by | Jul 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
For Christians, Greta Gerwig’s latest film is an opportunity to reckon with the “fortunate fall.”
Questions about gender and sexuality plague the evangelical church, from the SBC to the PCA. Books on the topic are proliferating. In that context, it’s understandable that some folks see the new Barbie film as another volley in the gender wars. But Greta Gerwig’s latest project is far too layered to be read through a literalist hermeneutic.
Rather than offering a blind affirmation of feminism or a critique of patriarchy, the movie explores how we use ideology to bypass the messier work of growing as humans. The gender wars are not the plot so much as the setting. They shape the world in which Barbie and Ken pursue maturity.
Consider Ken’s character arc. Forever condemned to be “just Ken,” Barbie’s beau finds his identity through relationship to her. He “simps,” or fawningly submits to her, by following her into the Real World. Once there, however, he catches a vision for a different life—one where men rule but more importantly feel seen and valued. Crediting this to The Patriarchy™, Ken carries the idea of male superiority back to Barbie Land as a shortcut to his own growth.
The movie tracks with Christine Emba’s recent observations that modern men are in “a widespread identity crisis—as if they didn’t know how to be.” This loss of self, she argues, is what fuels the popularity of right-wing masculinity gurus from Jordan Peterson to Andrew Tate. Those voices seem to offer young men a path forward. That it so often trends toward misogyny, as Ken’s own journey does, is only part of the point.
Eventually, Ken reckons with the roots of his discontent, which are less about social order and more about an abdication of self through …
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by | Jul 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
How Rabbit Room playwright A.S. Peterson adapted ‘The Hiding Place’ for a new generation.
The story of one humble Dutch family has long riveted American evangelicals. Corrie and Betsie ten Boom, simple Christian watchmakers living with their father in the Netherlands, risked everything to protect their Jewish neighbors from the Holocaust. And they endured unspeakable evil at the hands of the Nazis with faith, hope, and Scripture, always testifying to the goodness of God and the power of forgiveness.
More than 50 years after the ten Booms’ story first reached American audiences with the publication of The Hiding Place, audiences packed a Nashville theater to see it retold on stage. Next week, the Rabbit Room’s theatrical production of The Hiding Place is coming to cinemas across the US, with two special showings in more than 800 locations on August 3 and 5.
CT caught up with playwright A. S. “Pete” Peterson to ask him about the challenge of adaptation, the problems with portraying Nazis, his incarnational understanding of theater, and the compelling, convicting mystery that’s at the heart of the ten Booms’ testimony.
Why do you think Corrie ten Boom’s story still grabs us? What it is about The Hiding Place that’s so compelling?
Corrie ten Boom and her family are part of our cloud of witnesses. They have stood in a place where we cannot and they testify to something we cannot understand. That gives me, I think, the opportunity to believe in the absence of evidence that I can see myself.
There’s a mystery at the heart of the story that’s almost impossible to define. The sense that the ten Booms had of the sovereignty of God and their ability to be grateful in the worst circumstances essentially do not make sense. But I don’t mean that they’re crazy. …
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by | Jul 27, 2023 | Uncategorized
Sweden’s desecration of Islam’s holy book has prompted a bid to burn the Bible. European evangelicals condemn the offense but link the freedoms of expression and religion.
Swedish evangelicals fear a human rights retreat, as the fallout continues from last month’s Quran burning.
Earlier this month, Iraq expelled the Swedish ambassador after Swedish police authorized the burning of the Torah and the Bible in front of the Israeli embassy in Stockholm—though the Muslim applicant did not go through with it.
“If I burn the Torah, another the Bible, another the Quran, there will be war here,” stated Ahmad A. “What I wanted to show is that it’s not right to do it.”
Though unintentional, he succeeded in showing the neutrality of Swedish law. There was scant outcry from Christians to protect their Scripture, but overall many Swedes are sympathetic to his plea. More than half favor prohibition of the burning of any religious books, up from 42 percent in February.
To do so may require reviving blasphemy laws that were scrapped in the 1970s. Following a similar incident last year, the former prime minister of Sweden stated such acts should be prosecuted as hate speech, lamenting the waste of budget to protect rogue actors. And after this round of international outcry, the government announced that it is currently exploring if such a law can be passed.
But across the European continent, Christian leaders are expressing alarm.
“If you can’t burn the Quran, can you put it in the toilet?” asked Olof Edsinger, general secretary of the Swedish Evangelical Alliance. “There are many ways of desecration, and you can’t stop them all.”
Fully condemning the offense itself, he clarifies that any law—however broadly worded—would be tailored only for the religious community that is offended. The issue is with Muslim reaction, he says, and …
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by | Jul 26, 2023 | Uncategorized
“In my lifetime, I have never heard a church talk about reunification or peace between North and South Korea.”
Solga Kim grew up singing the popular Korean folksong “Our Wish Is Reunification.”
Part of the lyrics goes like this: “Reunification carried out with all heart and soul / Reunification will revive our nation.” But the tune’s heartfelt desire for peace and unity between North and South Korea does not seem to be a melody that the Korean church often sings today.
“‘Peace’ in the Bible in Korea is often translated as personal inner peace, and it is rare for churches to preach the peace of the Bible in connection with the relationship between North and South Korea,” said Kim, a teacher who lives in Incheon, South Korea.
“In my lifetime, I have never heard a church talk about reunification or peace between North and South Korea.”
The two countries have been divided since July 27, 1953, when an armistice agreement was signed at the close of the Korean War that called for all military forces to be withdrawn, hostile activity to be suspended, and prisoners of war to be repatriated. The two countries, however, have never signed a peace treaty and are technically still at war.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the armistice agreement. But today, reunification seems more like a pipe dream as young generations of South Koreans are becoming increasingly disinterested in being part of a unified Korea.
While interviews and surveys by CT suggest that Christians in South Korea are largely supportive of reunification, they hold differing ideas about how to accomplish it. Gen Z and millennial Christians—otherwise known in Korea as the MZ generation—are lackluster in their support due to social and economic pressures. Korean churches also lack consistent effort and …
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by | Jul 26, 2023 | Uncategorized
70 years after the country was split in half, Americans have a responsibility to assist in ending this unresolved separation.
In 1992, the American evangelist Billy Graham flew to Pyongyang to meet face to face with Kim Il Sung, the founding leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Mounting tensions between the United States and North Korea did not prevent Graham from preaching in two of the city’s official churches, meeting with church leaders and seminarians from around the country, and presenting Kim one of his books.
Two years later, Graham returned against the wishes of the US government. “I was told that war could break out at any minute. That’s how dangerous it was,” he said afterwards.
Graham, a staunch anti-communist, was interviewed on national television and visited Kim Il Sung University, where he spoke in front of 400 students and faculty.
“One of my reasons for going at this time was to express my concern for peace in the region and to make whatever small contribution I could to better relations between our two nations,” he said later of his visit.
American Christians have a long and complicated history with this part of the world. For decades, the US has had a significant military presence in South Korea. Prior to the Korean War, which began in 1950, hundreds of missionaries spread the gospel throughout Korea, which was one undivided peninsula for centuries.
This month marks the 70th anniversary of the 1953 Korean War armistice, an agreement which ended the military fighting but left the Korean people divided into two isolated countries without a peace treaty. Given the US history of intervention and presence in this part of the world, and following the lead of Korean people working for peace and gaining inspiration from Graham’s courage, American Christians have a responsibility …
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