by Gail Caress
You know that rare moment when something coalesces and comes together in a quintessential point? Neither do I, usually. But at the intersection of reading Allen Bloom, Dallas Willard, G.K. Chesterton and watching the eighty-first Academy Awards show came such a moment.
I won’t bother you with all the lugubrious details of the Oscars if you didn’t watch them and don’t happen to know what I’m talking about. Hopefully I can explain it without that. I have been trying to analyze my reaction to Hollywood’s annual celebration but my mind kept going off on all manner of tangents. But as I finished re-reading The Closing of the American Mind by Allen Bloom, I turned back again to the Introduction and read:
“Openness is the only virtue which all primary education for most of the last fifty years has dedicated itself to inculcating.”
Thus everyone is taught subtly, and not so subtly that:
“The true believer is the real danger.”
So as the Oscar evening was filled with magnificent dance numbers and a high standard of glitzy production value, what came through was the vilification of those who truly believe. For if one truly believes in something, he can’t be open to all possibilities.
Now I’m not only blaming Hollywood for this. Things just become public and popular there first (then in Canada, then in Christian culture ☺). This is because those in that business obviously have the literal stage on which to play it loud and clear.
Schools and universities are responsible for this as well. Even if you only go through 8th grade (which is what I teach) or just go to a community college, or a state university and not an elite ivy league, it’s all the same. This was true even in 1987 when Bloom was writing his book.
“There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the University believes…that truth is relative. They are unified only [in that.]”
But, you may say, that’s not true of our Christian universities. I’m afraid it is. There is the New Evangelism approach suggested by an Emergent Christian professor who gives an example of his style of evangelism in Christianity Today:
I don’t know if what I believe is true, but let’s talk.
So the age-old question comes back to haunt us: Does the media reflect of affect culture? I think we have to say both. It’s a cycle where one is empowered by the other.
The message that came from Hollywood at the Oscars is very clear: If you truly believe something and part of that something is that the definition of marriage is the union of one man and one woman, or if your belief leads you to have a moral objection to a huge-screen backdrop of multiple film clips of men kissing each other, then, as Sean Penn rebuked us, “you should be ashamed.”
Or if you truly believe in God, according to the speech given by the Academy-chosen presenter for Documentary Film awards, then the world’s problems are your fault.
We who truly believe are dangerous. Openness is the only virtue. There are no absolutes; everything is relative.
So are Hollywood and the schools and universities the only ones responsible for this problem?
Unfortunately, I feel the blame lies also with us, the true believers. Most of us live in fear. We don’t say anything ‘controversial’ in conversations with colleagues or acquaintances. (And we almost don’t even write about it newsletters!) We don’t say what we truly believe, because we’re afraid people will think we’re closed-minded “single issue” fanatics. And we don’t act on what we believe mostly because we’re too lazy. (I am most certainly speaking to myself, and not to those of you who are doing amazingly courageous things.) We are keeping a prayerful vigil, we say to ourselves. God will handle it all. Sure He can, but doesn’t He want us to cooperate with Him? Why are we so many times silent about our faith and our true beliefs?
Recently an historically traditional evangelism crusade organization has made the decision not to mention the devastation that abortion or homosexual lifestyles can bring in fear of alienating the broader local community, this in a series of crusades targeting serious social urban issues.
Life is much easier on all fronts if we don’t truly believe, or at least if we don’t bring it up–in the spirit of “getting along”.
We can get mad at Hollywood, but until we deepen, speak up about, and act upon our ‘true beliefs’ we won’t be a danger. We’ll go out without even a whimper.
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