Randy Greenwald

Over the past few weeks Barb and I have watched a couple of movies which raise a curious question for me. Why do we (speaking generally) find watching evil portrayed before us so entertaining?

The two movies are very highly rated crime dramas, Goodfellas and The Professional.

Goodfellas is the story of a man who as a young boy finds his sense of community and purpose in the mob. This is his story, and it is a sad story, and it is a story told with much violence and disregard for human life. But given that one of the purposes of a film is to entertain, why do we find such a film entertaining?

Whereas Goodfellas is a far more ‘mainstream’ and predictable mob movie, Leon: The Professional is not. It is an offbeat and odd story about a sensitive, emotionally stunted hit man played perfectly by Jean Reno. His predictable life is turned on its head when he takes in a emotionally starved, recently orphaned (her whole family murdered) girl played with freaky skill by an 11-year old Natalie Portman.

This may sound like I’m recommending the movie. I’m not. Parts of it are very, very disconcerting as our hit man agrees to train his orphan in his trade, and the orphan begins to see the hit man as more than a big brother. This was a far more original and engaging story. But the same question comes to mind: why do we find watching evil entertaining?

In both cases, and in many like it, the ‘heroes’ are not the traditional ‘good guys’, but rather men who make their living destroying the lives of others. These men are conflicted – they struggle with the nature of their living, but their lives are evil. And we will spend two hours watching.

My question is not whether we should be watching these films. That would be a worthy conversation, no doubt. My question is why do so many (apparently) find such films entertaining?

UPDATE: I am reading about Old Testament narrative in preparation for an upcoming sermon series, and found this quote somehow applicable to the above question:

“A story invites the reader to surrender his or her own thought system and to enter the world of another and to be carried along by the flow of this other world. Through this the reader becomes an insider, a part of the world of the narrative….
“We can see parallels in modern cinema, which entices the audience to identify with a different world and a different worldview in an entertaining and subtle way. Moviemakers are thoroughly aware of a story’s power to draw the audience in to adopt an alien perspective and value system.” (Bruce K. Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, pages 104-105)

One of the people the elders of HPC interviewed this past Sunday is an active clogger, I mean BLOGGER, known to the world as Tulip Girl. We are so grateful to have her.

Tulip Girl has taken it upon herself to give daily thanks to God on her blog. Every day, she posts another list of four or five things for which she is grateful. I encourage you to visit her blog and keep up with her thanksgiving.

But my desire is not simply that you can vicariously participate in thanksgiving through her meditations. I encourage you to visit for two reasons:

1. That you can be encouraged to look around and see God’s hand in the every day. She is giving us a great model for this.

2. That this might be something we would consider taking up ourselves.

On Thanksgiving day itself we are in the habit of having every family member and guest write on at least three small pieces of paper something for which he or she is grateful. We share them all together after we have enjoyed our meal. It is a great thing.

But what if we trained ourselves to think of three things every day for which we could give thanks? We don’t have to do it on a blog to realize what a helpful thing that would be.

Thanks for the encouragement, Tulip Girl!

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Odd footnote: I use a utility on my Mac called TextExpander. It allows me set up some shorthand for commonly used expressions. For example, if I type ‘rr’ it automatically expands this to ‘Randy’, no matter what program I’m in at the time. ‘ddate’ produces the current date; ‘ttime’ the current time. And so forth. It’s oddly helpful.

In composing this post, I wanted to abbreviate ‘Tulip Girl’ as ‘TG’, but I could not without a great deal of effort.

Why?

Because that particular letter combination is already set up to expand – to ‘Thanksgiving’.

This past Sunday the elders of HPC interviewed people for membership. What we look for in those wishing to join is simply a credible profession of faith in Jesus Christ. To discern this can be one of the hardest things we do. But not today.

Today it was a delight. We were able to interview three adults and seven children, including my son Colin, no longer sporting his Rayhawk (which, by his mother’s orders, lasted no longer than about fifteen minutes). The children’s ages ranged from 7 to 12.

Can a child understand this process? We’ve wrestled with that and have concluded that at times a child can understand it better than some adults.

Each of these children gave evidence of understanding what it means to trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. But, you ask, will they still be committed at age 17? or 21? or 25? We can’t say that. But do we prevent access to membership and to the Lord’s table because we fear that one whose profession of faith today is tender and precious may prove to be spurious? Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me.” I’d hate to be on the other side of him on any issue, but especially that one.

If any come to us and demonstrate a love for Jesus, we receive them. If in time they reject the faith which they now profess, then their profession will be shown to have been false, regardless of the age they made that profession.

But this is the joy: I don’t expect that from these children. Yes, they may struggle. They may go through a period where they ‘experiment with unbelief’, a time where they look upon the Christianity of their upbringing from the ‘other side’, so to speak. It may be a scary time for their parents. But the faith they possess now, nurtured as it will be by faithful parents, by the church, by the preaching, by the sacraments, I expect to grow and deepen and to be preserved by the gospel. I believe this because I’ve been assured and have seen God’s faithfulness to his covenant promises.

The work of the parents, and the work of the covenant community of the church, has not changed. We are still charged with discipling these children to love and trust Jesus. We are still to be about guiding them to be faithful to the vows they take and will slowly come to understand as the years go on. But the God who claimed them as his from the womb will be the the God who preserves them through his faithfulness.

I am grateful to Him for his work among these young ones.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Miscellaneous travels of an ADD mind:

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In the technolust department… one of our enlightened HPC members came to church a week ago Sunday with one of these:

I’ve got to make mine last another two or three years. Sigh.

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Great advice here:

Clipped from this site. (I could not figure out how to link to the precise cartoon. So, risking copyright violation, I cut and pasted. Sorry!)

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This is pretty cool.

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Geoff sent me this picture.

I knew that Joe Maddon was a renaissance man, but acting?

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This will make you who travel both more irritated and less secure… so, I suppose not reading it is the best advice. But it is very interesting.

TSA has responded here.

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Something unusual for this time of year:

Michigan St. remains on course for share of Big Ten title

Whoa… what parallel dimension have I walked into?

Gus is an elder emeritus here at Hope Presbyterian Church. If you know him, you know that he is not a publicity hound. He is not after his own glory. He simply cares about Christ and his church.

However, Gus does have some notoriety. Some of you may know that he came to faith through the ministry of Jack Miller. If you are unfamiliar with that story, you can go here and read about it. The ‘Gus’ in this account is our Gus.

The book, by the way, is a book worth buying.

In the past 48 hours, we have seen history made. No matter what one thinks of Obama’s politics, his racial background makes this a memorable election. (Follow this link for a sober and sensible questioning of this assumption.)

Of all the reactions I have read (some quite off the wall) the one I appreciated the most came from a woman whom I deeply love and respect but who cannot often be persuaded to use her verbal gifts to say what is on her heart. (She is the good looking one in the picture currently used in my profile.) I reproduce her comments here with her permission. (I wouldn’t dare do otherwise!)

I’m glad that we’ve elected someone whose skin color is not pasty white. I just wish it could have been someone (male or female) from a more conservative persuasion!

It does still distress me that we are so hung up on ethnic background. In this whole debate everyone seems to forget that Mr. Obama is really biracial. Mr. Obama is proud of his ethnic background, both sides, as he well should, but by virtue of the fact that he is being touted by the media as the first black man to be elected president, not the first man of mixed racial ancestry to be elected just reinforces the old stereotypes. It really grieves me to think that mentally we’re not much different than when people were excluded from participating in the voting process because they were “1/8th” black ancestry so therefore were labeled as black.

I long for the day when people are viewed for who they are on the inside and not for what they look like on the outside. Sadly, that will probably not occur until Jesus comes again.

Well said, Barb. Maybe that day will come sooner than we can imagine.

There was a story a year or two ago about a child – I believe he was blood related to me, but I would not confess that in public – who picked up a gluestick thinking it was his mama’s lipstick, with predictably hilarious results.

When I think about that story, I think about all of those times when lipstick like that would have saved me from some awful verbal mistakes.

Quick to listen and slow to speak. How often I get that mixed up.

I am one person.

The voting precinct in which I live has 1800 registered voters. 1600 ballots were delivered to our precinct to cover the expected turnout.

There are 139 precincts in our county, for the 207, 281 registered voters.

There are 67 counties in the state (along with 27 first magnitude springs, more than any other state, which has nothing to do with my point, but I find it interesting nevertheless).

There are 50 states in the country.

I am one person. Just 1/1800 of my precinct.

And yet, I felt important today.

When I voted, there was the thrill of being a part of something important and unique. Perhaps I’m naïve, but somehow I believe that it matters that I, and you, voted.

And then, in January, something more remarkable will happen. Power will transfer from one person to another, perhaps (and it seems likely) from one party to another, without bloodshed and without violence.

I am so frustrated by our political process. But I’m not sure I would want to trade it for anything.

Here is a song especially for today from one of my favorite groups.

Download it – it’s yours!