If you’re looking for a Valentine’s Day gift your loved one will remember, you might consider a handwritten note from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sometime in the mid-1960s, he was asked to define the meaning of love. Dr. King wrote: “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos. He who loves is a participant in the being of God.”

Then he signed the note, “Best Wishes, Martin L. King Jr.” The rare note is for sale for $42,000.

If only everyone agreed with Dr. King.

How Hollywood sees the world 

One way our culture rejects Dr. King’s ethic of love is by rejecting those who most deeply share his faith.

A Penn State study found that “American society is in a downward spiral of interreligious intolerance.” “Highly religious Protestants” are among the groups that feel most targeted for their religious group membership and beliefs. The lead investigator noted: “When people see their religion or religious beliefs mocked in the public domain or criticized by political leaders, these experiences signal to members of entire religious groups that they don’t belong.”

A case in point: the Academy Awards.

The 2020 Oscars were watched by their smallest audience ever. According to Variety, 23.6 million viewers tuned in Sunday night. The show had six million fewer viewers than last year.

However, an audience of 23.6 million is still larger than the population of 177 of the world’s countries. The cultural popularity of the Academy Awards, together with the credibility they bestow on actors, directors, and films, can make it difficult to resist the worldview Hollywood promotes.

If we are to believe the movie and television industry, gender is fluid, same-sex relationships are to be celebrated, LGBTQ people are to be accorded protected status, marriage is optional and divorce is nearly inevitable, and life begins and ends whenever we say it does. I could cite popular movies and TV shows that proclaim each of these “values.” If we disagree, we are branded as homophobic, bigoted, and even dangerous.

And we haven’t even discussed the sexualized Super Bowl halftime show. If my grandchildren had been watching the game with us, we would have been forced to change the channel.

One solution for biblical Christians is to avoid all popular media. But even if that were possible, is it biblical?

Eating with tax collectors and “sinners” 

Joseph took an Egyptian name and wife when he became the second-most powerful ruler in Egypt (Genesis 41:45). Esther became queen of the Persian Empire; her uncle Mordecai ascended to “second in rank to King Ahasuerus” (Esther 2:17; 10:3).

Daniel served the rulers of Babylon and Persia from 605 BC to at least 522 BC. Jewish Christians continued following Jewish tradition (cf. Acts 3:1; 13:5) until they were forced from their synagogues toward the end of the first century.

Jesus set the example of cultural engagement by building relationships with Jews (Matthew 4:23), Samaritans (John 4), Gentiles (Mark 7:24–37), and tax collectors and “sinners” (Matthew 9:9–10; Luke 19:1–10). He called us to make disciples of all “nations” (Matthew 28:19), literally ethnos, meaning ethnicities or people groups.

Our Lord described us as “salt” and “light,” both of which must contact that which they are to transform (Matthew 5:13–16). To retreat from culture means that we lose all opportunity to change culture.

Living as a “guest” in this world 

At the same time, we are to be in the world but not of it. A ship is supposed to be in the ocean, but the ocean is not supposed to be in the ship.

Jesus prayed for his disciples, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). Scripture is clear: “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15).

God calls us to “flee from sexual immorality” and to “resist the devil” (1 Corinthians 6:18; James 4:7b). To do this, we must first “submit yourselves therefore to God” (v. 7a). In his power we can defeat any temptation we face (1 Corinthians 10:13), knowing that “because [Jesus] himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18).

The key is to see ourselves as “guests” in this world (Psalm 39:12). We care for our fellow guests, but we know that this world is not our home or theirs.

“God never stops loving” 

When our culture violates Dr. King’s ethic of love, Jesus calls us to respond in love. David Vryhof of the Society of St. John the Evangelist: “Why would we choose to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us? Because this is the way of God.

“God never stops loving, never stops caring, never stops blessing. Yes, it’s outrageous. It’s impractical. It’s unrealistic. It’s beyond us. Which is why we need God and why we need each other. Only God’s love abiding in us can love in this way.”

Who was the last person to love you “in this way”?

With whom will you pay such grace forward today?

Denison Forum

Brad Pitt won an Academy Award last night for Best Supporting Actor. (He won an Oscar in 2014 as a producer.) In his acceptance speech, he said, “They told me I only had forty-five seconds up here, which is forty-five seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week.” Thus began a night of awards juxtaposed with politics and surprises.

Joaquin Phoenix won the Best Lead Actor award for Joker and spoke out against artificially inseminating cows. Parasite became the first non-English-language film to win the best picture award. Presenter Natalie Portman wore a cape on which were written the names of women who weren’t nominated for an Academy Award for best director.

The Oscars felt to me like an evening of cultural commentary interspersed with occasional awards. The popularity of many of the actors and presenters can delude us into thinking Hollywood speaks for us.

The opposite is actually more the case.

What percentage of women have been nominated for Best Director? 

Of the nine movies nominated for Best Picture, Joker made the most money, ranking ninth in box office sales for 2019. Avengers: Endgame grossed more than twice that much.

Women make up 50.8 percent of the American population, but they have received .01 percent of Best Director nominations in Oscars history (five out of 447 official nominations in ninety-two years). People of color comprised nearly 37 percent of the American population in the 2010 census, but only one person of color was nominated in the four major acting categories (actress Cynthia Erivo for her lead performance in Harriet).

Of the nine movies nominated for best picture, seven are set in the past. Eight are about white people; six of the eight are about white men.

In 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first black actor to win an Academy Award. That year, the Oscars were held in a “no blacks” hotel. After accepting her award, she was made to sit at a segregated table away from the rest of the Gone With the Wind cast.

We would like to think that the Academy Awards have become more representative of our society since then, but of the 276 acting Oscars given since 1940, only sixteen went to black actors (5.8 percent). Seven went to Latin American and Asian American actors (2.54 percent).

What percentage of Americans are gay or lesbian? 

Some demographics are woefully underrepresented by Hollywood, while others are hugely overrepresented.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Brad Pitt wins first acting Oscar: Movies, culture, and the wisdom of Frederick Douglass →

Kirk Douglas died Wednesday at the age of 103. He was born Issur Danielovitch on December 9, 1916, in Amsterdam, New York. He changed his name to Kirk Douglas before entering the US Navy during World War II.

He was the only son of seven children born to illiterate Russian immigrants. In his autobiography, he reported that his father was a “ragman,” trading in old rags, pieces of metal, and other junk. As a child, Douglas sold snacks to mill workers and had more than forty jobs in his youth. As a young adult, he once spent the night in jail because he had no place to sleep.

He recited the poem “The Red Robin of Spring” in kindergarten and received applause, an experience that caused him to aspire to become an actor. After graduating from college and studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, he joined the Navy in 1941 and was medically discharged three years later for war injuries.

He then returned to New York City, where he found work in radio, theater, and commercials. He became one of America’s biggest box-office stars in the 1950s and ’60s, eventually appearing in more than ninety movies. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981, an honorary Academy Award in 1996, and the National Medal of Arts in 2002.

Douglas and his wife of sixty-five years donated multiplied millions of dollars to various schools and up to $55 million to an Alzheimer’s treatment facility in California. After a near-fatal helicopter crash in 1991 that took the lives of two other men, he returned to the Judaism of his roots and even celebrated a second Bar-Mitzvah in 1999 at the age of eighty-three.

President Trump and Speaker Pelosi were together again 

Media attention has been focused on Douglas, the growing coronavirus epidemic, and the continued controversy surrounding the Iowa caucuses. Meanwhile, a less-reported event was held yesterday in Washington, DC, that deserves our attention today.

Continue reading Denison Forum – ‘I am Spartacus!’: The death of Kirk Douglas and three steps to national healing →