Today's Christian, January-February 2003]
Q. I have a friend who believes that everything bad that happens to him is due to a demon. I worry about him both because he is not taking responsibility for some of the bad things that are happening to him, and because I believe that I do not really need to worry about demons when I am surrounded by the love and power of God. Am I right, or is he right, or are we both wrong? --Jodi J., Westville, IN
[Our Sunday Visitor, December 22, 2002]
“The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” is big. You knew that. And it’s noisy—hoo boy, with the surround-sound, it’s like being inside a washing machine. A Victorian poet hailed “ignorant armies [that] clash by night.” Now imagine that literalized, with the help of computer graphic software that creates gazillions of little critters, each programmed to pick a fight with the nearest other critter, and each given individual levels of weariness, impulsiveness, and intelligence.
[First Things, December 2002]
Where did the pro-life movement go? A half-dozen years ago movement activists were everywhere, drafting statements, holding press conferences, staring fixedly into the blind lens of a remote-studio TV camera. But a tide of silence has gradually come in. Abortion, which had defined “hot issue” for our time, mysteriously cooled off. Magazine cover stories have moved on to other topics; college students no longer crowd into abortion debates.
[Touchstone, November 2002 — expanded version of “Free Love Didn’t Come Cheap”]
In the middle of the room there was a woodburning stove. The small iron door was open on this chilly day, and the red flames could be seen leaping within as if in time to music. For there was music, too, a marching song, and the little girls who circled the stove marched around it in time. The girls were not happy.
Each girl was holding in her arms her favorite doll. These were pretty dolls with painted faces, who usually wore fancy clothes reflecting current fashion. But today the clothes had been left in a pile, and the wax figurines were exposed, hard and bare. One by one, each girl marched up to the open door of the stove. One by one, each girl threw her doll into the “angry-looking flames.”
[Our Sunday Visitor, November 17, 2002]
Punchdrunk Love
A friend who caught an early screening of ”Punchdrunk Love“ wrote me, ”Adam Sandler is wonderful.“ I wrote back, ”Those have got to be the strangest four words in the language.“ But it's true. Adam Sandler is wonderful in ”Punchdrunk Love." Unfortunately, the movie isn't as wonderful as he is.
[Today's Christian, November-December 2002]
The Economics of Sin
Q. I have a tough question for you. I was asked this in my Acteens Class and I need to know how to answer it next time. (1) Once we become Christians, why should we ask God's forgiveness for sins we commit, if he has already forgiven our sins? (2) What is the use of asking God's forgiveness for sins that we know we will continue to commit, and keep on committing, because we like to? Both these questions are hard to answer, and I'm not sure I did it well enough in my own words. --Ann P.
[Our Sunday Visitor, October 27, 2002]
Sweet Home Alabama
“Sweet Home Alabama” is one of two movies this month titled after songs from the early 1970’s. While “Moonlight Mile” is actually set around that time, “Sweet Home Alabama” plants one foot in modern-day Manhattan (where, in a Halloween touch, Candice Bergen is mayor) and another in an imaginary deep south that has barely taken up indoor plumbing. There people set explosives under anvils, serve guests “baloney cake”, and linger by moonlight in the coon dog cemetery. I’m still hoping I heard “baloney cake” wrong.
[National Review Online, September 20, 2002]
Let’s Have More Teen Pregnancy
True Love Waits. Wait Training. Worth Waiting For. The slogans of teen abstinence programs reveal a basic fact of human nature: teens, sex, and waiting aren’t a natural combination.
Over the last fifty years the wait has gotten longer. In 1950, the average first-time bride was just over 20; in 1998 she was five years older, and her husband was pushing 27. If that June groom had launched into puberty at 12, he’d been waiting more than half his life.
If he *had* been waiting, that is.
[Our Sunday Visitor, September 29, 2002]
The Four Feathers
Toward the beginning of “The Four Feathers,” news arrives at an opulent Victorian military ball that “an army of Mohammedan fanatics” has attacked a British fort in the Sudan. A clergyman reminds the soldiers and their ladies that “the Lord has endowed the British race with a world-wide empire,” and the soldiers will soon achieve “victories over the heathen.”
[Beliefnet, September 10, 2002]
A year ago everything changed. When the towers fell, we discovered how much we loved this country, and how much we needed each other. We found resources of courage that we hadn't known were there. We saw challenge on the horizon, and rose to meet it.
And then everything changed back.
