Guest Post by Jared McNaab

As an American, I have always thought that Thanksgiving is our nation’s great holiday. It also seemed especially appropriate to me that Thanksgiving falls close to the beginning of Advent and the beginning of the Church calendar year.

Indeed, the Church’s calendar is a gift to her people to help them remember, celebrate, and participate in God’s acts in history. We begin the church year with Advent by pointing ourselves to our future, reminding ourselves that Christ is coming again, and that this life is a life of longing for that future. We then get out the packages, boxes, and bags to celebrate the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us. We rejoice in the Light of Christ going to the Gentile nations in Epiphany. We remember the life of Christ and particularly his suffering in Lent. We break open the champagne to celebrate the victory of life over death. The party continues with the Ascension of Christ and the sending of the Spirit on Pentecost.

The church calendar is a way for us to mark God’s redemptive acts in the world. But undergirding the feasts and festivities of the church calendar, and underneath God’s redemptive acts in the world, is one major presupposition: all of Creation is, as God pronounced on the 6th day, “Very good.”

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By Rich Lusk

I can’t believe I’m actually going to comment on the Barbie movie….but here goes.

A couple of disclaimers: First, I have not seen the movie and do not intend to any time soon, so this is not an attempt to review the movie. In general, I would refrain from commenting on a movie I have not watched, just like I would not talk about a book I have not read. But in this case, I’m really responding more to other people’s reviews and reactions to the movie.

Second disclaimer: I have never liked Barbie. We did not let our girls play with Barbie dolls when they were growing up for all the reasons you might imagine. In many ways, I think the Barbie doll concept represents all that is wrong with modern-day intersexual dynamics. Barbie, with her idealized figure and proportions, her materialistic accessories, her rejection of marriage and motherhood, her detachment from household and obligation to others, and so forth, has always been a damaging and (frankly) oppressive role model for young girls. Barbie has been a tool of the feminist agenda since she was first brought to market.

Barbie is a woman without any meaningful connection — no mother, no father, no husband, no children. She represents the essence of our hyper-individualistic, liberal society in which every person is a self-defining, disconnected atom. But those aspects of Barbiedom are not my main concern here. My purpose in this article is to comment on a few reviews I’ve seen of the movie from conservatives and what I think we can glean from them.

Two Reactions

There seem to be two basic reactions to the movie from the conservative side: There are those like Ben Shapiro, who trash it as feminist garbage and those like Alex Clark and Robin Harris, who tout its subversively traditionalist message, whatever the intent of its creators might have been. It seems to me the movie is very postmodern in that it is disjointed enough for viewers to get just about any message out of it they want.

I am obviously not in a position to adjudicate between the conflicting interpretations of the movie. But the one thing everyone agrees on is that the movie casts the patriarchy in a bad light. The patriarchy is the enemy, standing in the way of female happiness. The movie mentions the patriarchy over and over, always in a negative way. For Barbie to attain full self-actualization, the patriarchy must be smashed, and (apparently, according to the movie) that has not fully happened yet in our world. In response to this theme in the movie, I want to speak a word of defense on behalf of the patriarchy. But I also want to clarify what patriarchy means because I do not think the term is being used accurately.

The Case for the Patriarchy

In defending the patriarchy against the Barbie movie, I am not defending men today in general. In our culture, there is no shortage of scum bag men doing terrible things, treating women in horrific ways, and so on. Men can be evil, and many men in our society today are very evil indeed. But what men generally do cannot be conflated with the patriarchy.

What is the patriarchy? Why is the patriarchy blamed? What has the patriarchy done to wrong women?

Let’s evaluate this summary of what happens at the movie’s climactic moment from Harris’ review:

“Gloria’s speech at the climax of the movie names the impossible position of women under the patriarchy: women must be powerful but also unintimidating, sexy but also serious, intelligent but never critical, an attentive mother but also a powerful career-woman. Society then punishes women for not living up to the standard.”

This is manifestly not what the patriarchy is about. The patriarchy does not put women in this impossible position. The patriarchy actually protects women from this kind of impossible position. Wherever these demands come from, they are not from the patriarchy; they are not from the Christian tradition or the Bible, or nature. The patriarchy does not punish women for failing to live up to this set of standards. In fact, from what I have seen and from what many sociological studies observe, women are far more likely to put each other in this impossible position than men are.

Women tend to be more critical of each other than men are critical of women. Women are far more likely to attack one another’s life choices (e.g., think of the “mommy wars” in which women criticize one another for their choices about work/family balance). Women are far more likely to attack other women’s clothing choices and makeup choices than men. Women are far more likely to “slut shame” one another for being promiscuous than men are. Think of Mencken’s old quip: “A misogynist is a man who hates women almost as much as women hate each other.” In summary, women tend to be far harder on one another than men are on women in general. Women tend to put one another in the impossible position of manifesting contradictory qualities and living out contradictory roles.

This is not to say there is not a “sisterhood” in which women help and support each other; there most certainly is. But it is to say that most of these pressures women feel are not driven by the patriarchy. They are actually driven (ironically) by feminism, which tells women they can (and must!) “have it all.” It is not the patriarchy, but feminism, that requires women to play both roles, e.g., the traditional role of mother as well as the modern role of career woman. It is feminism that tells women they must not only be emotionally supportive of their families at home but also economically productive in the working world. I can certainly see why those demands frustrate women. But dismantling the patriarchy will not make those demands go away; indeed, it will only make them worse. The patriarchy actually relieves the woman of certain burdens feminism has placed on her. The patriarchy does not insist that women bring home a paycheck in addition to caring for young children. Rather, the patriarchy puts the burden of provision squarely on the shoulders of the man and thus frees the woman from the burdens feminism puts on her.

So what is the patriarchy, anyway? The word patriarchy simply means “father rule.” If we want to know what the patriarchy does and what it requires of women, we should look at fathers. What do husbands/fathers require of their wives? What do fathers do for their sons and daughters? 

The essence of patriarchy is a man ruling his household in an orderly way (1 Tim. 3:4), with compassion (Psalm 103:13) and love (Ephesians 5:21ff). A true patriarch will not insist that his wife be an attentive mother and a career woman because, again, the patriarchal system puts the burden of provision on the man. The patriarchy does not demand that women be powerful in the same sense that men are powerful; the patriarchy appreciates femininity. Patriarchs want wives they are sexually attracted to (of course), but they want their women to dress modestly in public; the patriarchy does not pressure women to turn themselves into sex symbols/objects. If anything, the patriarchy is considered sexually repressive in a post-sexual revolution culture precisely because the patriarchal system requires strict sexual morality from both sexes.

What does the patriarchy look like in real life? The patriarchy is a man taking on extra hours at work so he can get his kids through college. The patriarchy is a man working two jobs so his wife can stay home with their newborn child. The patriarchy is a father telling his daughter she cannot go out dressed immodestly on a Friday night (how oppressive to keep her from objectifying herself!). The patriarchy is dear old dad taking it upon himself to vet his daughter’s date before prom. The patriarchy is a man getting out of bed in the middle of the night to check on that noise in the basement. The patriarchy is a man breaking his body to do a difficult and dangerous job he really doesn’t like for forty years so that his family can live in a nice house in a decent neighborhood and take the occasional beach vacation. In short, the patriarchy is about men using their masculine strength, energy, and gifts for the good of their household, for the preservation of their family line.

Normal, healthy men actually get a great deal of satisfaction in providing for their families. They embrace the breadwinner and protector roles as badges of manhood. The patriarchy is concerned with the household, with legacy, with honor. The abdicating, absent, or abusive father is not a patriarch worthy of the name — indeed, he is the very opposite of a patriarch. He is not ruling his household. (I agree with Michael Foster that it is possible to speak of two patriarchies in human history — a faithful patriarchy, patterned after divine fatherhood, and a Satanic patriarchy of evil men. But in another sense, the latter are not really patriarchs in any meaningful way. Satan is only a father in a metaphorical sense. He does not actually create or sire offspring. He does not protect and provide for anyone. He is not paternal. Jesus called the Pharisees sons of the devil but that does not actually make the devil a patriarch. He is actually the anti-patriarch, just as he is the anti-christ. So it is with evil, abusive, and abdicating men. A “baby daddy” who refuses to marry the woman he sleeps with is not building or ruling a household. The lazy, abdicating, or abusive man is failing in his fatherly roles, and thus, even if he physically sires offspring, he is not an archon.)

The Attack of the Patriarchy

What does the attack on patriarchy (whether in our society or the Barbie movie) mean? What does it mean to take down the patriarchy? The consequence is an attack on fathers and, thus, the promotion of fatherlessness. It should be no surprise that as feminism has gained influence in our culture, fatherlessness has become increasingly the norm. Today, more than 1 in 3 children does not live under the same roof as their dad. But when feminists talk about “smashing the patriarchy” today, they do not usually have fathers consciously in view, even though they use a word that invokes fatherhood.

Most women who complain about the injustices of the patriarchy today think of men who are their peers (not fathers) but have mistreated them because they have used them sexually. Or they are thinking of highly successful men who have filled the top-ranking corporate positions that ambitious women want for themselves (the thought that the man might have worked hard to get that job precisely so he could provide for his wife — a woman — does not seem to enter the equation). Patriarchy is viewed as a system that favors and privileges men simply for being men. But there are actually very few privileges men in our society receive simply for being men. Competent, qualified, diligent men will find doors opening for them. But lower-status, lower-quality men struggle. (Apparently, the Barbie movie makes this point, as Ken learns in the “real world” that simply being a man does not mean he gets high-status positions. Despite being male, He has to earn them through credentials and competence.)

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Or: A Discursus Actually In Praise of David, But Including Some Small Observations on Saul

Guest Post from Jonathan White

Summary: Taking a cue from David’s consistently reverent tone in talking about King Saul and his ruinous reign, the author attempts to highlight a redeeming moment in Saul’s career. 

Of all the many, many sermons that I’ve heard on David’s besting of Goliath in battle, one aspect that I’ve never heard emphasized is the positive role that Saul plays in the narrative. It is not a very great part that he plays, but once it has been correctly described, it does make it difficult to maintain the standard depiction of David’s behavior as exhibiting a sui generis boldness and conviction that has no root other than his own bravery and trust in God. While the Main Point of the passage clearly is a highlighting of those two characteristics in David, we always do damage to the text when we bulldoze the instrumentality God uses to accomplish his ends. 

In an effort to highlight some of those instrumentalities, I will undertake a close reading of 1 Samuel 17 before extrapolating to a generalized case for the necessity of prescriptive governance with a specific application for American Christians.

Close Reading of 1 Samuel 17

If we are honest with ourselves, we cannot really blame David’s older brothers for feeling a little bit salty at the runt of the litter running to the front after depositing their provisions with the quartermaster (v.22 and 28). David is exceeding the parameters of his father’s task for him (v.17-18) and is also very likely breaking protocol at the front of a highly precarious military engagement. Could David honestly have said in his heart as he hurried to the front lines what he later wrote in the 12th Psalm of Ascent?

O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;

David is being impertinent by involving himself at the front. He is almost certainly below the recruitment age of 20, as laid out in Numbers 1:45; otherwise, he would already have been at the front. One of the tropes of military experience is that those who have actually known the horrors of war are quick to dampen the enthusiasm of the idealistic youth who dream of guts and glory without realizing that the requisite guts and gore may be their own.^a It is very likely that David’s older brothers were already wizened, scarred veterans of Saul’s wars on the Philistines. This claim is defensible by 1 Samuel 14:52 where we are told, “There was hard fighting against the Philistines all the days of Saul.” Saul’s “forever wars” put Bush and Obama’s in the shade and all six of David’s older brothers probably had at least one campaign notched in their belt for every birthday they’d had since their twentieth. 

1.  For a masterful distillation of this truism, I can recommend nothing higher than JRR Tolkien’s masterful one-act play The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, the moral of which explores many themes but could be partially summarized by the one epic thing Ahab ever said, “Let not him who straps on his armor boast himself as he who takes it off” (1 Kings 20:11).   (back)

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By William Wolfe

“The Church wins. The Church lasts. The Church is forever. The Church of Christ is the eschatological reality, the final hope, and the eternal, enduring institution. The Church will far outlast any and all earthly governments and their petty mandates, ultimately triumphing over the state in the end.”

WILLIAM WOLFE

The Church in America Just Got Punched in the Mouth

When boxer Mike Tyson was asked by a reporter about an upcoming fight and whether he was concerned about his opponent’s strategy, he shot back with the now-famous answer: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

He’s right. Everything sounds good in our heads, but when we get rocked with unexpected circumstances, plans can fall apart. Plans for how to live as Christians, and gather as churches, in America, for example.

Which is exactly what happened in the spring of 2020. The Church in America got punched in the mouth.

As COVID-19 hit the country in March and April that year, governors and mayors all across the nation issued indefinite “lockdown orders” (liquor stores, casinos, and abortion clinics exempted, of course). All of a sudden, churches had to figure out what they were going to do: Stay open or close? And for how long: Indefinitely or until they came to a different conclusion? It has been decades since the debate about what it means to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt 22:21) had broken out so fiercely in America, and in live-time.

The time-tested plan that the Church had always followed — continue to gather regularly, in obedience to God’s Word and in free exercise of religion, as protected by the First Amendment — took a haymaker right to the head.

To say that governing officials were overreaching when they told churches not to gather would be an understatement. At the most basic level, it was a gross violation of the First Amendment, which guarantees us as U.S. citizens that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Some churches that ultimately defied the lockdowns were later vindicated in court, like Grace Community Church, which won its legal battle with the state of California and Los Angeles County “after the governments agreed to pay $400,000 each as part of a settlement for violating the Church’s religious liberty during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

While most churches are back to normal, many of us still find our heads spinning as we consider how so many churches just completely rolled over for the government. Elsewhere, I have written about how statism is one of the great threats to the Church in America. What happened during COVID shows us exactly why and how that is the case.

If we want to have better operating plans for churches going forward — plans that survive a few shots from the commies — it means we must first rightly understand the power and the purpose of the Church. In other words, we must get our bearings and begin walking at least in the general direction of understanding what God has said about the nature of the relationship between the Church and the state.

In order to do that, you should meet Abraham Kuyper.

Kuyper’s Concern: The Sovereignty of God and the Certain Triumph of the Church

One man who thought and wrote about this important question of the relationship between the Church and the state, was Abraham Kuyper. Kuyper served as the prime minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905 and was also an influential theologian and journalist. He had an expansive vision of the sovereignty of God over all of life and unapologetically sought to influence the fallen world with Christian virtues and values. He famously exclaimed that “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” (1).

Christ as King over all, both seen and unseen, both spiritual and physical, both the Church and the state. This was a dominant theme in all of Kuyper’s theology and political reasoning.  So, the purpose of this piece is to briefly reflect on this wonderful yet easily forgotten truth: The Church wins. This was something that Kuyper understood deep down in his bones: The Church ultimately triumphs over the state — forever.

A series of Kuyper’s collected works, On the Church, contains a beautiful and resounding description of how it is the Church — and not the state — that lasts into eternity. It is the Church, and not the state, that is the true Kingdom of God. The Church doesn’t exist within the state as much as the Church is slowly but surely conquering and replacing the state.

I think this is important for Christians to consider, wrestle with, and ultimately believe. Why? Because so much of the conversation about what the Church should do during COVID made it sound as if the Church was some sort of servant of the government. The dialogue seemed to imply that the Church only exists because the government allows it to exist. That is not just false but nothing could be further from the truth.

If you only read one thing from this article, read this quote. Read it closely. And read it twice. Kuyper explains:

“The church does not function in a human society that is by nature governed by the state, but she carries within herself the germ of the all-encompassing worldwide kingdom, which will one day replace every state and assume its function.

It is therefore decidedly incorrect to honor the state as the palace in which the church is assigned no more than a side wing.

Rather, the state is little more than scaffolding erected on the building site where the church is busy laying the foundation for the palace in which Christ will one day establish his royal throne.

When the battle is over, the state will disappear forever. The dawn of the eternal existence of the nations will rise out of the church, not the state” (2).

Have you ever thought about it like that? Far from the Church needing to come, hat in hand, begging for the state to let it worship God, the Church can and should stand tall by the authority granted to it from Christ. The Church can be confident that it will be the final institution left standing, as all earthly governments dissolve at the return of Christ, and blow away into the wind like chaff. In other words, in the end, the Church wins. So, we should act like it now.

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By Austin Brown

Rarely has a film confounded my movie sensibilities so powerfully as Frank Darabont’s “The Mist.” Somehow and in some way it is simultaneously terrible yet entertaining, ridiculous yet strangely compelling, pedestrian yet brilliant.

No, scratch that last contrast.

It isn’t a brilliant movie. It flirts with brilliancy—plays footsie with it—like a pair of middle-schoolers who cannot truly reach the heights of love but mimic its form, perhaps even feeling like they’re swimming in love’s deeper currents.

And yet! I couldn’t stop watching it.

And yet! The ending is so shockingly poignant—so shockingly unexpected (at least for me)—that the last five minutes of the film very nearly absolved all the overwrought and bewilderingly unrealistic moments.

The film was released in 2007. So I’m quite late to the party. Were it not for the personal recommendation from Pastor Brito, the movie likely would have remained forever lost in the endless tunnels of Netflix. But there I was the other night, remote control in hand, the red ribbon of Netflix booting up on my TV, ready to be lost in a horror pick.

In many ways, it was the best of situations. I was sick with a lingering cold and knew next to nothing about the movie. All I had was the vague recollection of flappy, bat creatures terrorizing people in a grocery store from the trailer I had seen years earlier.

My faded memory proved accurate enough. In the aftermath of a nasty storm, a father and son go to a grocery store to restock various food items. Once there, a strange mist envelops the building leaving those trapped inside to decide their next play. Naturally, a little fog never hurt anyone, but various horrors are lurking about in the mist, just waiting to eviscerate the next hapless victim attempting to escape.

There are hints as to why all this is happening, but all that is tangential. The movie is fundamentally concerned with the interaction of (mostly) strangers from diverse backgrounds and worldviews trying to navigate a harrowing situation. In the same way that Signs wasn’t ultimately concerned about the visitation of aliens, this isn’t ultimately about flappy, bat creatures—deadly as they and their fellow minions prove to be.

This is precisely where the movie shines and very nearly flops. On the one hand, the acting and interactions are so questionable and poorly executed at times one should feel a strong urge to move on to better and brighter flicks. But then again, if you view it more as a theater play—one designed to be over-the-top—almost in a Job-esk dialogue kind of way (though not nearly so poetic)—I trust it can be forgiven, even appreciated.

Stated simply, it is intentionally grandiose and blunt.

The characters are not nuanced. The creatures are not nuanced. The setting is not nuanced. Everything is chiseled from the black and white ore of stark contrasts.

And yet, to stress the point again, somehow it works surprisingly well.

Some would no doubt want to pontificate upon the social and political undercurrents running through the film, but I’m not so inclined. They exist, but I think it would be a mistake to take it too seriously. The frame of the script cannot sustain the weight of such symbolism. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the effort of pontification should be reserved for more richly praiseworthy films.

This isn’t snobbery. It’s honesty and practicality. One dare not cheapen the enterprise of unearthing layered meaning and symbolism by hoisting “The Mist” up next to Lewis, Melville, or McCarthy. Popcorn is fine, but it isn’t especially nutritious.

In the end, the ending is what provides a beacon of bold light in an otherwise moderately entertaining fog. I truly love Darabont’s choice of conclusion. And from what I have gathered, even Stephen King said that had he thought of it, he would have done it.

Yet, for all that, I would not recommend the movie unless, of course, you have already seen most of the greats. If you have partaken of Forrest Gump, Whiplash, Band of Brothers, and Children of Men, for example, then please indulge in this fun horror romp on a foggy Friday night once the kids have gone to bed.  

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Austin Brown is a mailman with a hunger for theology and writing. He had the good providence of marrying his high school sweetheart, Rebekah, is the father of three, and is an ordained ruling elder in the PCA. He’s also a nerdy gamer, a movie lover, and the author of various theological works and novels, including Walking with the Mailman. It’s true; there is scant fondness for canines in his heart.

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