Yesterday I read a review and opinion piece on Fox of a new movie, “Yellow.” A central premise of the movie is a love affair between an adult woman and her brother. The reviewer was not positive in either his review or his opinion of the movie. Neither do I agree that incest is normal or acceptable, however…
I do not know much about the director, Nick Cassavetes, but if I were going to make a cultural point that we were off the rails in the area of appropriate boundaries, I might make the statement and the movie that he did. His response to a query about the incest in the movie was:
Cassavetes movie and attitude should be regarded as a wakeup call. We must prep our children for the onslaught of depravity that will come from our culture’s ride down this slippery slope. Further, we have to be about rescuing those whom we can from the fall.
“I have no experience with incest…We had heard a few stories where brothers and sisters were completely, absolutely in love with one another. You know what? This whole movie is about judgment, and lack of it, and doing what you want. Who gives a [redacted] if people judge you? I’m not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you’re not having kids — who gives a [redacted]? Love who you want. Isn’t that what we say? Gay marriage — love who you want? If it’s your brother or sister it’s super-weird, but if you look at it, you’re not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you’re in love with one another.”The sad thing is that he makes sense. If we accept as normal homosexuality and homosexual marriage, there is no reason to deny relationships between siblings or for that matter their pets. Romans 1:24 – 31 supports this. It is a natural progression, a slippery slope, once you abandon God and His standards, there is no rational reason not to descend to the depths Paul describes.
Cassavetes movie and attitude should be regarded as a wakeup call. We must prep our children for the onslaught of depravity that will come from our culture’s ride down this slippery slope. Further, we have to be about rescuing those whom we can from the fall.
"...once you abandon God and His standards, there is no rational reason not to descend to the depths Paul describes" And there is likely even further we can go.
ReplyDeleteI think a word for abandoning God's standards is "rebellion." It's our rebellion that causes us to turn our back, think we know better than He does, that we can violate His design of us and subsequent standards with impunity. It's not going to work no matter how "rational" or "reasonable" it may seen.
In our training our children/grandchildren, or even in engaging our culture, we need to be equipped (from the Word of God and from whatever evidence is available in human experience of which there is considerable even on these subjects) to "make a defense" for our positions (I realize I may have taken that out of the context of 1 Peter 3:15 a little but I think it still applies).
I believe Peter gives us a perfect framework for this kind (perhaps every kind) of training in these matters in 2 Peter 1:5-11. He starts with the promises of God and faith in what He says as the start of all godly behavior, and ends with the hope of an abundant entrance into Christ's eternal kingdom. In between are the steps to get there.
I've felt for some time that in my youth we were strong in giving out the protective prohibitions on behavior, but not the reasons. Peter doesn't give "because I said so" as an adequate defense. Reality is, it's a whole lot harder than just that....