Nitpicking at a Movie: A Quiet Place II

Let’s do something lighthearted: A movie review! Or rather, a session of nitpicking at stuff that doesn’t make any sense and sort of ruins the immersion a bit.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Before I begin, I want to say that I liked both A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place II. The acting and direction is solid, the movies are efficient (a brisk ~90 minutes each), and the premise is interesting. They’re entertaining movies that I’d recommend watching. I’ll repeat: I liked the movies. I’m not just trying to hate.

Critical Race Theory Defended With Falsehoods and Informal Fallacies

I wrote a few months ago about how the discussion surrounding critical race theory (CRT) needs to improve, and I highlighted two typical groups that you’ll see around the media and social media:

1. People who were uncomfortable with much of the social justice rhetoric but couldn’t put a finger on it until they were given the magic word, “Marxist.” These people now go around screaming “Marxist” at anyone who brings up race and who might be slightly to the left of them politically or theologically. For example, Pastor Matt Chandler of all people has been called a Marxist as well as former SBC president JD Greear, and whatever legitimate criticisms there may be of them, they are hardly Marxists.
2. People who jumped on the social justice bandwagon without thinking about it, adopting much of its terminology, ideas, and methods without having much of a clue about what they were doing. Upon learning about CRT and that it might be problematic, they had two choices: Admit they jumped on a bandwagon without discernment or double-down and give superficial and misleading defenses of CRT. Most such people, to save face publicly, choose the latter and try to ignore or block legitimate criticisms of them.

Neither of these positions or tactics are intellectually honest and should be avoided by wise and humble Christians (should be avoided by everyone, really). As CRT is becoming more known, I’m starting to see a lot more desperate defenses of it from people who do not want to feel embarrassed or who have an agenda, defenses that are either based on falsehoods or based on a fallacy that is designed to mislead.

InterChristianity Podcast 1.6: Critical Race Theory

New podcast episode up and we talk about the controversial topic of critical race theory. Hopefully, we contributed something more careful than what is popularly seen online.

Podcast Episode 1.6: Critical Thinking on Critical Race Theory

Beth Moore’s departure from the SBC and what it means

I’m a few months late, but I’d like to take some time to jot down some thoughts about Beth Moore announcing that she was leaving the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) back in March. Moore wasn’t exactly a celebrity, but she was fairly well-known within SBC circles as a folksy and popular Bible teacher for women. I cannot comment on the quality of her lessons because I’ve listened to maybe two short clips of her teaching and that’s it, but many people seemed to like the things she said and considered her gifted. Her popularity made her disassociation from the SBC a big deal and led to both mourning and satisfaction about her departure, depending upon where people landed on her.

Though Moore seems conservative theologically, she was not without controversy. The fact that she was a sought-out public speaker in churches or for conferences that included men rankled the more hardcore complementarians who believe that there is no setting allowed by Scripture where a woman can spiritually teach men (“soft” complementarians like me didn’t really care, and I clearly paid little attention to whatever she did as I hinted above). Such irritation from the hardcore complementarians was most fully displayed when John MacArthur (not a Southern Baptist but not far off theologically), in a word association game, said “Go home” when he was read the name “Beth Moore.” The dismissive response was not taken well by many people, and even some of MacArthur’s supporters cringed a little. There are also accusations that she drifts into charismatic theology by allegedly claiming to hear God’s voice in directing her life, and while there are Baptists who lean charismatic, it’s not a popular position within the denomination.

Moore got mired in more controversy by sticking her toe into politics, criticizing Donald Trump and evangelical support of him while also borrowing some critical race theory rhetoric regarding white supremacy. This has gotten her accused of being a proponent of “woke” theology who is also weak on sexual ethics like homosexuality. Ironically, it was precisely on the matter of sexual ethics that finally led Moore to quit the SBC because she was dismayed by the poor handling of sexual assault cases in SBC churches and criticized the denomination’s response to them. Moore announced that she cut ties, and not too long after, another Moore, Russell Moore, stepped down from his position as the leader of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) after clashing numerous times with others in the denomination and took a position at a non-SBC church. It is unclear if Moore has officially left the convention (it is not uncommon for SBC pastors to serve in non-SBC churches), but he did say at an SBC meeting a couple of years ago that a denomination that has no room for Beth Moore has no room for him either. Perhaps he decided to go through with that statement, but we’ll see what he says publicly.

New Podcast Episode 1.5: Can Christians Lose Their Salvation?

Check it out over at https://interchristianity.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/podcast-episode-1-5-can-a-christian-genuinely-lose-his-salvation/. You may need to re-subscribe on Spotify because we had a duplicate channel that we removed.