Whatever Is Pure: Cedarville Requires Professors to Apply Philippians 4:8

[Bert Perry]

Regarding the question of how actors are treated, absolutely, and it really all depends on the context of what people are trying to do. If one tells me “I’m casting for a slasher movie and I need some eye candy”, well, that’s the “sex sells” thing. On the flip side, let’s imagine someone is casting for a movie that will remind another generation—a generation rapidly forgetting Shoah—that the Holocaust was real.

Now I think the directors did those scenes wrongly—real residents of KZs and ghettoes would have been far leaner—but if I were, say, a cancer patient who actually looked the part, I might be willing to sign up for it. The world seeing my tuckus vs. a greater possibility of a repeat of the Holocaust? After all, David danced before the Lord, and Isaiah showed himself when God was displeased, no?

Same basic thing for the violence in Glory or Saving Private Ryan. OK, at least as long they were only using dummy bullets and such! Which really illustrates the problems with any mechanistic rule going by motion picture ratings, IMO.

I didn’t think you would answer my question. How could you and hold your position? Now I don’t even think you saw the movie.

Regarding Scripture, nudity after the fall is always, always a shameful condition in Scripture, except in the confines of marriage. No, David did not dance naked in public, nor is it at all clear Isaiah walked around stark naked. Even if you want to say Isaiah is disputable, can you think of a woman in Scripture that was honored for public nudity?

It would take a truly great actor to play Harvey the Rabbit. Are you sure you’re equal to the task?

Wayne, OK, I’ll defer to your superior knowledge of Schindler’s List, though I’m not quite sure how you’re going to justify that knowledge, given your position. My take is still that anyone who found the nudity in that movie “sexy” has problems entirely unrelated to seeing the movie, but that the producers missed the point of the showers by casting actresses who were a bit too well fed for the story.

That said, the clear implication of 2 Samuel 6:20 and Isaiah 20:1-3 is that Michal and Isaiah both viewed whatever degree of nakedness David and Isaiah underwent as a shame, but it was from God. It was, like that of the movies today, unacceptable degree of nudity for the culture at that time. Same thing with Christ on the Cross. Some of these things depend on the goal to be achieved, and the plausibility of achieving these goals, versus the individual harm suffered.

I am in complete agreement with Wally, Wayne, Tyler, and T Howard. Also I read The Lottery in public school and still don’t understand the “educational value”. And to Jim, I liked Harvey too and vote for you to play the lead role.

[Bert Perry]

Wayne, OK, I’ll defer to your superior knowledge of Schindler’s List, though I’m not quite sure how you’re going to justify that knowledge, given your position. My take is still that anyone who found the nudity in that movie “sexy” has problems entirely unrelated to seeing the movie, but that the producers missed the point of the showers by casting actresses who were a bit too well fed for the story.

That said, the clear implication of 2 Samuel 6:20 and Isaiah 20:1-3 is that Michal and Isaiah both viewed whatever degree of nakedness David and Isaiah underwent as a shame, but it was from God. It was, like that of the movies today, unacceptable degree of nudity for the culture at that time. Same thing with Christ on the Cross. Some of these things depend on the goal to be achieved, and the plausibility of achieving these goals, versus the individual harm suffered.

Again you missed the point, and avoided the question I asked. And the last question I asked. I’ll let that fact stand on its own.

And yes, I saw Schindler’s List when writing a book on Christian entertainment choices because, as with you, it is the default movie everyone who sees your basic Hollywood faire uses to justify explicit sexuality, abundant nudity in the name of art, or history, or humor, or whatever emotion they desire to experience. “How can you condemn it if you haven’t seen it?” I heard that over and over again, always about Schindler’s List and occasionally about Braveheart. So i saw it, so I could respond with exact knowledge for people, like you, Bert, who pretend it only has nudity related to the shame of the holocaust. David Gushee gave a lecture I attended to Christians in Hollywood where he said Schindler’s List simply had to be acceptable, because, well, it made his students cry. This was some years before he started teaching homosexuality was acceptable for believers. Phil 4:8 still applies. When applied to art, it has something to do with good taste, which many holocaust movies have managed to achieve (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Hiding Place, Judgment at Nuremberg, e.g.)

As I said, Holocaust movies opened the door. Now anything goes, creating a moral holocaust all its own, if we regard souls as important as lives.

This movie has a fairly explicit sex scene between Schindler and his mistress, apart from nudity in the camp scenes. There are ways to educate without involving immorality. There was no reason to show Schindler engaging in sexual acts with his mistress, or to display that mistresses … assets. Irrelevant to the picture. Likewise, the camp scenes didn’t have to show complete nudity, but I can at least appreciate the argument for that inclusion, even while I completely disagree.

There was a time when difficult topics were put on film without nudity, immorality or profanity. Think Twelve O’Clock High. Think Anatomy of a Murder. Think Saving Private Ryan (which could have been better without the profanity). My son could have read To Kill a Mockingbird for literature this coming year, but my wife and I decided to choose something else. Yes, there is a tale to be told through this bit of literature. But, there is also some inappropriate stuff we don’t want our 13-yr old to read. We may watch the movie, instead.

The real discussion, it seems to me, is the larger one of whether Christian college students should be treated like the adults they actually are, and simply be warned in advance, “Hey, this course has literature with this stuff in it.” I’ve always struggled with this tension. I was running my own shift in a military police detachment when I was 19. But, at this Christian college, 18-22 yr-olds are being sheltered from film and literature when, honestly, many of them are streaming far worse on Netflix. People can and will grow up if they’re treated like adults - I’ve seen it in the military. Of course, some don’t ever grow up, either … :)

I understand this policy and support it. I just struggle to understand how far a university should go in protecting it’s students. They are adults, after all.

I know.

I vote for Neil Gorsch to play Jimmy Stewart’s character. I read a news story where a frustrated Democrat explained that Gorsch would be almost impossible to defeat in confirmation hearings, because “he has the mind and ideology of Scalia, but the personality of Jimmy Stewart.” After watching some clips from the hearings, I agree!

For reference, Saving Private Ryan and The Pianist are also rated R and would therefore be banned by the new policy, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is borderline at PG-13. So the movies Tyler and Wayne commend here are pretty much gone from Cedarville’s theater department. Moreover, The Pianist was directed by convicted child rapist Roman Polanski. (I can at least give Wayne props for avoiding guilt by association, but the guy does get royalties, folks!)

It is also worth noting that these movies got their rating by extreme violence. Is that OK, but nudity is not? As I recall, both adultery and murder are mentioned in the Decalogue, no? Someone I knew joked, after The Passion of the Christ came out, that he wondered “does a movie contain enough graphic violence for discerning Christian viewers?”

Really, it’s telling that the outrage on some peoples’ part regarding Schindler’s List is not people getting their brains blown out and standing in the shower terrified of the Zyklon B they knew could come out of those shower heads, but rather that some of them were naked. Seriously? Sometimes the fundamental preoccupation with immodesty and nudity makes me wonder how we ever go shopping.

That said, again, the subject matter that is permissible is determined by Scripture, not us. So while I appreciate it when violence and sexuality is veiled, our decision there is made not primarily by the reality of either, but by whether it has, as the Supreme Court noted, “redeeming social value.” I think reminding people of the sacrifices of Omaha Beach and William Wallace qualify, and so does the Holocaust. The question is whether it’s representative and whether it’s effective.

And as I’ve noted before, I’d say the violence in Schindler’s List makes a point, and so does some of the nudity.

[TylerR]

. My son could have read To Kill a Mockingbird for literature this coming year, but my wife and I decided to choose something else. Yes, there is a tale to be told through this bit of literature. But, there is also some inappropriate stuff we don’t want our 13-yr old to read. We may watch the movie, instead.

I read To Kill a Mockingbird either in 9th or 10th grade as did my oldest two kids. But I think I’d have a problem with my 13 year old reading it.

It is also worth noting that these movies got their rating by extreme violence. Is that OK, but nudity is not?

Bert, I know you don’t answer questions, but I’ll ask one for the sake of other readers. It’s something I simply want an opinion on. In casting notices for actors and actresses, there is always a notation “nudity required” as a heads up for what they are going to be reading (or stripping) for. These notices never say, “Getting shot required.” Or “Blown up required”. Why do you think they have the notices on nudity but not violence? What does the experience of the industry itself tell you?

Sometimes the fundamental preoccupation with immodesty and nudity makes me wonder how we ever go shopping.

We go shopping to purchase things. We do not, I assume, pay money for people to dress immodestly for us or show their flesh while we are out doing it. We don’t film it, carefully edit it, add lush or hot music to it, and stick it in front of our children’s faces. if we do, we are in sin. We live in a fallen, sinful world. There is a difference between enduring it, as righteous Lot’s soul was tormented, and delighting in it, and financially supporting it.

So while I appreciate it when violence and sexuality is veiled, our decision there is made not primarily by the reality of either, but by whether it has, as the Supreme Court noted, “redeeming social value.”

This statement just knocked me down. Earlier in this thread, you said that appealing to the universal testimony of godly men in all ages regarding entertainment standards is committing “the basic logical fallacy of appeal to popularity—bandwagon effect.” In short, it should have no bearing on our thinking. Fine, if you believe you are wiser than they were. But then you replace the witness of the saints by the standard of the Supreme Court of the United States, that something must have “redeeming social value”? That’s where you get your standards?

That was the decision that essentially legalized pornography in communities all over America! The pornographers simply added stories or a brief lecture about marital bliss to their porn. That is the oldest trick in the Hollywood playbook as well – salacious material woven into Bible stories (DeMille before the production code) or throwing in the “moral lesson” after a sea of sleaze. That is a pathetic and horrific standard. You are literally giving Hollywood permission to tease, corrupt and exploit anyone and everyone if they have something redeeming tossed in. They know that game very well indeed, and the thank you for your support.

This is how Hollywood still operates. As Natalie Portman said about her Academy Award winning film Black Swan, “Everyone was so worried about who was going to want to see this movie. I remember them being like, ‘How do you get guys to a ballet movie? How do you get girls to a thriller? The answer is a lesbian scene. Everyone wants to see that.” You say it’s art when that’s done. They know better.

I look to these words spoken by Someone, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!”

[Jim]

The play I would like to see performed by a Christian drama group (HS or college): The famous Harvey: Harvey is a 1944 play by the American playwright Mary Chase. Chase received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work in 1945. It has been adapted for film and television several times, most notably in a 1950 film starring James Stewart.

My part = Harvey

Fourth Baptist Christian School did Harvey in the late ‘70’s–I couldn’t give the exact year without looking through yearbooks. The school also did Arsenic and Old Lace around that same time.