it, and here are her thoughts. I mean, when you see one of the most popular films of the year, and you write for a website, you need to talk about the movie to generate views. You, for example, keep track of how many views your site gets --now at close to 49,000 hits-- on almost every page of your site. So, we cannot discount the importance of the reader, the audience of an article. Besides, it is clear that she did not go to the movie expecting what she saw.

That is why the professor, the author of the article does not say that the movie is good old fun, and that it was the perfect girls night out movie. In fact, the author states, "To me, the sex scenes in which Salander was a willing participant seemed more unnecessarily pornographic" (par. 5). Furthermore, the article ends by reminding us that we should fix our eyes on Christ and not some popular movie figure that, though is appealing, is misguided and an unfavorable, if not damaging, portrayal of a Biblical woman: "Salander might even be described as a pagan Proverbs 31 woman. But this doesn’t make her a heroine worth emulating" (par. 7). In that regard, your chastisement of the author is overly abrasive and swift. You correct her as a metaphor, a scapegoat even, for the church at large, when she is not: neither as the author of the article or as a person whom I personally know.

Again, I want to reiterate that I agree that we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by sin, to think that wrong is right. But also, I want to make clear that the author of the article you critique never, in any moment states that this movie is an edifying experience for the Christian. In fact, in the comments, a place I know you are familiar with since you originally posted your article there six days prior to posting here, the author says that her article should help the reader discern whether or not to see it (comment posted by KSP on January 10, 2012 2:14 PM), in addition to referring others to parental websites (comment posted by KSP on January 11, 2012 4:02 PM).

I hope that you will rethink your position of the author instead of demonizing her. Please be clear that I am not advocating for the movie. While your intentions are, I’m sure, good, your approach was decidedly lacking in tact and, in my opinion, too harsh, not to mention erroneous. I would have liked to see you take a more delicate approach and read the article more closely rather than immediately attacking and condemning a sister of Christ. Thanks for your thoughts, and I wish you all the best!