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Are pop-tarts ravioli?
And is cold cereal soup?
Hier steche ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen. ~Martin Luther
Frankly, the account of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19 should be R-rated. I don’t care how explicit the description is.
YES. That story is so disturbing. *shudders*
https://thepeninspired.wordpress.com
@emily-waldorf Theoretically, but only if we get very broad with some definitions. The more applicable question is whether breakfast cereals qualify more as a dessert or a meal.
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes"
-Quipmaster 2005It has been interesting seeing the debate here.
I believe humankind is R rated. The Bible shows us the level of depravity that the human race has sunk to since the fatal decision made in the Garden and unflinchingly reveals to us our desperate need for a savior to reach into our bleakness and depraved nature and pull us out into His Holiness.
The incidents we read in the Holy Book with abhorrence as they are recorded in the OT sadly reflect where we, but for the Grace of God, are headed. Everything vile atrocity we read in the OT is mirrored in the same world we live in today. Has murder ceased? Has dismemberment? Had incest, rape, etc., etc. Nope. Today we are even more inventive in ways to break God’s laws and do inhuman cruelty to our fellow man. Only now, humanity now does it on a massive scale. We enslave one another, we kill, molest, rape, sodomize, eviscerate, and emasculate one another, and we insult each other under the guise of being social.
The scripture is not R-rated. We are. The Scripture is revealing and honest, unflinching and bold, convicting and piercing to the bone, sinew, and marrow. It reveals the darkness that is in us, so that we might wake up to our helpless condition, and cry out for mercy. For the redemption we need daily. The equipping to walk under the blood-covering that gives us hope and imparts to us a new nature that seeks relationship and fellowship with God.
Want to know what is R rated? We are. The honesty of the Word should make us sober to that fact, so that we appreciate His covering of righteousness and walk in gratitude for what we have been saved from.
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.@brian-of-the-surface-world
I agree wholeheartedly. I realize my argument may have misrepresented what I meant. In saying that scripture is rated R, i in no way meant to disrespect, or defame Gods holy word. I meant it documents R rated events done by R rated people, just like you said, Brian. You put into better words my poorly communicated argument.
So accept my apology for unintentionally defaming scripture by perhaps putting it in a bad light, or saying that it’s not meant for certain audiences.
My point was that the Bibles message of grace is as potent as it is because of the depravity it reveals
@obrian-of-the-surface-world I agree. Thank you for articulating that.
My friends, I believe the rating you are confusing with R is M. M is explicit sexual content. R can be war violence, scary movies, and the like.
For my part I don’t think so. Media with one of, or a combination of Sex, Violence, and Language can merit an R rating.
My opinion is that if it has that degree of Sex, Violence and Language that it is rated R, it shouldn’t be watched/read (as a general rule, and with an exception for war violence–obviously that is partly my opinion and partly left up to Christian liberty.)
The Bible deals with R-rated situations, but it is not R-rated–as Brian mentioned. Every word and verse is perfectly appropriate to read, even for children. (Not that passages such as Judah and Tamar or the Levite’s concubine should be explained in detail to children. The Bible is discreet for a reason.)
@allertingthbs you and I can’t be friends if you classify cereal as a soup!!!! (JK, JK) Do you also classify a hotdog as a sandwich? (I do, after some convincing).Hier steche ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen. ~Martin Luther
Alright so let’s take a look at this @obrian-of-the-surface-world.
Humans are R rated. Vile. Sick. Depraved. Furtive. Hollow.
Saying that the Bible is not R rated, but its subject matter is, is an odd take to have. Is Braveheart not really R rated then? All it really is is a creative retelling of the freedom struggle of Scotland. The subject matter, filthy violent humans that destroy each other over an argument of “who listens to who,” is certainly R rated. Saying that a piece of literature/media isn’t R rated, but the THINGS it depicts are, is a strange disconnection.
I firmly believe the Bible is to be consumed by anyone and everyone, but that does not mean that we should say the contents are not very mature and graphic in their contents.
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes"
-Quipmaster 2005I see you’re point when you say you have a problem with calling the content R-rated, but not the book itself. I would just point out that if it’s rated R, it is not appropriate for children, and (as a general rule) morally wrong. To say either of those things about the Bible would be a problem.
Perhaps I am quibbling just with the use of the term “Rated R”, but then, it’s possible we are misusing/misapplying it in this thread. I agree that some events that the Bible records are disturbing and even graphic, but it is not written in a disturbing or graphic way. Hitler and WWII were both rated R, yet I’ve never heard anyone say that a history book is R-rated for talking about it.
In addition, the Bible is very discreet, even in it’s most graphic moments. To use writer lingo, it tells rather than shows the events that are disturbing/graphic.
I would call it a paradox, which is different from a contradiction, to say that the contents of the Bible are R-rated, but the Bible is not.
Hier steche ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen. ~Martin Luther
Isaiah, the evening news covers the R-rated activity of humankind. Are you then implying when you or your family watch the evening news, it is the same as saying you are watching R-rated shows as a family?
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.Would I consider a news coverage of a triple rape-dismemberment worthy of being R rated? Probably, yes.
I am not trying to say that the Bible is only fit to be read by 18 year olds and above. But there’s a reason why we teach kids lighter and easier stories from the Bible. We start off with pretty colors and happy endings. The Bible does have those. But it also contains brutal war depictions. Death of slaves and wiping out of whole nations. Killing of all first born sons of a nation. That all sounds darn close to R rated content.
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes"
-Quipmaster 2005I think a certain level of what you said about if something has enough “dirty” content (sex, language, violence) to merit an R movie, you don’t believe it should be avoided is a personal conviction. If you believe that you are called to hold up to a higher standard, then I will certainly pray for the strength for you to live accordingly. But that is also a personal conviction.
My parents told me a story once about an old church they went to. They became good friends with a couple families there, and enjoyed good Christian friendship. But when the friends learned that my parents enjoyed watching the movie Gladiator recently, they were extremely upset that the world had started to have a hold on my family. This may be a somewhat extreme example, but it shows what I mean. Those families felt that they were called to not consume that movie. My family did not feel the same call and at the time, I do not believe they were “worse Christian’s” for enjoying a well-made movie with some mature content.
On a moral level, my moral convictions on a specific level will differ from yours. Our moral compass will be the same, but the fine details of the trail ahead may differ.
(And yes a hotdog is a wheat wrap, not a sandwich)
"Only a Sith deals in absolutes"
-Quipmaster 2005At this point I remembered that SE published an entire excellent series that relates exactly so this issue. For anyone who hasn’t read the Tricky Subjects series, I highly recommend it.
@obrian-of-the-surface-world I think that example is a good one to demonstrate how this topic has reached the end of its usefulness–I absolutely think watching horrific events in the evening news should be looked at under the same lens as an R-rated movie, as regards whether your kids should watch it.I firmly believe these basic truths:
- Certain elements of fraught content exist in the real world, such as sex and violence. Real people engage with these in real life.
- Reflecting the reality of the world and of human experience is one of the most important elements of storytelling. It’s one of the primary ways you approach capital-T Truth in storytelling.
- Exposure to these elements in a story can be irresponsible depending on the maturity of the audience.
- “Safe” to “unsafe” is a spectrum which will vary widely across each different element for a given audience. For some audiences, no amount of sexual content is safe. This is not the case for every audience.
Figuring out how to serve a particular audience will do us much more good than trying to decide whether a vague rating system designed for movies should apply to anything that isn’t a film released into American theaters.
"...the one with whom he so sought to talk has already interceded for him." -The Master and Margarita
<p style=”text-align: left;”>The only flaw i see in your argument is that teaching children pretty colors and happy endings are good and well, but too often it trickles over into adulthood, and the message of the Bible is watered down. When I say it is rated R, I echo what Brian said. It’s us that is R rated. Inherently, R movies are pretty sketchy, most of them bad. Is the rating bad? No, it’s helpful. It is the warning, or the alert beacon that the movie is bad. In a sense, the Bible is our R rating. We are bad people, and the ‘rating’ or the thing that makes our depravity known is the Bible. So let me rephrase my argument, by saying that the Bible is our R rating, showing us our need for Christ</p>I asked my younger sister, and she whole-heartedly believes that cereal is a type of soup (which then means that oatmeal/porridge would be at type of stew.)
Also, we think a hotdog is a type of sandwich. I mean, you have the bread, meat, and extra fillings (like mayo and mustard, lettuce, etc.)
Here’s a question she wanted me to ask: should we change the plural of moose to meese, since the plural of goose is geese? Or vice versa?
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. — Ernest Hemingway
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