2
H he CI ac I< amas P rint
Wednesday, April 28, 1999
Heart's intent
source of evil
It is said that one of the Fathers of
the Protestant Reformation prayed,
“God, bless us; yea, even curse us,
but please be not silent.” His words
carry with them the recognition of a
be in danger of the judgment.
He wenton: “You havefttand.. .‘You
shall not commit adultery,’ but I say
unto you, that whoever looks on-a
woman to lust after her has committed
adultery with her already
in his heart”
tar
an
In other words, thinking
is doing. The intent of the
n
heart is what produces the
actions that harm and kill,
JOEL P. SHEMPERT
and so the heart must be
healed for evil to be
Copy Editor
stopped. To not kill is
basic human need, one
good, but to not intend to kill
that has been neglected
is even better. Likewise, it is
and denied in the world
admirable to refrain from
of today.
sexual promiscuity, but this
This neglect is more
does little good for the soul if
than a theological nui
one mentally rapes any
sance or theoretical co
woman in view.
nundrum. The casualties in this war
Whence originates this noble stan
are our very hearts, minds, and dard of conduct with which we can
lives—at the risk of sounding overly truly live in harmony. I’m afraid it finds
theological one might even say our its meaning only as a direct communi
souls.
cation from tiie mind of an infinite and
It is redundant at mis point to men loving God.
tion that nearly a score ofhigh school
Francis Schaeffer devoted much of
students were gunned down by two his life to arguing that without this
young men in Littleton, Colorado. “absolute reference point,” life does
Throughout our nation, thinkers and not make sense, and moral behavior
journalists alike are weighing in with has no basis. The gods of the Ro
analyses of the tragedy, and wres mans and Greeks were not big enough.
tling with the dilemma of evil in our The reason of man is not big enough.
world.
Science and “progress” are not big
We should indeed ponder the enough. Only God is. Only God fills
causes that brought two boys to the vacuum in our lives.
such a catastrophic course of action,
Philosophers who excluded God
and by all means mourn the ______
from their ideologies have
dead, examining the inci
often come to realize the fu
dent is somewhat like bail
tility of life without Him.
ing water withoutplugging
Neitzche, for instance, in his
the leak.
As long as famous “God is dead” pas
The “Trenchcoat Ma
a singled" sage, lamented: “Whither is
fia” who shot their class
God?.. .1 shall tell you. We
mates and took their own student is
have killed him —you and i.
lives do not comprise the mur-
All of us are his murderers..
entirety of the face of evil,
.Is there any up or down left?
nor even does Hitler on dered...
Are we not straying as
whose birthday the there exists through an infinite noth
slaughter fell. They are
ing?”
a condi
only that iceberg tip of evil
Nietzche’s warning is, if we
which happened to make tion in the
kill God, what do we replace
headlines. Evil is every one human
Him with? Whatisleft. Ifwe
of us. Before we rush to
kill God, do we not kill our
lament the atrocities of rap heart that
selves?
ists and killers, we would can only
A worthy question. And
do well to examine the
one that cannot be ignored
be called
thoughts and motives of
in these dark days. This is
our individual hearts.
evil
not to say necessarily that
For it is there that evil
“evil is on the rise,” or that
begins. In our society of
the “good old days” were
legality and liability, we
better. But as C.S. Lewis
tend to think of evil as
pointed out, suffering is not
merely that which is outwardly ex increased by mere arithmetic. As long
pressed—the cutting word said, die as a single student is murdered; as
harm done, die murder committed. But long as a single Serb or Albanian or
two millennia ago, a peasant Nazarene American loses their life in Yugosla
in the Mediterranean Basin put forth via, there exists a condition in the hu
a different standard.
man heart called evil.
“ You have heard that it was said by
This evil is in you. It is in me. It is a
them of old time, ‘You shall not kill, Mr. Hyde to the Dr. Jeckyl of the no
and whoever shall kill shall be in dan blest individual. It finds its cure in
ger of the judgment,’” said he, “but I one source—the Way, the Truth, and
say unto you, that whoever is angry the Life. I showyou a more excellent
with his brother without cause shall way.
The AI
of
U I< nown Cod
is
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••••••••••••••••
Dr. Spew and Adam Corona
Present...
Are movie ratings what they seem?
It was a calm, quiet night at the
movie theater. I was reading a book
and enjoying the down time be
tween shows. Suddenly, the thick
doors of the auditorium swung
A V iew F rom t M e
SoApbox
SHELBI WESCOTT
StaffWriter
open and a woman, drag
ging her two children
behind her, stormed out
into the lobby.
“Can I help you?” I
asked.
She raised her eyebrows and
threw up her hands. “I am outraged
at the movie industry. How dare
they rate a movie like that PG! That
was entirely inappropriate for my
children.”
I wanted to ask her why she
didn’t research the movie before
hand, or what exactly she found
offensive. However, I knew that this
concerned mother had a point.
Even G movies aren’t safe for a gen
eral audience anymore.
Due to this experience, I began
to think about our rating system.
What does a rating mean if it isn’t
reliable?
The rating for each movie is de
cided by a group of people belong
ing to the MPAA. The original pur
pose of the MPAA, when it was
created in 1922, was to censor the
material in films before their release.
People were worried that the films
were becoming too “rowdy” and
they needed to be regulated.
Decades later, filmmakers felt that
the MPAA shouldn’t have the
right to censor films. This was an
infringement on their first amend
ment rights, they said. So, the rat
ing system was established. Its pur
pose was to categorize films, so film
makers wouldn’t have to edit their
material for general audiences.
This rating system was sup
posed to solve problems-it was
supposed to make things better. I
happen to believe that it only cre
ated more problems.
••••••••••••••• • • •
L ove WU íne
Send Letters to:
spewandcorona@yahoo.com
• • • •••••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
As our society progresses, we
become increasingly more tolerant
and more lenient in what we allow
ourselves to watch, and what we
allow our children to watch. A
movie with an R-rating
in the 1960s would seem
| mild in comparison to
what receives an R-rat
ing today.
||
It is interest ing to pon
der how or why we have
arrived at this point in
_J entertainment where ev
erything is sensational
ized and nothing is left to
the imagination. It is my
opinion that society has be
come so desensitized to
foul language, acts of vio
lence and sexual displays,
we are not easily shocked anymore.
Therefore, the movie industry must
walk the line and push the bound
aries in order to consider itself as a
success.
However, if someone intervenes
and tries to make guidelines that
the industry must follow, they are
persecuted and slandered. Setting
rules is an infringement of the first
amendment; yet, if a movie contains
a sex scene too explicit for an R-
rating, the material must be re
moved before the movie can be re
leased. Is not this called censor
ship? Are we kidding ourselves by
say ing we have freedom of speech?
News Editor:
Another problem that
plagues the rating system is its in
consistency. One movie will re
ceive an R-rating because a man is
murdered and his body is found in
a pool of blood. Another movie will
receive a PG-13-rating, even
though the film is littered with bla
tant and inappropriate language,
graphic violence and explicit sexual
content. A committee decides the
ratings, but the guidelines for each
category are broad and easily ma
nipulated. It is not easy to trust a
rating system that bases its ratings
on bendable rules and politics. A
well-known director can request a
certain rating and the MPAA will
attempt to make the movie fit in the
desired mold.
As a film watcher, I always check
the content of a movie before buy
ing my ticket. Whether the rating
is PG, PG-13 or R, I want to guard
my life and my mind from watching
junk.
Movies are not real life. They por
tray a skewed vision of relation
ships, violence, sex, drugs...the list
could go on and on. The more we
subject ourselves to this false real
ity, we will become blind to the
truth. When the rating system was
started, it gave film makers a win
dow of opportunity to push the lim
its. Now, 30 years later, we must
suffer the consequences of open
ing that window wider.
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