The Movie Ratings System Undermined

I went to a PG-13 rated movie today.  Have you ever really considered the ratings system?  I took a crash course at mpaa.org on "the anatomy of a rating" and it provides pretty good information, a general age-appropriateness, and details on what kind of things to watch out for, violence, sex, language, etc.  The reason I did that was because something happened that I have never seen before.

Before the movie, after the commercials for the TV shows and the colas, they ran the trailers for other movies, more commercials for movies that I will probably see on Netflix if anywhere.

 Today, the trailers had a line I've never seen before, that the trailer is "appropriate for the rating of the movie that is to follow".  In other words, "R" films came up with trailers cut up for PG-13 audiences.  And since, as a parent, I can admit the child between the ages of 13 and 17 to the R movies at my discretion, how about a little extra pressure?

I got a big problem with 'R' movies being advertised before a 'PG-13' film.  I got a bigger problem with the fact that the trailers DO NOT carry the movie ratings so that I can have an informed conversation about the movie's appropriateness with my children or my wife or my parishioners or in this blog.

So why would they do that?  Why try and advertise movies not appropriate for children to movies where there are going to be children?  Without clear labeling?  Why advertise any product?  To sell it of course, to make money off of it.  The movie business is no different from any other business. 

It is hard enough to get a discussion going about what is appropriate for our children to be exposed to.  The producers of violent and sexually oriented media content are the same producers of news media content, news programs that might in fact sponsor such discussions in the public sphere.  But this kind of discussion is not in line with the purpose of media content producers, which is to make money. 

It is hard enough to get solid information on the connections between media violence and school violence, good information on media sexuality and sexual practices among our children-at younger and younger ages.

Imagine trying to have a serious discussion on the appropriateness of advertising this kind of material to children? 

The ratings system is one of too few tools out there to help us make informed decisions about movies, television, or video games.  It amazes me that whenever there is any mention of the ratings systems for popular media, the discussions too easily get sidetracked into the appropriateness or the usefulness of the system.   

And continuing in Romans...

"Paul, a servant^* of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, ²which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures..."

Romans 1

 

 

So it narrows down.  Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, identifying himself with all who seek to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. 

 

Then Paul, called to be an apostle.  It is a job within the movement of spreading Jesus' message to the world.  Paul gives us lists of some of these jobs, teachers, preachers, apostles, healers, prophets, and more.  The Apostles were the leaders of the church, the twelve disciples became Apostles. 

 

Then Paul, set apart for the gospel of God.  The gospel is the Good News, the message of Jesus who lived, died, and lived again.  We know from the book of Acts and Paul's letters that he was a traveling missionary, going town to town to share the gospel of God.  This seems to distinguish him again from the other Apostles, some of whom were travelers, but others of whom seemed to stay settled in the church of Jerusalem and Judea.

 

Now, we develop again on the sense of the gospel of God.  What is it, in Paul's own words?  It is that "which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures..."  Who is he?  God.  I know, it is odd not to have "he" capitalized.  "he" and "his prophets".  Paul has been set apart for that which God promised beforehand through God's prophets in the holy scriptures.

 

Now, a point of clarity about the 'holy scriptures'.  These are what we know to be the "Old Testament" of our bibles.  The Letter to the Romans, the gospel accounts of the life and miracles of Jesus, these are (literally) only beginning to be written.  The gospel of God does NOT include Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  It includes Genesis to Malachi. 

 

Think about this.  Paul is telling the Romans that God promised everything that we are going to find in this Letter in the Old Testament of our bible.  God's prophets set everything down before the first word of the New Testament was ever written.  Can you imagine sharing the faith without pulling out your bible to share the words of John 3:16?  Or the Great Commission in Matthew 28?

 

Paul's work is to share the gospel of God, the good news of God, which was laid out in the Old Testament by God's prophets before Jesus came down to fulfill what had been promised.  And that doesn't just mean Isaiah and all those other guys so fun to try and remember.  Moses was a prophet, David was a prophet, they were the 'mouthpieces of God'.

 

So Paul is not coming with something new.  He is not taking the Jewish faith and putting a new spin on it.  Our faith is the faith of the Jewish religion fulfilled in Jesus.  And Paul will spend much time in this Letter speaking more on that.

 

This phrase continues to develop the authority under which Paul operates, servant of God, apostle, set aside for the gospel that ALREADY exists in the words of God's prophets.  Thus is the story that he will tell.



From The Wolverine (Wolverine 2), a focus for church?

About Yashida, who appears as a young Japanese POW camp guard at the beginning of the movie with Logan, then as the leader of the powerful industrial complex in the present day (aging gracefully as opposed to Logan, the Wolverine, who does not), it was said (and I paraphrase)

"He has one foot in the past and one in the future". 

He has taken the traditions of Japan in his industrial structure and brought them into the future of technological advancement and attempted to be a bridge, one to the other.

I believe we need the same bridge for our church.  We are doing things 'differently'.  If we don't, we are going to go extinct as a congregation.  We are seeking to be the church for the next generations.  That is where our future lies.  But certain things do not change.

Our God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, DOES NOT CHANGE.  God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  The Good News of Jesus Christ does not change.  The 21st century did not bring in a new way to heaven.  The Bible does not change-although our understanding of it certainly does.  To each generation, the Word speaks the Truth.  These are the things of the past and the future.

In the future, the style of worship will change.  Formal authority gives way to earned authority.  Codes of conduct and modes of doing things change.  A more casual generation is on the rise.  The pastor no longer carries the Authority of the Pulpit as in ages past.  The preaching contains more teaching, more persuasion, seeks to address and interpret God's message to new and more diverse situations.  The level of education and bible knowledge has dropped from past generations.  Christianity used to be more in the mainline of the secular culture, but it has been systematically marginalized for the last three generations.

So we stand across the generations, one foot in what came before, the legacy of two thousand years of faith, and one foot in what will come, the ever changing, dizzyingly diverse world of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  At the balancing point of past and future is the present.  Here today and gone tomorrow.