Random post, AWPATT-style: Prince Hans's Frozen Heart

So I've been bouncing around Youtube commenting on people's analyses of Frozen and Tangled. I recently watched Frozen for the first time, two weeks ago, and then rewatched Tangled. I am very inspired to write a lengthy Christian analysis of the themes, and will endeavor to do that after finals are done (c. May 20).

But for now, I wrote something I thought was worth sharing, and am going to copy-paste it here.

This is on the subject of the Frozen plot twist where the 'nice guy' prince turns out to be a heartless, manipulative jerk. Some people have cried "feminism!" As a Christian man, I disagree and am thrilled to pieces that they made a pivotal plot point about warning girls against trusting a guy whom you barely know, just because he seems nice and you have feelings for him.

So, someone on a comment thread under such a video had said that the plot twist was foreshadowed in Hans's behavior earlier. You're blind if you didn't get suspicious when he proposed marriage on a whim, but here's where my ears perked up for the first time:

As a genuine 'good guy,' myself, the alarm went off when Hans said "I love crazy!" No. Flat out, no. No sane guy actually thinks that. Either he underestimates what 'crazy' is, and is naive, or in denial, OR if he actually gravitates toward legit 'crazy,' then he's self-destructive, or worse, a chauvinist with a broken ability to relate to women, where he feels like if he can 'conquer' them, that he's a strong man. Guys don't like 'crazy' because they genuinely like 'crazy.' They like fighting it, defeating it, destroying it. A guy who says "I like [a genuinely negative quality about you]," be afraid. Because it means he doesn't respect you enough to be honest with you and be a positive influence in your life to be there for you and help you overcome your problems. If he relishes in your problems, it's because it makes him feel better about himself, and more secure, to think that you're inferior to him, or maybe that you can't do better than him because no one else would want you. That's why guys go for "broken" girls. They're insecure, and think that if they persuade the girls to overlook their flaws, that they'll develop an emotional co-dependency and never leave him, no matter how bad he behaves. A true good guy will not praise negative character qualities, but he won't treat you like you have no worth or value because of them, either. A good guy acknowledges both the good and the bad, and doesn't try to present himself as a perfect guy who never conflicts with your expectations. A good guy does not encourage destructive habits, but offers himself as a friend to you, to help you become a better person, if you want to do that by trusting him. And a good guy will never rush you into a relationship. I don't want to risk rambling, so I'll stop there. And I hope that's good advice for all the young women out there to take into consideration. Please listen to me. Just like how you know things that we men can't understand intuitively, THIS is something any honest, thinking man knows and can confirm to you, but that maybe you can't understand intuitively. Trust me on this. Guys who say they 'love crazy,' or something similar to that, are guys to be very very wary of. Take care!

~ Rak Chazak

Which is Despicabler?

I fell far behind on my Wretched-listening over the course of December and January, when I spent several hours each day walking to and from work in anywhere from 9-60-degree weather (crazy extremes this year), before I finally acquired a vehicle at the end of January. But now, I've made a good run of keeping up with the podcast uploads since June. I'm going to download some before I leave my wi-fi location for the night. One of the recent podcasts opened with the question, "which is more despicable?" And offered audio clips or descriptions of recent events for consideration.

To choose from, you had:

• Barack Obama, at a commencement address, jokingly claims he blacked out and couldn't remember his graduation ceremony or even the 'after-party.' To many laughs from the crowd.
• A pedophile priest answers the prosecutor by saying he "wasn't sure when he learned" that having sex with minors was illegal. Todd added, what about that it was homosexual? And out of wedlock?
• Denmark is now forcing churches to allow anyone who wants to be married in their church (read: gay couples) to be married there. Tolerate it or face punishment.
• Planned Parenthood instructs a 15-year old on S&M and asphyxiation, and how to get her 17-year-old boyfriend to buy condoms for her without her parents' consent, when he turns 18. Todd added, but won't he be in a sexual relationship with a minor, then? The New Morality is nothing if not consistently inconsistent!
• A Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple has been ordered to take sensitivity training.

On an individual level, I think the pedophile priest "courtroom defense" takes the cake in demonstrating the depravity of thinking at play in the minds of people we sadly share this planet with. It only very narrowly beats out Planned Parenthood, only because they aren't also a hospital and orphanage. You have to actually go to Planned Parenthood, and that requires some choice on your part, and therefore some minute consciousness about what you're doing. But a church leader, regardless of the false nature of the RCatholic religion, is supposed to be a trusted person who will protect and lead young people in the paths of righteousness. This case is more akin to a paramedic "rescuing" someone from a brutal assault, only to take them to a dungeon somewhere and forcibly sterilize them. Like, what happened to 'Do No Harm?' When people who are in the business of promoting promiscuity so they can profit off of murder are trying to give you sex advice, that's nasty but expected. When someone you're supposed to be able to trust and rely violates your confidence in them and takes advantage of you, there's more of an element of deceit in that. And maybe now that I think about it, that's why I find it more revolting. Since lies are the things I hate the most, it's only reasonable that the thing which is most like a lie is the thing that I find the most despicable.

If what bothers you most is government infringement on individual liberties, I suppose you'd find the court-ordered sensitivity training to be the most offensive, with churches being forced to hold gay weddings coming in second because it isn't directly attacking the individual, but a group.

I was surprised that Todd and Tony (the show's co-host) thought that Obama's speech was so terrible. I agree, it shows his lack of good discernment very aptly. But for a video that shows his moral depravity, I think the "God Bless you Planned Parenthood" one is a far more effective sound-bite.

With regard to the Colorado baker, he avoided the issue by choosing to not offer wedding cakes. A good idea in the short run, but one could see the slippery slope where Christian businesses, if they were to take the "scorched-earth" route, would eventually be elbowed out of the wedding industry altogether, and presumably later on also anything having to do with the American flag or advertising on television. I just think it looks a little too much like giving up. Which is why I really liked the suggestions Todd read from a facebook user:

1. Say "I want you to know that I love you and because of that, it is against my deeply held religious convictions to offer you this wedding cake. But, the US government is forcing me to, so here you go! But before you pay, I want you to know that as a token of appreciation for your business, I will donate 100% of the price of this cake to the Family Research Council or other organizations for the purpose of addressing homosexuality in the culture from a Biblical approach. May God bless you, but not your marriage, and I hope you repent and believe the Gospel before it's too late. Thank you for your business."
2. Alter your company logo, especially if you're a photographer, to include 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 in every iteration thereof. On your cakes, on your photographs, on your stationery, on your advertising, etc. Wait, you don't know what 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says? Let me read it for you. You won't forget it.

I'm a much bigger fan of those approaches. The first one negates the promotional effect that your business would have on their sin, at least to the people you directly do business with. And the second would negate the promotional effect on anyone who does not do business with you, but observes the business you have done with others. I would suggest that since letting people be deceived into thinking God is approving of their sin is the central reason for refusing to partake in certain acts, that if you are totally forced to do it and there's no way to avoid it, ("eating food sacrificed to idols," if you imagine living in an all-muslim society where everything is to Halal standards and you can either starve to death or eat food that's been slaughtered while a chant was said to Allah), doing it while actively educating anyone who sees you do it that your conscience will not rest unless you warn them that this is sin and that they must repent--hey, that would seem to address the issue, wouldn't it? Why would we have to quietly submit, anyway? Of course, if they start killing us, we'll have to keep adapting our approach. But these suggestions (I forget who the person was) show us that there is more than one way to go about being persecuted without violating your own conscience or dishonoring God.

~ Rak Chazak

Video Post: Discernment & Duck Dynasty

I used to pray for wisdom, in my mid to late teens. I was inspired by the way that God responded to Solomon's request for wisdom. Clearly the better thing to ask the Giver for is not things, but the correct understanding of how to utilize the things you have. I was amazed, years later, to consider that the end result of all the theological, historical and scientific education I'd gotten with regard to Biblical truth online had been an answer to the prayer I had made a habit of praying on night walks by the road. My mind is bursting with valuable, helpful information about an extremely wide and deep assortment of topics concerning the Christian Faith, and my concern now is how to best use this knowledge now that I have it, so that the last word won't be that all of the facts I knew were simply random trivia.

Discernment is the next step of wisdom. Whereas wisdom is the proper application of knowledge, discernment is the accurate and consistent application of wisdom. Let's say you could wisely conclude that a course of action is appropriate. But if you never took the time to reach that conclusion, and never acted, then your wisdom was in vain, because you didn't use it. Suppose that you know that certain song lyrics are not appropriate for your children to hear, but you don't know that your child is listening to a singer who employs such lyrics. You have the knowledge to determine what the lyrics are. You have the wisdom to determine that your child shouldn't be influenced by such music. But you lacked the discernment to identify the bad lyrics under your nose so as to take action against letting your child listen to them. This 'last step' is what I want to improve on, because my great fear is that I won't successfully identify and separate what's good from what's bad, and everything "in between," and reap the consequences of that inability.

My new prayer is for discernment. And to show an example of what I mean by drawing a distinction between "wisdom" and "discernment," please watch the following video. I have the knowledge of what is orthodox soteriology (the doctrine of salvation). I have the wisdom to know that I shouldn't promote people as Christian brothers whose doctrine is heretical on the topic of soteriology. But I am uncertain that I could identify, on my own, that a certain person is espousing a heretical soteriology, if it wasn't directly and obviously stated.

That's where men like Todd Friel come in. I discovered him first when I investigated whether Roman Catholicism was authentic Christianity or not, and someone had uploaded a video of him comparing Catholic and Christian positions. I liked his style and the information delivery in each of his short video uploads I would find, so I've eventually come to consider him an online, impersonal mentor figure in my Christian walk. Every young person ideally should have an older, more mature Christian of the same gender from whom to receive advice and take cues from as they model the Christian walk for you, so that you can grow in the faith, etc etc. I'm still working on finding such a relationship in person, but thanks to the Internet, I've been able to benefit from Todd's podcasts and video clips from his show, Wretched, and continue to polish up on my theology and practice. He has seemed to me on more than one occasion to serve the purpose of a theological watchdog, on the alert for errors, heresy, and other dumb-but-not-damning silliness that ought to be avoided. Following is a video clip of him helpfully analyzing a segment of Phil Robertson talking about salvation. Phil is one of the "Duck Dynasty" characters, which is the most popular reality show of all time, and their family's faith is bound to be a huge influence in America going forward. So just what do they believe? The nuance is very important, and Todd explains it below. Please check it out.

~ Rak Chazak