Page 3371 – Christianity Today (2024)

Despite last week’s news that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts assisted in a landmark gay-rights case, conservative Christian political groups have largely maintained their support for the nominee. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, wrote in his August 4 newsletter, “After further investigation we were told that Roberts’s role was apparently limited to providing a few hours of participation in a moot court procedure, as he routinely did for all the firm’s pro bono clients.”

But should Roberts’s conservative credentials not hold up during or before the Senate confirmation hearings, there are questions regarding how conservative groups will spend the money raised to support his nomination. Perkins earlier told The Washington Post that FRC would put millions behind a conservative nominee.

In a July 26 Focus on the Family broadcast, James Dobson said, “No one can discern with perfect accuracy what lies in the heart and specifically in the philosophy and beliefs of this nominee … this is why we need to be in prayer that Judge Roberts’s true colors will become apparent before the final confirmation decision is reached, but right now, however, the man looks good.” But what happens to money raised to support Roberts if either he is able to get through confirmation hearings without a major, money-spending battle, or if conservative groups decide he’s not worth supporting?

FRC says even if its millions are not spent on Roberts, that money and more will be used to help turn the Supreme Court in a more conservative direction. “It’s not all earmarked for Roberts,” says Cathy Cleaver Ruse, senior fellow for legal studies.

“FRC will choose a major issue each year and put most of its resources and its focus toward that issue,” says Ruse. Last year, FRC focused on marriage. This year it’s judicial nominees. “A lot of that will go to supporting the confirmation of judge Roberts,” she says

“It will also be used, and is being used, for educational efforts,” Ruse says, “to educate the American people on the proper role of judges and the importance of this confirmation hearing.” Programs like the upcoming Justice Sunday II are a major part of that effort.

Conservative Christian groups are looking beyond the Roberts nomination. “Supreme Court judges are not going off our radar once the O’Connor seat is filled,” says Wendy Wright, senior policy director for Concerned Women for America. Many expect Chief Justice William Rehnquist to retire soon. “I think that Justice Rehnquist is holding out admirably,” says Wright. “Considering the fortitude of that man, he’s not going to step down until necessary.”

“He may have been considering that it would be difficult for the country to go through two openings at the same time,” Wright says. ” Regardless, Bush is still going to be in [office] three and a half years. I think it’s likely that somebody [will retire].”

Though Focus on the Family Action declined to comment on how their money would be used, supporting conservative nominees is high on the organization’s agenda. The Roberts nomination “is of monumental importance,” Dobson told his radio audience.

“You’ve got prayer in schools,” Dobson said, “Bible-reading in schools, Ten Commandments on the school bulletin boards, partial-birth abortion, the Pledge of Allegiance and the ‘under God’ provision, the definition of marriage, Lawrence v. Texas, Roe v. Wade, parental notification, religious freedom, physician-assisted suicide, don’t ask don’t tell, all of that and much more make this decision and the next two or three nominations to be just a turning point for our nation.”

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

CT’s earlier coverage of the Supreme Court vacancy includes:

In Perspective
Where Does Feminists for Life Fit in the Pro-life Community? | Group brings unique niche strategy to the movement. (July 29, 2005)

Weblog: Jane Roberts for Supreme Court Justice! | Questions on John Roberts’s abortion stance, but none regarding his wife (July 21, 2005)

Conservative Religious Groups Praise ‘Originalist’ Roberts Nomination | But in 2003 nominee said he was uncomfortable with the label. (July 20, 2005)

Weblog: Is Gonzales Pro-Life? Does it Matter? | Inside the “originalist” Gonzales opinion that has pro-lifers so upset (July 12, 2005)

Supreme Court Opening Will Test Strength of Religious Conservatives | Conservative groups say this is why they pushed for Bush’s re-election. (July 01, 2005)

After five record-breaking books and three successful movies, Harry Potter has secured his seat among the most beloved heroes of youth pop culture. But with the recent release of author J.K. Rowling’s sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, some in the church are still unsure what to make of the winsome wizard. Many church leaders, including Pope Benedict, have condemned Harry Potter, but at least one church, in a controversial move, embraced him. Their example raises a larger question: To what extent should the church embrace popular culture in order to reach lost people?

Kelly and Tosha Williams started Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs eight years ago with the goal of using popular culture to attract people to Christ. But when the church created a vacation Bible school based on the Harry Potter books in 2003, they attracted a lot of media attention and criticism. With the release of the newest Potter book, their VBS story was told again on national television. So we spoke with Tosha Williams, creator of the “Potter Project” at Vanguard, about the issue of using popular culture to accomplish the church’s mission.

Where did the idea to use Harry Potter for your children’s ministry originate?

I read an article about the church in New Mexico that was doing a Harry Potter book burning, and I told my husband that it would be more effective to use Harry Potter books to reach kids rather than burn them. From there God really convicted me that we needed to use Harry Potter as a bridge to reach kids with the gospel.

What did the “Potter Project” entail?

I spent about a year pulling together the curriculum using themes from the Book of John and aligning them with themes from the first three Harry Potter books. The aim was to teach kids the difference between good and evil, and ultimately to teach them about Christ.

We organized it into a really big one-day event on President’s Day when the kids were out of school, followed by six weeks of smaller events. The teachers were dressed as wizards, and the church was entirely decorated with darkened rooms and glow-in-the-dark props, and we renamed hot dogs “goblin fingers.” I have never seen children so excited about a church event, just absolutely mesmerized. It was an awesome opportunity for our church.

How did your church’s leaders and families respond when they heard your idea? Was it a difficult sell?

I had to explain it to them, and I knew they would see it as an off-the-wall idea. But we started the church eight years ago with the goal of reaching people in unusual ways, so our leaders were comfortable with different ideas. I felt that if God didn’t want the Potter Project to happen he would work through the leadership of our church to shut it down. But after the elders took a week or two to pray about it they approved it.

There were some families within our church, including some very close friends, who supported us and appreciated the outreach, but they weren’t ready for their children to be introduced to Harry Potter. And that was fine because our goal was not to introduce church kids to Harry Potter, but to introduce kids who were familiar with Harry Potter to Christ. But, the outpouring of support from our church overall was great.

Did you get negative responses from people outside your church?

Absolutely. They hunted me down. There was a lot of misunderstanding about what we were doing from the wider Christian community. Many thought we were endorsing witchcraft. We weren’t doing that at all. We were using Harry Potter themes and characters to draw analogies and teach kids spiritual truths about Christ and the gospel. We really felt like the Potter Project was what God wanted us to do, so we shouldered the criticism from the Christian community.

How did you respond to your critics who believe Harry Potter endorses witchcraft?

We have tried to respond graciously. Although our methods are different than other Christians’, our goal is the same—to see people come to Christ. We were simply doing what we believe God was calling us to do. Obviously the people who burned the books felt they were doing God’s will also. How God reconciles it all I don’t know, but we did not want to be divisive.

Do you have plans for another Potter Project? What’s next for Vanguard’s children’s ministry?

We don’t have any Harry Potter plans right now, but I totally see our church picking up the idea again. Right now the book series “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is very popular with children, and we could do something with that theme.

The Potter Project generated a lot of publicity for the church, but our goal is not to use off-the-wall ideas to create publicity. Our heartbeat is to reach people with the gospel. And we believe that when we speak their language, just like Paul did in Acts 17, people will listen. We want to use culture effectively to reach people for Christ.

To respond to this newsletter, write to Newsletter@LeadershipJournal.net.

Copyright © 2005 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.

Duma is one of Hollywood’s better attempts at live-action family-friendly fare. The film, helmed by Carroll Ballard (Fly Away Home, The Black Stallion), does not resort to the gross-out antics of so many of its contemporaries. Rather, Duma relies on an emotional coming-of-age story set against a beautiful African backdrop to engage the audience and to deliver a powerful and satisfying film.

The movie opens with what could easily be footage from a National Geographic documentary. Barren land. Sun-choked vegetation. Panting animals. But, the image grows unsettling as a once-complacent lion sets his sights on a coalition of cheetah cubs. In an instant, the footage becomes brutal in the harsh reality of the animal kingdom, as the mother cheetah sacrifices herself for the safety of her babies. Yet, the opening scenes suggest that humans could learn a lesson or two from animals. Life walks a delicate balance between beautiful and brutal, and continues its march to time’s beat regardless.

The plot is simple: Duma is the story of a boy and his adopted cheetah, whom he names Duma (Swahili for “cheetah”). But, simple does not mean simplistic. In this case, simple means understated, reflective, and timeless.

The film, adapted from an autobiography by Xan Hopcraft, follows the journeys of an extraordinary character—12-year-old Xan (played superbly by newcomer Alexander Michaletos), who is carefree and amiable. Yet, when his father (Campbell Scott) becomes terminally ill, Xan trades in his innocuous free spirit for a burdened stoic soul. He holds his cards close to his vest, so much so that even his mother (American Splendor‘s Hope Davis), a compassionate presence in the film, cannot break through Xan’s hardened exterior to help him cope.

What was an ideal childhood (growing up on a farm, saving and raising an abandoned cheetah, and living with two loving parents) quickly becomes Xan’s living nightmare, as he and his mother are forced to lease the farm and move to Johannesburg to live with relatives. During this transitional time, both Xan and Duma look as though they live in captivity. Neither have room to run and play, and life has pushed both into circ*mstances well out of their respective comfort zones.

So, Xan decides to do something about it. What follows is one of the most profound psychological and physical journeys ever written into a movie geared toward children. That adventure centers around Xan’s desire to return Duma to his home in the wilderness—a place far removed from Johannesburg, requiring the boy-cheetah team to face several different and terrifying challenges (deserts, crocodiles, wart hogs, trappers, and an interesting stranger).

On the first leg of the journey, Xan’s motorcycle runs out of gas in the middle of the Salt Pans, a bleak and lifeless area in which the film seems to stop. The only movement is the heat vapors rising from the ground. The only sound is Duma’s panting. Xan finds refuge in a crashed plane—and waits, knowing he has no water and, possibly, no hope. But he does not panic. Rather, the silence offers a time for reflection, an open invitation to rest and think and wait. It’s a welcome departure from modern films otherwise filled with non-stop action and explosions.

Farther along in his journey, Xan meets Ripkuna (Eamonn Walker), a schemer and dreamer who deserted his family and tribe for fortune in the city. Rip and Xan, two people who have lost trust in humanity, make for an interesting team. Back-stabbing at first, the two must put aside their differences and prejudices in order to survive the brutal wilderness. Rip, in essence, serves as another marker in Xan’s ultimate test.

Duma is chock full of themes: the joys of childhood, the pains of growth, the importance of friends and family, reconciliation in relationships, the wildness of animals and humans—you name it, this film’s got it. But screenwriters Karen Janszen and Mark St. Germain did not include the various themes carelessly. They weaved a story in which a life’s quest makes or breaks a person. Their script gives credence to the intelligence of its target market. Children deserve movies that make them think and that are not “dumbed down” to get cheap laughs. Kids are savvy consumers; they will know when a film is well-made and thoughtful.

While the movie may not be suitable for very young children (and may not hold their attention), it’s certainly intellectually and emotionally relevant to all other ages—including parents, who will be thankful that they can witness a handcrafted masterpiece instead of another cookie-cutter, predictable flick.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Consider the biblical mandate to honor your parents (Ex. 20:12; Matt. 19). Do you think that Xan honored his parents by taking the journey? Why or why not?
2. When Xan’s father becomes ill, how does Xan’s character change? Are the changes constructive or destructive? Why?
3. Duma is a wild animal, yet he lives with Xan and the family for several months. Do you think wild animals can ever be truly tame? Why or why not?
4. What do you think were the most important lessons Xan learned on his journey?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

Duma is rated PG for “mild adventure peril,” similar to the content found on TV’s Animal Planet or The Discovery Channel. In one scene, a parrot says, “sexy mama,” but Xan’s father scolds him for teaching the bird such inappropriate phrases. In another scene, Ripkuna suffers from swelling due to insect bites, and the swelling might be disturbing.

Photos © Copyright Warner Brothers

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

What Other Critics Are Saying

compiled by Jeffrey Overstreet and Peter T. Chattawayfrom Film Forum, 06/08/06

After a particularly taxing day last week, my wife Anne and I relaxed with a DVD of a movie we had missed during its theatrical run—Duma. What caught our attention was the name of the director. Carroll Ballard directed the masterful adaptation of The Black Stallion (1979), Never Cry Wolf (1983), and Fly Away Home (1996). Could this mean that Ballard had surprised us with yet another wonderful film about the grace and beauty of the animal kingdom?

The answer is, unequivocally, yes.

Duma takes you from a family home in South Africa to an ambitious journey through the wilderness in the company of a beautiful cheetah. Young Xan (Alex Michaeletos) is reluctant to let go of the wild cat he has raised since he found him orphaned and alone, in spite of the wise counsel of his parents (Campbell Scott and Hope Davis). And when Xan suffers a painful loss of his own, the experience forms a powerful bond between him and his furry friend.

But we all know that a cheetah isn’t going to do well as a domestic pet. What will it take for Xan to heal from his wounds and make the right decision? A memorable adventure, apparently. Xan and Duma must survive a challenging trek across the desert in the company of a suspicious traveler (Eamonn Walker) who has an animal friend of his own—a mischievous kangaroo rat.

We were delighted by this film, largely for the beauty of its wild African backdrop, the majesty of that graceful cheetah, and the cast’s understated performances. It may not be the most original story of its kind, but it boasts the kind of aesthetic pleasures that are hard to find in moviegoing today. Moreover, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better family film released in the last year.

Other Christian film critics are also discovering this delightful film. Mary Lasse reviewed the film for Christianity Today Movies almost a year ago, during its limited theater run: “Duma is one of Hollywood’s better attempts at live-action family-friendly fare. … [It] is chock full of themes: the joys of childhood, the pains of growth, the importance of friends and family, reconciliation in relationships, the wildness of animals and humans—you name it, this film’s got it.”

Andrew Coffin (World) writes, “[Ballard’s] African landscapes are luxurious and mesmerizing, and his action scenes spirited. More importantly, Mr. Ballard knows how to work with both children and animals, so that the former are stretched by their circ*mstances without growing too old in the process, and the latter become genuine friends without excessive anthropomorphization.”

And Annabelle Robertson (Crosswalk) says, “Ballard shows great sensitivity and doesn’t back away from tough issues, like the complex themes of home, loss and death.He coaxes excellent performances from [his] actors, and doesn’t fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing the cheetah, as so many directors would.Any emotions he shows are real, and stem from the characters—not some projected sentiment we think the animal might be feeling.”

And she concludes, “Overall, an outstanding film that not only deserves a place in every family library, but is also destined to become a classic.”

from Film Forum, 08/11/05

Fans of Carroll Ballard’s animal-themed family films (The Black Stallion, Fly Away Home) may want to see his newest film, Duma, about a cheetah that is raised by humans, and then is taken on a dangerous journey back into the wild after its human family has moved to Johannesburg. The film reunites Campbell Scott and Hope Davis (The Impostors, The Secret Lives of Dentists) as the parents of the boy who takes the cheetah home.

Jeremy Landes (Christian Spotlight) says the film “succeeds spectacularly in showing us Africa as most Westerners will never experience it … Duma is a great film that shows off the beautiful creation of an untame God.”

Mainstream critics are, so far, unanimous in their praise.

Saint Ralph opens in a confession booth, and the litany of adolescent sins confessed tells us succinctly—and humorously—that 14-year-old Catholic schoolboy Ralph Walker (newcomer Adam Butcher) is certainly no saint. But by the time the hapless Ralph has discovered that his confessor is not a priest but rather his fellow students enjoying a laugh at his expense, the audience has already learned to like the awkwardly earnest young man.

Ralph is infamously prone to wander (a scene of accidental arousal in a public swimming pool will be funny to some viewers, objectionable to others), and for the first twenty minutes the movie is perhaps a little too eager to show us the various ways Ralph stumbles into “self-abuse.” But if Ralph’s body has a mind of its own, his heart is good—yet also burdened. Ralph’s father is dead, and his mother Emma (Shauna MacDonald) is gravely ill. When he’s not at school or his mother’s bedside, Ralph is alone in his parents’ house, keenly aware of his odds of becoming an orphan … and already living like one.

Meanwhile, Ralph is a thorn in the side of Father Fitzpatrick (acclaimed Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent), who is the archetypal stern headmaster and priest. After learning of the “Old Testament depravity” of the pool incident, Father Fitzpatrick threatens expulsion and sentences Ralph to daily 6 a.m. Mass and, as an outlet for the boy’s “energies,” a stint on the cross-country running team. The moment Ralph saunters up to his first practice, extinguishing a cigarette on the way, both the boy and the film take on a new energy and focus.

The team is coached by the enigmatic but empathetic Father Hibbert (Campbell Scott, Secret Lives of Dentists). Ralph already knows Father Hibbert as the Nietzsche-quoting teacher of his ninth-grade religion class, and he’s already been pestering him to explain the nature of miracles. Told it will take a miracle to bring his mother out of her coma, Ralph is in search of one. When Hibbert cracks a joke about the cross-country team training for the Boston Marathon, Ralph misunderstands and takes him seriously. The priest tries to correct Ralph’s misperception by saying, “Anyone on this team winning the Boston Marathon would be a miracle to match the loaves and fishes.” That’s all Ralph needs to hear: He figures if he can win Boston, he’ll have the miracle necessary to wake his mother.

But Ralph has also learned—in Father Hibbert’s religion class—that there’s still more to making a miracle. Specifically, these three criteria: faith, purity and prayer. Ralph sets to work on all three, aided by his friend Claire (Tamara Hope), the girl who has spurned his affections by declaring her intention to become a nun. Claire tackles Ralph’s spirituality like a school project, coming up with various unorthodox ways of improving his prayer life, and their obvious blossoming teenage attraction in the wake of their religious quest is both funny and a welcome antidote for Ralph’s loneliness. Claire gives Ralph a book on the martyrs, and Ralph begins to apply the guidance given on discipline and self-sacrifice to the fourth criteria necessary to his miracle: becoming a great marathoner. The spiritual and sporting disciplines are strikingly symbiotic, and Ralph discovers he is a natural and driven runner.

Set in 1953 and 1954 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, the first half of the film is a coming-of-age-in-Catholic-School story that manages to include most of the clichés of that genre (awakening sexuality, the bullying peers who eventually come to respect the protagonist, the oppressive headmaster, the inspiring, iconoclastic teacher, the standoffish love interest.) The second half of the film is an underdog sports story that comes down to the Big Finish, and it likewise contains many familiar elements. But screenwriter and director Michael McGowan, himself a former marathon winner, tells us a story we care about, and young actor Adam Butcher gives us a Ralph we want to cheer. The film’s climax is enormously compelling, and there are subtleties along the way that more than compensate for the clichés and contrivances.

Christian viewers who can bear the pubescent indulgences of the film’s first twenty minutes will enjoy watching Ralph’s journey into the beginnings of emotional, and even spiritual, maturity. Finding a passion greater than self-gratification expands and refines Ralph’s personality and character—and profoundly affects the people around him, even rekindling the faith of a priest who at first isn’t sure he believes in much of anything any more. Ever since the Apostle Paul, believers have been likening our spiritual quest to the running of a race, and the film does a lovely job of showing those parallels in a whimsical, entertaining, and ultimately inspiring way.

The movie is by no means a theological treatise—Ralph’s God appears to him in a Santa Claus suit, and it’s hard to know if that detail is a quirky glimpse into the boy’s psyche or a pointed commentary on just what or whom we believe in. Still, the Catholic framework of the film, while often mined for laughs, does tend to give a capitol “G” to the God Ralph is learning to pray to and believe. And, in a reworking of a Nietzsche quote that comes up repeatedly in the film, Father Hibbert brings Christ himself into the mix, pointing out that Christ was more than willing to break societal or religious rules to do what love required.

Shot in Canada, featuring mostly Canadian actors (including the notable Jennifer Tilly as a sympathetic nurse), and made for much less money than the average major release film, this is not a Big Movie. But there are some Big Ideas, which are explored in a refreshingly small, wonderfully old-fashioned way—by telling a story. There are a few bits of unnatural dialogue and an oddly intrusive soundtrack that occasionally distract and detract, but these miscues don’t stop us from caring about young Ralph and his quest. For the jaded moviegoer who hasn’t found much to care about on the screens lately, here’s a little film that just might restore your faith—in movies and a whole lot more.

Note: Saint Ralph opened in limited theaters on August 5, but will expand to wider release in the weeks ahead.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Father Fitzpatrick claims, “Chasing after miracles is blasphemy.” Do you agree or disagree? Why?
2. Ralph claims to have heard directly from God, which prompts different reactions from the religious leaders around him. Do you believe it is possible to hear audibly from God? How can we determine if it’s really God’s voice?
3. Father Hibbert quotes Nietzsche: “The anarchist and the Christian often have a common origin,” and decides eventually that “As anarchists go, Nietzsche had nothing on Christ.” What do you think he meant? Does the church today follow Christ’s example of valuing relationships over rules, and purity of heart over appearances?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

Saint Ralph contains non-explicit but unmistakable scenes of masturbation, presented as a fact of teenage life—but a behavior that abates once the protagonist finds a greater passion. There is one scene of rear nudity. There is also frequent use of the Lord’s name in vain, which, interestingly, is repeatedly confessed as a sin but also exploited for laughs. This film may present a dilemma for some families—it tells a great story with some enormously redemptive themes and messages, but some viewers may decide that the content of the first twenty minutes is too questionable to make this film appropriate viewing.

Photos © Copyright Samuel Goldwyn Films

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

What Other Critics Are Saying

compiled by Jeffrey Overstreetfrom Film Forum, 08/18/05

One movie often celebrated by Christian film buffs is 1981’s Chariots of Fire. More than two decades later, another film about a runner driven by faith has reached the screen: Saint Ralph. This runner is significantly younger. Ralph (Adam Butcher) is a high school freshman who wants to win the Boston Marathon in hopes that it will be the miracle required to wake his mother up from a coma.

Is the film as inspiring as Chariots? Or is it merely sentimental? Christian film critics are fairly impressed.

Harry Forbes (Catholic News Service) turns in a rave. “For adults and older adolescents, this is a lovely, extraordinarily touching film that conveys an admirable picture of filial devotion, self-sacrifice, faith, good sportsmanship and universal fellowship.”

Mainstream critics are debating whether or not Ralph has emerged as a winner.

from Film Forum, 08/25/05

This film is now making the rounds in theaters, but Peter T. Chattaway, a critic for Christianity Today Movies, wrote about Saint Ralphin his blog months ago: “Watching Saint Ralph, I kept thinking back to Millions, which succeeds where Saint Ralph fails precisely because it sees the world through the eyes of a child (and in a way that is absolutely, convincingly childlike), and also because it just flat-out goes for the magic and gives the saints their own objective reality, whereas Saint Ralph hedges its bets and tries to hint at magic while staying within the tidy boundaries of that which can be rationally explained. (After bumping his head, Ralph may think he sees God in a Santa suit, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually there, does it?)”

In what could have been a fun and family-friendly remake of the popular television show, director Jay Chandrasekhar (of the Broken Lizard comedy group) chose instead to deliver an offensive cross between American Pie and Jackass: The Movie. Essentially, The Dukes of Hazzard is a sexed-up and profane distortion of the American cult classic. You’d do well to get in your own General Lee and drive far away from this Hazzard (sorry—such puns are obligatory in reviews like this).

Bo Duke (Seann William Scott) and Luke Duke (Johnny Knoxville) are just a couple of laid-back cousins from Hazzard County, somewhere near Atlanta, Georgia. Bo worships General Lee, his 1969 Dodge Charger R/T. Luke worships … sex. That’s obvious from the first scene in which a half-dressed Luke is chased by his lover’s shotgun-wielding brother. Thinking that the filmmakers had clearly established Luke’s womanizing tendencies, I hoped that the film would then focus less on sex and more on the actual story. But, silly me, it quickly became evident that the severe lack of story prevented the filmmakers from doing anything but. So, I proceeded to endure 106 minutes of shoddy car chase footage interspersed with Luke’s various and sundry attempts to woo women.

The rest of the film’s plot follows that of the original TV series. Boss Hogg makes evil plans. Duke boys foil plans. Boss Hogg gets mad. Duke boys save the day. In this particular “episode,” Boss Hogg wants to strip-mine Hazzard County and plans to distract the potential objectors (a.k.a. townspeople) by bringing a well-known NASCAR driver into town to compete in the much-heralded car rally. It takes them a while, but Bo and Luke, with the help of Harvard-material-under-this-ditzy-exterior Daisy Duke (played by singer-turned-actress Jessica Simpson) and moonshine-making Uncle Jessie (still-a-singer Willie Nelson), finally get wind of Boss Hogg’s plans and prepare to save their beloved town.

Dukes contains several red flags—more than I could possibly mention in this review, so here’s an annotated list of the “Top Five Reasons Why This Movie Stinks.”

1. It’s never a good sign when a movie’s soundtrack is its best feature. Still, the soundtrack does its job and distracts viewers from the lamer scenes in the movie. After all, doesn’t Bo Duke look so cool driving the General Lee while rocking out to Molly Hatchet and The Charlie Daniels Band? You can be sure that there’ll be a run on this soundtrack, especially since interest piqued earlier this summer with Jessica Simpson’s remake of “These Boots Were Made for Walkin.'”

2. For a movie that’s all about cars, or rather one car (the General Lee), the chase scenes and stunt scenes just aren’t that good. Yeah, the film included the famous airborne shot, but aside from that 5-second sequence, the other car scenes can’t hold a candle to some famous chases in cinema history: Duel, The Blues Brothers, and The Bourne Supremacy to name a few.

3. Toward the middle of the movie, Bo and Luke steal some core samples from Boss Hogg and decide that the best way to determine what the samples consist of is to head to a science lab at a Georgia university. The entire sequence is an ode to college life and serves only to show a sorority in which all of the sisters are half-naked and most are smoking pot. Aside from being completely offensive, the scenes insult the intelligence of the viewers, as though we won’t catch on that the side jaunt to the college is completely unnecessary to the small shred of plot imbedded in the movie. The filmmakers do themselves a great disservice by wasting twenty minutes of movie time that could have otherwise been used to develop characters, explore themes, or pay better homage to the original TV series.

4. Daisy Duke uses her body to get both herself and her cousins out of trouble. She also uses her body to get information from Enos, the local deputy. I don’t know what’s more frustrating: the fact that she uses her sexual prowess to manipulate men or the fact that she doesn’t use her intellectual prowess, which would get her the same results. The message is clear. Girls, if you want something, just throw on a bikini and march into your local police station. The deputies will tell you anything you want to know.

5. Perhaps the worst part of the film is each character’s incredible sense of recklessness and complete disregard for personal safety. I understand that the film falls under the category of slapstick comedy. But, for a family that seems so tight-knit, the Dukes can be downright mean to one another. At one point in the movie, Bo pulls a giant vault (attached to a long metal chain) behind a tow-truck. He finally realizes that Luke is somehow attached to the very safe, holding on for dear life. Bo just looks out the rear-view mirror and says, “Sorry, man. You’d do the same thing to me” and keeps driving. Sure, the audience is supposed to exercise the whole “suspension of disbelief” idea, but there comes a point when the stunts are too “bigger and better” for their own good.

Please don’t bother with this movie. In fact, take the advice of the original Cooter (Ben Jones) and “Don’t Go Unless They Clean It Up!” If you’re just itching for more Dukes, stick to the original series on DVD.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Daisy Duke often uses her body to get what she needs. How do you feel about that? Is using sexual attraction as power wrong if no sex actually takes place?
2. Luke Duke is a womanizer in the truest sense of the word. Why does he pursue so many different women? What does that say about Luke as a person?
3. Bo Duke is obsessed with his car, the General Lee. What kinds of “obsessions” do you have? Do you believe that obsessions are OK? At what point do our interests get out of control?
4. Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds) is willing to sacrifice a town and its people for his personal gain. How does that make you feel about his character? What makes a person so uncaring? Can that type of person ever change?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

Though it received a PG-13 rating, The Dukes of Hazzard should be rated R. From the opening scene all the way to the outtakes during the credits, the film is loaded with profanity and sexual innuendos. The movie makes several allusions to Luke Duke’s infidelity. Many of the characters use profanity and take the Lord’s name in vain. Daisy Duke wears very revealing clothing (even a bikini at one point). Several characters use drugs and drink moonshine. In the outtakes, Knoxville pulls pranks very similar to those seen in his Jackass show (the pranks include genitalia). Take the rating seriously. Younger children should not see this film.

Photos © Copyright Warner Brothers

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

What Other Critics Are Saying

compiled by Peter T. Chattawayfrom Film Forum, 08/11/05

Poor Burt Reynolds. Once one of America’s biggest movie stars, lately he has had to play second banana to younger, less talented actors in movies that basically rip off his own biggest hits. Earlier this summer, he had to watch Adam Sandler take over his role as a football star who gets sent to prison in The Longest Yard. And now he has to play bad guy Boss Hogg in The Dukes of Hazzard, a big-screen remake of a 1980s TV show that, in its own way, tapped into the anti-authoritarian, booze-smuggling, car-chasing, CB-radio vibe of the Smokey and the Bandit movies that Reynolds starred in way back when.

The big-screen Dukes of Hazzard is directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, who sent up highway cops and other authority figures a few years ago in State Troopers, a film he made with the comedy troupe Broken Lizard. He brings the same drugs-and-sex frat-boy mentality to Hazzard—going in an even dumber and more profane direction than other recent TV-show spin-offs like Bewitched and The Brady Bunch Movie—and most Christian critics are not amused.

Christian Hamaker (Crosswalk) says this “uncomfortably crude” film is “aimed straight at today’s teenage audience, with enough eye-candy and car chases to satisfy undiscriminating boys and girls, but enough profanity and sexual suggestiveness to make a grown man blush … The disposable plot clearly is secondary to the filmmakers’ main concern: car chases, stunt scenes and the frivolous squabbles between Bo and Luke. Any fun to be had is in the telling of the story, but it’s here that the screenwriters fail the audience.”

Steven Isaac (Plugged In) pays special attention to the sexual objectification of former pastor’s daughter Jessica Simpson, and he also notes a “spectacularly irresponsible” scene in which Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson) turns bottles of his moonshine into Molotov co*cktails and throws them at the police cars chasing him. Isaac concludes that the problem with this film is its attitude: “Silliness has been replaced by meanness. Goofiness with dull stupidity. Laugh lines with sexual sludge. Exclamations are now laced with vulgarity. And ‘trying to do the right thing but doing it the wrong way’ has given in to ‘just do whatever you please at whatever cost.’ Never before has that signature, beat-up orange hotrod shown so many dents … Not even Boss Hogg would want to punish the Duke boys as much as this movie does.”

Mainstream critics seem to think Dukes will be Hazzard-ous to most moviegoers’ health.

Bill Murray, under the direction of Jim Jarmusch, declares the beginning of the end of the summer season of blockbusters by delivering August’s first high-profile American art film: Broken Flowers. It’s time, at last, to bring our focus back to films made for grownups … one that offers us three-dimensional human beings whose stories require us to pay attention and think things through.

Don’t misunderstand—the movie is fun. Jarmusch will jolt you with big laughs, the sort that have earned him a loyal following through previous works like Stranger Than Paradise, Down by Law, and, most recently, Coffee and Cigarettes.

And while a couple of nude scenes in Broken Flowers warrant the R-rating, the story is all about the deep sadness, regrets, and scars of a man who has neglected “family values.”

Don Johnston (Murray) made his money “in computers,” and yet money hasn’t bought him true love or joy. We’re given hints of his younger self—the nickname “Don Juan” follows him around more like a curse than an honor. His dalliances with various lovers ended in disappointment. When we meet him, his latest girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) is, in fact, leaving. With Don’s face in profile filling the right side of the screen, we see Sherry standing with her suitcase in the entryway, as though inside a thought bubble—an echo of so many past departures. He’s left staring despondently past handsome furniture into oblivion, sullenly resigned to another failure.

Enter Winston (Jeffrey Wright), Don’s meddling neighbor. Winston’s a family man who has discovered “the Net” and is indulging his interest in detective work. Another director might have cast Luis Guzman in the role, and that would have worked. But Wright, a powerfully versatile actor who made strong impressions as a violent gangster in the re-make of Shaft and as the traumatized war veteran in the re-make of The Manchurian Candidate, plays Winston with note-perfect humor and an Ethiopian accent. Winston’s just dying for a mystery to solve, and Don unwittingly serves one up.

A pink envelope brings a shock to Don’s system: he’s apparently the father of an eighteen-year-old son. The letter isn’t signed. Don, being Don, responds by bravely digging another furrow across his brow. But Winston’s enthusiastic—near-hysterical—response involves a different kind of digging. Before Don can effectively protest, Winston gathers the tools necessary to solve the mystery.

Here, you’re likely to share Jarmusch’s tangible reluctance to tear Don away from Winston. Their casual chemistry is the film’s richest resource of humor and nerves. But the show must go on, and so we’re off on the Odyssey of Don: a trip down memory lane, the major points on the map being the current locations of his lost loves. Those failures are played by Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton.

Stone, making up for her embarrassing turn in Catwoman, is at once funny and painfully sad as Laura, a shallow but free-spirited widow and the mother of a dangerously ditzy teen. Appropriately named Lolita (Alexis Dziena), the daughter’s eagerness to full-frontally flaunt her adolescent comeliness for Don is the primary reason for the film’s rating.

Dora (Conroy) has entombed her regrets in a pile of stylish throw pillows and pristine home furnishings, her ’60s ideals lost in a superficial marriage and a career as a pre-fab home seller.

Exquisitely strange, Carmen (Lange), guarded by a venomous and psychotically overprotective secretary (Chloe Sevigny, of course), has the most unusual occupation—that’s best kept as a surprise.

And as a monster spewing bile and bitterness, Tilda Swinton is so scary, it’s hard to imagine she’ll be any more dangerous when she plays Narnia’s White Witch later this year.

Each encounter reveals more of the history behind Don’s defeated demeanor. And, during another visit, in a scene of rain, bruises, and defeat, Murray breaks our heart with an expression that may be the most affecting moment of his career.

Broken Flowers is the reverse of Murray’s zany classic Groundhog Day. In Harold Ramis’s comedy, Murray got to relive the same day over and over, behaving differently while circ*mstances and surroundings stayed put. Here, his surroundings keep changing, but he maintains the same reluctance and stoicism throughout, so beleaguered by his mistakes that he can’t muster the energy to pursue a thing.

To regular moviegoers, it will feel like an art film; to art house patrons, it will feel mainstream. They’ll both be right. It’s a film that follows a simple storyline, and yet seizes every opportunity to turn a clichéinto something slightly dissatisfying, slightly sour, with deep emotions and complicated thoughts running in barely perceptible currents under the sparse dialogue. With the help of Frederick Elmes’ graceful cinematography, Jarmusch is a true artist who never steers matters toward an obvious lesson, inviting us to arrive at our own interpretations.

But it is interesting that the only glimmers of real joy in the film can be found in Winston’s thriving family. During Don’s four-city tour, he finds former flames in various phases of dissatisfaction or delusion. Glamour? It fades and reveals the emptiness beneath it. Success? It’s no substitute for contentment. New Age hocus-pocus? Yikes. The continual misapprehensions of Don’s real name (“Don Johnson?”) bring to mind a popular ideal of the stylish, confident American male. This, we might conclude, is where the path of the macho seducer ultimately leads—to ruin, regret, and rumination on what might have been. Don’s journey peels back the surface of so many American dreams to find them wanting, while Winston, dodging his kids and doting on his “perfect” wife, seems as rich as a king.

Broken Flowers has only one thing working against it: Murray’s been playing sullen, withdrawn characters a bit too often. The fact that we’ve recently seen him sulk through Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, Lost in Translation (still his finest performance), and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (another film about a man discovering fatherhood too late), blunts the impact of this, another brilliant performance.

Nevertheless, Broken Flowers’ conclusion will send audiences out talking about what it means. But take note: Only the watchful will perceive the subtle significance of that final shot. It finally resolves the central tension of the story. Some critics are missing it, concluding that Don is doomed to the doldrums of disillusionment. But there is a crucial difference in the “hero” during our final, poignant glimpse of him. To say more would be telling, but it could be the key to his redemption.

So, do the film’s fleeting moments of explicit content make it entirely unacceptable? That’s for each viewer and their conscience to decide. Mature viewers who give Broken Flowers a chance may find themselves refreshed by a movie that invites them to ponder a common experience of regret, to “weep with those who weep,” and to contemplate the possibility of redemption and grace. That’s a nice change from films that treat us like thrill-seeking children (The Island, anyone?). Where Hitchco*ck insisted his films were not slices of life, but slices of cake, Jarmusch’s are savory servings of life, and they deserve to be treated as delicacies.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. Compare and contrast Don’s encounters with his ex-lovers. What were the strengths of each relationship? What were the weaknesses?
2. We are given very few clues about why each relationship ended. What do you think Don needs to learn before he can experience lasting true love?
3. Compare Winston’s life to Don’s. What are the differences? Why do you suppose Don is in such awe of Winston’s wife? Why does Don respect Winston enough to let him meddle so much in his life?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

The film’s harsh language, uses of the Lord’s name in vain, and a scene of abrupt and explicit female nudity make this film highly inappropriate not only for children, but for grownups who might be led into lustful thoughts by such imagery. (The scene is not intended or presented as p*rnography, but to put us in Don’s shoes in a disorienting and dismaying situation.) There is also a scene of brief but jolting violence.

Photos © Copyright Focus Features

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

What Other Critics Are Saying

compiled by Peter T. Chattawayfrom Film Forum, 08/11/05

Viewers looking for a respite from the deliberately dumb Dukes might be interested in Broken Flowers, which stars Bill Murray, another star of the 1970s and early 1980s who has won acclaim in recent years for his more dramatic sad-clown roles in films like Rushmore and Lost in Translation. Murray plays Don Johnston (“with a T”), a soulless, wealthy man who revisits several of his former lovers—played by Jessica Lange, Frances Conroy, Tilda Swinton and a surprisingly competent Sharon Stone—when he receives an anonymous letter indicating that one of them may have had a son by him nearly two decades ago.

Interestingly, writer-director Jim Jarmusch (Stranger than Paradise, Coffee and Cigarettes) says that Don Johnston, a character he wrote expressly for Murray, is the first protagonist in any of his films that he hasn’t felt much empathy for: “I don’t even like him. That’s very unusual for me. In all my films, no matter how damaged or socially inept characters may be, I really feel for them. I love them. I don’t love Don Johnston.” But because he wanted to like his character, Jarmusch spent weeks editing the film’s last few reels before he even looked at the first ones: “I didn’t feel for him in the beginning, but I want to feel for him in the end.”

Harry Forbes (Catholic News Service) is similarly impressed: “Bill Murray gives an understated performance that tops his outstanding work in Lost in Translation, and independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch makes arguably his most commercial movie to date in Broken Flowers … The performances are fine, beautiful character portrayals all, and Murray—tousled and deadpan—is luminous, while seemingly doing nothing at all. He conveys Don’s ennui, loneliness and desire to reach out not only to the women, but to a couple of male teenagers whom he thinks just may be the putative son.”

Thomas Hibbs, a Catholic philosopher who occasionally covers film for National Review, also likes Murray’s deadpan performance, but he is less impressed by the film’s conclusion: “Not long into Johnston’s journey, viewers will begin to wonder, how are they possibly going to end this thing? And the conclusion, with multiple suggestions as to what the answer to the mystery letter might be, falls flat. In this respect, Flowers is inferior to Lost in Translation, which faced a similar dilemma in its final frames, where the dramatic question concerns what do with the aging Murray’s burgeoning affection for a much younger woman. That film managed to find just the right way of framing the uncertainty, of formulating the question in concise and dramatically satisfying way. Although Broken Flowers runs out of steam, Murray’s mesmerizing performance is still enough to make this film the most captivating of the summer.”

Mainstream critics are sending the film roses.

from Film Forum, 08/25/05

Josh Hurst (Reveal) raves, “This is the most profound art movie of the year so far, and yet it’s also surprisingly mainstream by Jarmusch standards. On one level, he keeps the story moving with compelling characters and plenty of hearty belly laughs; on another level, he and Murray pull of some amazingly subtle things here, creating a deeply meaningful character study that is open to interpretation and deserving of post-viewing discussion and contemplation. There’s no preaching here, nor is there a moral lesson at the end of the film. This isn’t a fable or an allegory. It’s art, and it gives us more questions than it does answers.”

Andrew Coffin (World) writes, “The film is amusing and thoughtful and features uniformly strong performances. Mr. Jarmusch isn’t afraid to stay on a subject (usually Mr. Murray’s face) longer than expected, requiring his audience to fill the gaps in narrative with thoughts and reactions of their own—a welcome if modest challenge from a filmmaker. Mr. Jarmusch deftly renders the sadness of a life unconnected to anyone or anything.”

from Film Forum, 09/01/05

Brett McCracken (Relevant) writes, “The beauty of a Jim Jarmusch film—and to many, the problem—is that it is so open to interpretation. Jarmusch is not interested in neatly wrapped endings or particularly mainstream plots. Rather, he is interested in exploring characters, communication and the interactions between people, places and time. He excels at portraying the American tension between individualism and collectivism: we love to be alone, free to go and do anything on the open road, but when we encounter people and truly connect with them—that too is hard to leave behind.”

In our oversexed culture, people who choose to go without sex are inevitably regarded as a little freakish. Three years ago, Josh Hartnett starred in 40 Days and 40 Nights, a comedy about a hot young stud who shocks his friends by giving up sex, or at least the fullest expression of it, for Lent; but instead of a celebration of chastity, his newfound interest in abstinence becomes just another way to find newer, more exotic forms of physical pleasure. If mainstream culture finds it impossible to go without sex for a little more than a month, then just imagine what it would make of a man who has somehow made it to his 40th year—a full generation, biblically speaking—without ever touching a naked woman.

There are lots of stereotypes about grown-up virgins, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin—about a man whose co-workers conspire to hook him up, so to speak, after they discover he has never done the deed—plays on every single one of them. But in its own peculiar way, the film stands these stereotypes on their head, so much so that, by the end, our protagonist seems like the sanest character of the bunch. This is as much a function of the film’s casting as anything else. Andy Stitzer, the virgin in question, is played by Steve Carell, a brilliant scene-stealer who may be best known for the dweeby broadcasters he played in Bruce Almighty and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Carell’s character here is still something of a dork, but as the leading man, Carell has an opportunity to flesh him out and to make him more human. What’s more, almost all the other characters have peculiar traits of their own, and since we identify with Andy, this makes him, in some sense, the straight man.

At first, The 40-Year-Old Virgin may seem like a film without any straight men whatsoever. When we first meet Andy, he is a pastiche of jokes just waiting to be told, and the film seems to regard his virginity as just one of many indicators that he has not yet grown up. He is awfully shy; he collects comic-book figurines and Six Million Dollar Man dolls (remember those?); he plays video games in a specially equipped chair rigged with joysticks and speakers; and he rides a bicycle (with rear-view mirrors!) instead of driving a car. I happened to see the film with a few bicycling enthusiasts, and they were rather miffed to see their personal lifestyle choice portrayed as a sign of Andy’s social ineptitude. As one who was a virgin myself until recently, I wanted to say, “Now you know how I feel.”

Full disclosure: I got married six months ago at the age of 34—not quite as old as Andy, but close enough—and over the years I have written a few articles on media portrayals of virginity and, in the process, “outed” myself as an adult virgin. I would like to be able to express some indignation and say this film gets us (ex-)virgins wrong and it doesn’t match my experience, etc., except, well, I do have boxes filled with comic books, and I used to collect some toys, too. (Fortunately, my wife is also a comics buff.) And, while this film’s raunchy humor goes way over the top, some moments do have the ring of truth.

Andy’s co-workers discover that he’s a virgin when they invite him one day to join them for one of their poker nights. There, the conversation turns to some very frank discussion about sex, and Andy’s efforts to sound experienced are so painfully bad, it doesn’t take his colleagues long at all to figure out his true status. And once the cat’s out of the bag, they try everything they can think of to help him join their ranks—taking him to night clubs, coaching him on pick-up lines, setting him up with prostitutes, speed-dating, and so on; his boss (A Mighty Wind‘s Jane Lynch) even propositions him. Naturally, all of these attempts fail, and what becomes increasingly clear is that Andy’s colleagues—including David (Paul Rudd), who has never gotten over the woman who dumped him years ago; Jay (Romany Malco), who cheats on his girlfriend; and Cal (Seth Rogen), who’s a little too interested in depravity to find anything truly sexy—are in some ways the truly pathetic people.

At two full hours, The 40-Year-Old Virgin is unusually long for a comedy, and many scenes could have been trimmed or cut altogether. A scene in which Andy has his chest waxed, prompting him to swear profusely, runs longer than it needs to, as though the filmmakers felt it would be disrespectful to let even one second of Carell’s pain end up on the cutting room floor. Elsewhere, a confrontation between Jay and one of his customers comes out of nowhere, seems to be building up to something, and is then suddenly over. Judd Apatow, directing his first feature after years writing and producing shows like Freaks and Geeks, treats the film less like a movie and more like a long, uneven string of sketches—not unlike Anchorman, which he also produced, and which featured many of the same actors.

We are about an hour into the film before its central relationship—between Andy and Trish (Catherine Keener), a woman with three children who runs a business selling things on eBay—finally comes together. Andy and Trish almost have sex on their first date, but they are interrupted by one of her daughters, a teenager who (rightly) protests that it is hypocritical of her mother to take boyfriends home while forbidding her offspring to have sex. After this experience, Trish suggests taking it slow, and Andy agrees that they should get to know each other first; and so they agree to wait, oh, maybe 10 dates—no, maybe 15—oh heck, why not 20—before they have sex. Andy’s friends worry that this is a sign of weakness, and Trish herself begins to wonder why Andy is so eager to put off sleeping with her.

But there are moments when the film almost strikes a blow for virgin pride, such as a scene in which Andy accompanies Trish’s daughter to a family-planning clinic. And the film concludes on a very interesting note, indeed. (Spoiler alert: jump to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know how the film ends.) Of course, we expect Andy to “lose it” by the end of the movie; but the striking thing is that he and Trish actually get married first—and the scene brought back happy, and funny, memories of my own wedding night. Instead of mocking my own personal choice to wait until marriage, as it were, it felt like the film was affirming it.

There is an awful lot of foul language and raunchy humor in this film, and it needs tighter editing, so I can’t say I recommend it. But is intriguing to see how, even in its most off-color moments, Hollywood turns to traditional virtues for its happy endings.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

1. The only time anyone mentions religion in this film is when Trish’s daughter says she wants birth control, and Trish, in reply, threatens to send her daughter to church. What do you make of that? Would that make any difference? Statistics say churchgoers aren’t much different from the rest of the world in terms of their sexual practices; what do we make of that? What about the minister at the end of the film—what sort of attitude do you think he’s expressing?
2. Do you wish someone had asked Andy if his virginity was due to religious reasons? Do you think people have to be “religious” to choose to wait for marriage? Are there other reasons for waiting until marriage? How many of these reasons does the film provide? (For example, in one scene, Cal says it’s great that Andy doesn’t have STDs.)
3. Are there any bad reasons to abstain from sex? Consider the scene in which David says celibacy is the way to go, because that way no woman can suck the life out of a man. What do you think of that advice? Should spouses ever turn each other down (see 1 Corinthians 7:1-7)? Given the standards of the world, is Trish right to complain when Andy won’t have sex with her? Would it depend on his reasons?
4. Do you think Andy’s friends offer reliable object lessons in the problems people face when they become sexually active outside of marriage? Or do married people face the same problems?
5. Cal says Andy’s first time will be bad, so he shouldn’t spend it with someone he loves, but with a complete stranger instead. How do you react to that advice?
6. Do you think people make a big deal of virginity, or the losing of it? Which is more important, virginity or chastity? Is it possible to be chaste even if you are not a virgin? If so, how? Is it possible to be a virgin and not chaste? (For example, a counselor in the film describes several forms of “outercourse”—are these practices compatible with chastity?)

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

The 40-Year-Old Virgin is rated R for pervasive sexual content, language and some drug use. That “pervasive sexual content” includes scenes throughout the film that are especially degrading to women, who are often treated as mere sex objects. The movie also may have more f-words than any other movie produced outside the crime genre, and it has some nudity, too—including a woman whose breast pops out of her dress, a man who videotapes his own rear end, and a scene in which Andy’s co-workers lock him in a room full of video screens showing a p*rn movie. Some of the jokes involve vomit and urination, and there is an obligatory scene of two dogs in heat at the park.

Photos © Copyright Universal Pictures

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

What Other Critics Are Saying

compiled by Jeffrey Overstreetfrom Film Forum, 08/25/05

Judd Apatow’s comedy The 40-Year-Old Virgin is about … well … just that. Steve Carrell proved himself as Hollywood’s funniest secret weapon while playing a small part as a weatherman in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Now he has his first lead role in film as a socially inept geek (he collects action figures and works at a tech shop) who tries to cover up his virginity by boasting about sexual shenanigans until someone calls his bluff. When his peers begin to apply the proverbial peer pressure, coaching him toward fornication, he suddenly finds himself in love with a wonderful woman (the always impressive Catherine Keener) and decides to put off “the big event” a little longer.

Thus, in spite of the film’s incessant locker-room humor and profanity, the film’s plot ultimately shines a surprising, complimentary light on abstinence and restraint. But that’s not enough to save it from the wrath of Christian film critics, who, needless to say, aren’t recommending it.

Harry Forbes (Catholic News Service) laments, “We’ve seen it before. The buddies of a painfully shy, awkward guy—who has never had a girlfriend—help him find true love. But this latest incarnation … is relentlessly vulgar and frequently offensive, even beyond the false premise that there’s something intrinsically wrong with an unmarried man being sexually inexperienced.”

Marcus Yoars (Plugged In) says the film is “overloaded to the breaking point with vile material—both visual and verbal. Period. Do I now live in a world in which an oxymoron such as ‘innocently raunchy’ can actually exist? Sure, Andy is a sensitive nice-guy who finds occasional contentment in his celibacy in a culture that typically defines happiness by the number of sexual conquests one has. That’s great. But are we to studiously ignore the onslaught of over-the-top foul content that surrounds him?”

Meanwhile, mainstream critics are celebrating the arrival of comedy’s hottest new leading man.

Twenty-five years ago in Kenya, I saw the male-female divide on public display. Beside a rural road, a woman struggled uphill, bent under a towering load of firewood. Just behind, her husband marched tall and proud, carrying only his walking stick.

My wife, Popie, and I saw this so often, we stopped commenting on it. Rural African women, we learned, worked incredibly hard, barely pausing from their daily labors to give birth to children. Girls and young women joined in seamlessly, caring for younger children and helping with endless chores. For rural men, the situation varied. Some left the farm for urban areas, looking for work and returning at intervals to their wives and families. Others stayed home and occupied themselves with “men’s work,” which included caring for animals. In many cases, however, the farms had been cut too small to give the men meaningful employment. At the nearest crossroads, you could find them sitting in a small group, talking, drinking, or just staring.

We couldn’t help noticing that the women seemed generally happier than the men, even though they had the short end of the stick. Hefting their burdens or bent over in the fields, they worked in groups, chatting together, sometimes laughing. The idle men seemed bored and depressed, alienated and isolated. Alcohol plagued many. I came up with this summary: “Women are oppressed; men are depressed.”

Overseas humanitarian agencies have done a marvelous job of dealing with the first issue. But they are the first to acknowledge that the second is a continuing and serious obstacle to development.

Targeting Women

I would not make light of what women suffer. In some places girls never make it to birth—they are aborted for the crime of being female. In many places, they are deprived of an education. Since boys are valued more, girls often get less to eat and suffer disproportionately from malnutrition and disease. Men often beat their women. Girls may be sexually abused, or genitally mutilated in a misguided effort to keep them sexually pure. Double standards are common. A woman involved in an illicit relationship may be killed, shunned, or otherwise severely punished; the man may suffer no recriminations at all. In some parts of the world, girls are subjected to sexual slavery, “sold” by their parents. Women’s workloads seem unending: raising children, keeping the house, and serving as a beast of burden. If they work outside the home, they are still expected to carry on with domestic burdens. Men impregnate them and then abandon them.

So it is only natural that humanitarian groups target women. Not only are women the poorest of the poor, but women are often more responsive than men. If women get a little more money, they will generally spend it productively—on food for the children, on school fees, on some way to improve family life. Poor men who get a little extra money often drink it up. Worse, if they get their hands on the women‘s money, they drink it up, and the children go hungry. That’s what happened to a chicken co-op in Ecuador that my church gave money to start. The project thrived for a time, but then the men of the village got into the profits. Now there are only empty chicken coops.

Last summer Popie and I visited World Vision development projects in South Africa. One was led by a remarkably energetic woman named Pumla. A resident of a poor semi-rural village, a place of shacks and of families ravaged by AIDS, Pumla started a preschool in a broken-down double-decker bus. She had little education, and she was as poor as anyone else in the village. But she had gumption and initiative. She saw the children running wild and thought something should be done. The preschool sheltered the children and prepared them for school. Applying for help to various international agencies, Pumla managed to expand her efforts into a broad-based community organization now supported by World Vision donors.

Short, vivacious, bubbling with laughter, Pumla was obviously a natural born leader. She was not alone, however. Many women have risen up to work with her in various development projects. Though they have little education and exposure to the world, these women bring talent and initiative to sewing and craft projects, agricultural initiatives, and school programs. “We are not helping because we are employed,” Pumla said. “We are helping because we have been helped, and now we are ready to help others.”

However, as we visited these various projects, men seemed hardly to exist. We saw exactly none engaged in the work. We saw plenty sitting or staring from the margins.

“Men will join,” Pumla said unapologetically when I asked her, “but they won’t stay. Men want to get money now. When it comes to commitment and patience, men don’t have it.”

When school let out, we saw many adolescent boys in neat school blazers heading home, talking, jostling, full of good spirits. What future do they have? The high unemployment rate means that few regular jobs await them. They have few male role models.

Development expert Frances Cleaver writes in the 2001 article “Do Men Matter?”: “With a few notable exceptions, men are rarely explicitly mentioned in gender policy documents [from humanitarian organizations]. Where men do appear, they are generally seen as obstacles to women’s development: Men must surrender their positions of dominance for women to become empowered. The superiority of women as hard working, reliable, trustworthy, socially responsible, caring, and cooperative is often asserted; whilst men on the other hand are frequently portrayed as lazy, violent, promiscuous, and irresponsible drunkards.”

Manfred Grellert, long-term World Vision vice president for Latin America, told me, “It’s a little idealistic to imagine mom and dad and kids in a perfect nuclear family. You cannot bring change on the micro level when macro forces are in control.” Development workers tend to be practical people. They don’t deal with ideal conditions, and they rarely imagine they will create a model community out of the poverty and dysfunction they face every day. So development workers do what they can, which often means they help mothers.

What’s Wrong with Men?

One of the hottest techniques in development is micro-enterprise development (MED). In micro-credit schemes, small loans are given to individuals and cooperative groups. The literature of MED is full of inspiring stories of small loans used to buy a sewing machine, or leather to make into belts, or 50 chickens, or a gas-operated flour mill. A minuscule investment can enable a small-scale home industry to support the family.

According to Microcredit Summit president Sam Daley-Harris, 82 percent of these loans worldwide go to women. Often the lending organizations specifically target women, because women are more likely than men to repay, and more likely to use the profits for the good of the family.

“Ensuring that women are 70-80 percent of the borrowers from a particular scheme may sound positive,” notes Sandy Ruxton in an Oxfam book, Gender Equality and Men, “but in practice, the project may cause women to increase their workloads in order to achieve repayment, and cause anger and resentment among men, who believe their traditional livelihoods are being undermined.”

That is the situation described by Eastern University professor of economic development Connie Ostwald. Visiting a women’s fishing co-op in Mexico, she found their men furious that women were stepping into their territory.

The following case comes from a 1993 evaluation report of the Uganda Women’s Finance and Credit Trust:

Edith is married, with seven children. She acquired a loan in 1992, for two in-calf heifers and for the construction of a small cowshed. She planted napier grass to feed the cows. Edith started off very well, but problems started when her husband instructed her to go back to his workshop. She could no longer take care of the cows, and eventually she lost one of them. She had discussions with her husband on this, but he insisted that she should remain in the workshop. Edith was eventually chased away from her home by her husband. She had to find shelter for herself and her seven children. The husband claimed the cows as his so she was not allowed to take them.

After some months, with the help of in-laws, Edith’s husband called her back. But he had already sold the roofing sheets and construction materials of the cowshed, and all grass was gone. She got pregnant again, and now the husband has decided to live with another wife. Edith’s project is in a shambles.

What is wrong with men? Several things, actually. Many cultural traditions teach that women are negligible servants of men, to be used at their pleasure. Many traditions grant men power that has nothing to do with responsibility—a right and duty to domination that comes with an extra chromosome.

Tradition is only part of the problem, however. In poor communities, some part of the social fabric has usually torn. Often employment has vanished, due to larger economic changes—factories and mines closed, cash agriculture grown unprofitable. If men are animal herdsmen, barbed wire may have eliminated the places where their animals once grazed. Perhaps their farms have been divided and subdivided so that only an acre of land remains. Such economic changes often affect men more drastically than women. While women retain a large share of their identity as mothers and providers of food and home, men must negotiate an entirely new role.

“The minute the man’s dignity is eroded,” says Doug McConnell, dean of Fuller Seminary’s School of Intercultural Studies, “you get fight or flight. They either fly away to the cities, or they stay and become violent.” In cities they find rampant pleasures, but little community. Absent from their wives and children, they become alienated from them. Violence is common. So are sexually transmitted diseases. Men may bring both home to their families.

“Women are oppressed; men are depressed.” I tried out my formula on Fatuma Hashi, World Vision’s director of gender and development. She seemed taken aback, and intrigued, that I would describe men as depressed. “We tend to see them only as oppressors,” she said. “What is wrong with men? That’s the question we always ask. Why, when they see their family in terrible need, why do they drink, womanize, beat their wives?”

Then she said an interesting thing. “Unless you change the heart of the men, you won’t see development. Unless you transform people inside, I don’t think any development will succeed. Transformational development, that’s our goal. The core is how you transform people’s hearts.” She spoke of Scripture challenging culture, making men rethink the value of women as equally valuable in the sight of God.

McConnell described an urban squatter community in New Guinea. “Among the men who got saved, we saw a substantial and systematic regaining of responsibility, contributing to the family, taking care of their children. There is nothing more impactful and transformational than a relationship with Christ.”

Men Don’t Want to be Fixed

Cultures vary tremendously around the globe. In some poverty-afflicted places, families remain intact—men and women stick together cooperatively. In other places, when women increase their power and income it actually improves their relationships with men. Sam Daley-Harris describes a co-op in South Asia where women built businesses through small loans. They not only offered their day-laborer husbands better work, but created a scarcity of day labor that caused wages for men to rise generally. Other researchers note that when women’s economic power increases, their husbands sometimes respect them more.

More commonly, though, relations between poverty-afflicted men and women get strained. In the specialized literature of development, “gender and development” is a hot topic, with increasing interest in how to reach men. A paper from the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs notes that “permanent results call for a change of attitudes in the entire community. Special women’s projects are still needed, but care must be taken that the whole community, men included, can accept the projects and give them their full support.”

Sandy Ruxton quotes Sylvia Chant and Matthew Guttman to the effect that men must be encouraged toward responsible fatherhood. Otherwise, “development policy and practice will be obliged to continue its current focus on salvage operations which aim to enable women to bring up their children alone.”

Development theorists are a long way from knowing how to involve men, however. Many approach men with consciousness-raising workshops. The approaches seem westernized and condescending. One model program is described this way: “A unique feature … has been to sensitize men to violence as a feature of masculine socialization harmful to men as well as women and to recognize that repression of emotion often underlies violence.” You couldn’t get men in my highly sensitized northern California town to attend such a program. I doubt macho men in Colombia will go for it.

As some of the literature notes, men are not anxious to be “fixed.” Janet Brown, writing on “Fatherwork in the Caribbean,” warns against treating men from a “role-deficit” perspective. Others note that men are prickly about having their fatherhood measured against some ideal standard.

Sometimes men do change, however. Sometimes their wives help them reassess their relationship to their families. Sometimes their daughters do. When they see their flesh and blood stymied by oppressive male attitudes, they may become willing to reassess their own attitudes and actions.

They need a rationale for change—an argument they can use with men who question their masculinity. A trivial example: An African friend of mine confessed to me that he often made breakfast for the family. But please, he insisted, do not tell any of our mutual friends what I do. He feared they would think that he had compromised his male splendor. I have an idea that many of his friends had “compromised” in similar ways—but all in secret. They needed a way to state publicly that they were proud to serve in the kitchen.

A rural church I visited in Kenya has had outstanding success involving both men and women in development projects. Part of the reason, their leader explained, is that they demand male responsibility. If a young man is loitering at the shopping center, wasting time, the church elders approach his father and say, “The Bible says that a man should discipline his children. Why is your son loitering?” Not only do the sons come home to work, the fathers gain a sense of significance.

Daniel Rickett, research director for Geneva Global, which advises wealthy donors how to invest in ministry in the developing world, notes that many development projects involve small-scale, home-based interventions, which are naturally closer to women’s realms. “To some extent, what development agencies offer is designed for women, and it is working,” Rickett says. “To serve the family, women are the key. But to serve communities, men are the key.” Rickett says that different starting points are more likely to engage men—for instance, land rights, or larger-scale business enterprises. “If we are actually going to do community development, men have to be part of that. The work has to be designed for men in terms of what’s important to them.”

Though secular agencies usually avoid pronouncing on the moral importance of families, Christians will have no doubt. Fostering families, encouraging unity and mutual respect, is a good thing in itself, and it holds the additional promise of economic progress. I admire development initiatives that target women. It is only fair and right that girls go to school; that girls eat as well as boys; that women be free from abuse; that female children not be aborted. Anything done to boost women in poor communities is good. But those who aim to help a community become healthy—not merely survive from year to year—will want more. As a purely practical matter, development that involves mainly one sex can transform life only so far.

Tim Stafford is a senior writer for Christianity Today, and author of Never Mind the Joneses: Building Core Christian Values in a Way That Fits Your Family (InterVarsity, 2004).

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The Iraqi Electoral Commission will not allow Iraqi expatriates to vote on a new constitution, effectively locking out a quarter-million votes from mostly religious minorities living in the United States, Britain, and other countries.

The decision, revealed by Electoral Commission member Fareed Ayar in a telephone interview Tuesday (August 2) from Baghdad, is certain to alienate the Christian minorities who comprise most Iraqi exiles.

“You’re changing the entire demographics of the country. If we don’t vote, then we’ll all be forced to leave there,” said Nahrain Kamber, a ChaldoAssyrian Christian who lives in Palo Alto, Calif., who cast her ballot from the United States in January. “Given the history of what’s been going on with the Christian minorities it looks like Iraq will be an Islamic state, as scary as that is.”

New parliamentary elections will be held by the end of the year, following ratification of the new constitution. The commission does not yet know if those elections will be open to out-of-country voters. “It depends on the law of the elections which is now transitional, and then we will decide,” Ayar said.

Ayar said that the organization running the elections had initially estimated an expatriate turnout of 1.25 million, but “we discovered only 250,000, which is a very low percent.” Officials of the International Organization of Migration, which ran the election, said they had only two months to launch a global get-out-the-vote effort.

Expatriate leaders have alleged widespread voter fraud in their towns during the historic Jan. 30 elections. Ayar denied those allegations. “We didn’t get anything official that there was any fraud in any place in the last election, and we will do our best to make our next election very pure,” he said. “We will open all our centers in all our cities of Iraq, including in the ChaldoAssyrian (Christian) cities.”

Yet Yonadam Kanna, the only ChaldoAssyrian Christian representative in Iraq’s National Assembly, said the commission did respond to allegations of voter fraud in a formal letter to his party that “acknowledged irregularities,” including several thousand missing ballots.

Voter registration in Iraq begins Wednesday at 550 sites selected by the Electoral Commission, Ayar said. Voting is expected to take place Oct. 15 as specified in the temporary constitution, a month following the release of the final draft.

Of about 3.5 million Iraqi Christians, more than half are expatriates, with concentrations in the United States and Syria. Under the current draft of the constitution, ChaldoAssyrian Christians in Iraq would be subject to Shariah law, a strict form of Islam.

“Adopting Shariah law as the only or the main source of the constitution, this is something that almost all of our community feels threatened by and oppose because we know that unless there is complete separation between religious law and state affairs, democracy will not be able to exist,” said Iraqi-American Bishop Bawai Soro of San Jose, Calif.

Soro’s Church of the East has roots in Iraq dating back 2,000 years. The news from Iraq’s Christian leadership, he said, describes “what they’re going through—and they are really in a very delicate situation.”

The Assyrian Democratic Movement and the Iraqi Turkmen Human Rights Research Foundation estimated that six assembly seats were potentially lost because 200,000 registered Christian and minority Turkmen voters were not given ballots.

Both organizations have threatened public protests if they feel the commission has not put proper safeguards in place to prevent election fraud.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

CT covered the Iraqi elections in the U.S. earlier this year. Other CT coverage of Christians in Iraq include:

Voting Against Anarchy | The greatest threat to liberty in Iraq is not international terrorism. (A Christianity Today editorial, Feb. 18, 2005)

The Mother of All Liberties | Full religious freedom for Iraq is not negotiable.—A Christianity Today editorial (June 2, 2003)

Longing to Be Heard | It’s dangerous and lonely to be an Iraqi Christian—at home or in exile. (March 21, 2005)

Losing Jesus’ Language | The Assyrians, Iraq’s main Christian population, struggle to keep their heritage and their ancient language. (Feb. 04, 2005)

Iraq’s Christians Disenfranchised at Home and in U.S. | Assyrians are fighting for survival in a region that has long sought their ouster. (Jan. 31, 2005)

Fighting Flight | Christians call for commitment in wake of church bombings. (Sept. 03, 2004)

Iraq’s Church Bombers vs. Muhammad | Attacks defy the Prophet’s wish for the area’s millennia-old Christian community, which is now on the edge of oblivion. (Aug. 06, 2004)

Emerging from the Shadows | House-church Christians start renting buildings, and dream of evangelism. (March 11, 2004)

Iraq’s Good Samaritans | This past summer, pundits predicted that Iraqis would resent Franklin Graham’s ministry. What really happened when the workers showed up? (Oct. 24, 2003)

Daring to Dream Again | Chaldean Christians connect with other believers. (July 14, 2003)

Damping the Fuse in Iraq | A veteran peacemaker discusses how religion can help stave off religious conflict after Saddam. (July 09, 2003)

For most evangelicals in the United Church of Christ (UCC), it was two steps backward and one step forward at July’s national synod meeting in Atlanta. While the 1.3 million member liberal denomination passed controversial resolutions endorsing hom*osexual marriage and supporting divestment of funds involving Israel, it also passed a resolution affirming the person and work of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. However, the body refused to add the affirmation to ordination vows.

Theologian Gabriel Fackre, emeritus professor of Christian theology at Andover Newton Theological School and part of the UCC’s Confessing Christ movement, told CT he was “pleased by the [Jesus is Lord] resolution, which though imperfect was a very important victory for a denomination ready to reaffirm its roots.”

David Runnion-Bareford, director of Biblical Witness Fellowship, a voice for evangelical renewal in the UCC, is disappointed in the gay marriage and divestment decisions. But he is not surprised by actions of the synod, which he said is out of touch with many of the nearly 6,000 UCC churches.

“We draw encouragement from resurgence in hundreds of UCC-affiliated local churches where the gospel is being preached for the first time in years,” Runnion-Bareford told CT. “In an internal survey, 27 percent of people who attend UCC churches identify themselves as evangelical. And two-thirds of the local churches in the UCC send no funds to the national group.”

Why stay? “We love an association with the UCC because of the wonderful creeds and catechism of the church, walking in the footsteps of the Puritans and Pilgrims,” Runnion-Bareford said. “If we die as a vocal confessing remnant, the liberal body will claim our heritage as its own.”

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere:

The UCC has more information about its general synod on its website, including statements on the marriage vote and divestment from Israel.

UCC Truths, which says it challenges the UCC’s “course of dishonest political activism,” has its take on the synod resolutions.

The Biblical Witness Fellowship, a confessing movement within the United Church of Christ, has its news from the synod and a call for unity after the synod.

News elsewhere on the UCC synod includes:

United Church of Christ synod backs same-sex marriages | The United Church of Christ’s rule-making body voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve a resolution endorsing same-sex marriage, making it the largest Christian denomination to do so. (Associated Press, July 05, 2005)

Local churches say no tie with United Church of Christ | Representatives of area Churches of Christ say they are not united with a United Church of Christ resolution supporting same-sex marriages and are, in fact, separate from the liberal northern religious group. (Daily Leader, Brookhaven, Miss., July 19, 2005)

Church delegation offers Mideast peace investment plan | Effort meant to quell divestment from Israel (Boston Globe, July 2, 2005)

The Church Of Spongebob | The United Church of Christ stands up for all sorts of political issues while their flocks stand up and head for the doors. (The Weekly Standard, Jul 18, 2005)