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February 14, 2007
Dear Concerned Citizen,
by Julia Thompson

side bar side bar side bar side bar side bar side bar side bar What’s a 20-something single girl to do for Valentine’s Day?  Perhaps a current chick flick and some M&M’s with a girlfriend?  But this season as movie-goers and critics yawn through Hollywood’s latest shot at romantic comedy, Because I said So, and critics call the movie a 100-minute commercial for Restoration Hardware, I have to ask what happened to romance?!  Love doesn’t seem to be in the air on or off the screen.

I am not the only one noticing that tinsel town has lost its love story mojo.  Hugh Grant, the notorious Brit charmer and star of Valentine’s Day romantic comedy, Music and Lyrics, muses in a recent Los Angeles Times interview that scripts that “work” in his genre are rare:

“Romantic comedies have become very difficult to do since the sexual revolution in the 60’s…are they going to shag?  If they don’t, it’s weird, and once they do, all that delicious preamble…what’s that delicious word?... all that banter…before you could still feel this electricity through wicked dialogues.” 

Might Grant be alluding to the all but forgotten notion of courtship?  The sexual tension and emotional suspense that make a juicy story dry up when sex is a foregone conclusion.  The fact is that in our culture where sex is omnipresent and demystified the sizzle of romance seems to be sputtering out.

Why are love stories on the silver screen so boring?  Maybe it has something to do with “reality entertainment.”  Shows like Real World turn sex into an act as regular as a Metamucil user (and equally intriguing).  The Newlyweds (Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson) was one of many shows that let America eavesdrop on the ins and outs of celebrity marriages (all of which have since dissolved).

The boundaries between entertainment and reality are blurry; the mystery behind entertainment love stories is obliterated by the bright lights exposing the “cellulite of glamorous romances.”  With the affairs, break-ups and sex tapes of the Brangelina, and Paris Hiltons in plain view, how is on-screen fictional love supposed to compete and muster spark?  Sex is just not that big of a deal anymore.

Film historian Molly Haskell reflects, “Sex is so easy you can’t pretend it’s the Holy Grail.  The condition that made for the sparkle and sexiness of the old films was the fact that there wasn’t any sex.   You could easily keep two people apart for and hour and a half.  Now the ways of keeping them apart are increasingly strained.”

Gone with the wind are the days of love stories to swoon over, cast with the classics—Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and Gregory Peck.  These films capture romantic spark that seems inimitable today.  There wasn’t anything ideal about these stars’ real-life sagas for the most part…it’s just that they didn’t star in reality TV—their lives weren't on “train-wreck television.”

That brings me to Anna Nicole Smith, the larger-than-life public spectacle.  America spent countless hours watching the antics of the over-sexualized glamour façade painted onto a desperate Texas girl.  Her celebrity exploded and her life grew into a sideshow.  She was always ridiculous and good for a cheap laugh.  With her death comes a sobering remembrance that somewhere in the Anna Nicole act was a human being—with a soul.

Not only is Anna Nicole’s story unromantic; it is dehumanizing.  She herself said that her breasts were the only two reasons she had any of the celebrity that became her life.  What we see on tabloid covers are not human beings with dignity—just sex, scandal and meltdowns.

This anti-romance, dehumanizing epidemic is not quarantined to the Osbournes and the glitterati—it overflows into the lives of “normal people” as most of us (perhaps unwittingly) take cues from the pop culture we are saturated in.

Carrie Bradshaw (the main character in the HBO series, Sex and the City) has enormous influence over the way many young women approach relationships.  I have to admit that I passed many an evening in college lounging with the girls watching the sexual escapades of Carrie and her friends… miss the show and you might as well count yourself out of dinner conversation for a week.  I have heard multiple girls ask in earnest attempt to navigate romance: “What would Carrie Do?”  The answer is always the same: go for sexual fulfillment—as much as you can get!

How does Hollywood’s love advice play out for the romance-hungry?  A study by the Independent Women’s Forum entitled “Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mister Right—College Women on Mating and Dating Today” discovered that about 90 percent of college women report marriage as an important goal.  The study also unearthed the dominant form of “romantic interlude” on college campuses today—the hook-up.  Hooking up can be anything from kissing to sex, and often implies tipsy-to-trashed escapades.

According to the IWF 40 percent of women report having hooked-up, and 61 percent of these admit to feeling ‘awkward’.  There is a problem with this picture: the objectives at hand for many young women (and a surprisingly large portion of young men) are lasting love and marriage.  The tactic employed is hooking up.  Lo and behold we don’t find what we are searching for.  We long for Casablanca but act like Animal House, and are sincerely stymied about how to make a course correction.

We often turn to surrounding “authorities” for help making sense of sex, love and desire.  But they fail us.  I have seen the crestfallen face of many a friend who has slept around in search of romantic connection, and woken up the next day with a painful sense that “this is not how it was supposed to feel.”  What does our culture have to say to them?  “As long as you used a condom and don’t have an STD, you had fun, he had fun, it felt good—what more do you want?”

Many public forums have let materialism draw the boundaries of “legitimate” knowledge and conversation.  From the standpoint of secular materialism, there is nothing beyond the physical realm, so sex becomes only a physical act—a mammalian procreative mechanism, and means to pleasurable sensations.  The implied advice to the heartsick girl is: there is no supernatural, meaningful aspect of sex.  Your empty, used-up feeling is not based on anything real.  There is no reason you should hold out for more in love or life…because there is no such thing as “more.”

This is a lie!  Most people experience profound love in their lives.  But so long as secularism and materialism dominate public conversation, this lie will keep being told.  Those who believe the lie will discover that there is more to love than senseless sensation the hard way…through the heartache, the knot in the pit of their stomachs and burning tears that they can’t explain away.

In his article “The End of Courtship,” Leon Kass observes that for a long time “young people were groomed for marriage, and the paths leading to it were culturally well set out…today there are no socially-prescribed forms of conduct that help guide young men and women in the direction of matrimony…for the great majority the way to the altar is uncharted territory.”

In her book, Real Sex: the Naked Truth about Chastity, Lauren Winner suggests that the key to fulfilling relationships has to do with modesty—can’t you just see the movie deals lining up for that one?  Modesty in women has a way of evoking chivalry in men—inspiring the inclination to seek the good of the other over his own primal desires.  Ultimately a woman’s restraint, and the man’s resulting respect make a woman feel safe—secured to promise to forsake all others in order to nurture and love one man and his children.  This perpetuates the man’s confidence, strength and motivation to protect and provide for “his own.”

While modesty and chastity lack “sexiness,” the fact is that lasting love is nourished by dailiness and ordinariness.  If we don’t want lasting love in real life to go the way of Titanic our first order of business is to jettison Hollywood’s fast, free and over-exposed version of love.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all you true romantics.

Responses to Buyer Beware:

Editors Note: Stay tuned for Dr. Wiker's response to your letters and to The Teaching Company's response to Buyer Beware.

Great article in the most recent To The Source! Here is my letter of Feb 7 2007 to The Teaching Company (also posted at http://www.albrektson.com/pub/oe/)
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Dear Friends at The Teaching Company I am supremely dismayed to learn that you selected Bart Ehrman of UNC to teach your New Testament courses—and that is not simply because I'm a graduate of Duke. In the past I have ordered and enjoyed your courses, and recommended them to others, but this choice has caused me to doubt the integrity of your entire company. I know that you are not "experts" in the fields for which you select professors, but this choice shows an appalling lack of discernment and ignorance of fundamental issues in the discipline. Believe me, I'm not stranger to this area. I took my Th. D. in New Testament Studies and many of my professors were of the same stamp as Dr. Ehrman: skeptically agnostic except in the certainty that nothing of the New Testament came from contemporaneous eye-witnesses, yet locked in 19th century group-think on the sacred doctrines of source, form, and redaction criticism. Would you offer a geography course taught by a flat-earth crackpot? A planetary studies course by a follower of Velikovski? Or a course in Church History by Dan Brown? I would encourage you to rework your professor selection processes, and hope your future choices in this field are less radical. - John R. ("Ray") Albrektson

There is only one word to sum up this truthful and I believe valid description of today’s academic world. The word is “Amen.” - Dr. Karen Pappin

 Great article! Thanks & keep up the good work! - John Ottley

Thanks for the heads up on Bart Ehrman. I take your point, but am wondering what might be a good alternative text for the studyof the early church. WHC Frend is very solid but extremely long. Hinson is pretty reliable, but rather dull. Any other suggestions? - Ian Gentles

Dr. Wiker – Thanks for today’s column to the Teaching Company. I had ordered this set of CD’s a few years ago and began to listen to them. In the midst of that exercise I began to see the coverage of his latest book that takes him squarely down a path of denying any voracity of the Truth of the Gospel. The interesting thing is that prior to this epiphany if his and the about face, he did in fact have a great deal of good to say on the history between them death/resurrection of Christ and 325 A.D. and the Council of Nicea. The CD’s they have are from that era. So, though I have vast reservations about his scholarship and biases today, it is a shame that he, when faced with the very evidence he provides in these teachings, he can still deny the Truth. Good job of pointing out equally credible (more so in my opinion) and even more accurate scholars and their works. Perhaps the analogy should have continued – he gets home with what he thinks is a box of chocolates only to realize the chocolate has turned to rat poison. J Blessings! - Chris M. Leland, Ph.D.

While you are checking out the spurious intellectualism of the offerings from The Teaching Company include Professor Amy-Jill Levine, It is obvious she is far more enamored with the myths of the Babylonians than the creation stories or flood stories of the Bible and presents the Koran in a far better light than the Bible. She teaches that the first eleven chapters of the Bible is mythological and raises doubts as to the actual existence of the Patriarchs, implying the stories may be a complization of tribal leaders who later are gathered into a story and given family relationships. - David Turner

just finished reading the Nat Geographic interview with Francis (?) Collins and agnostic interviewer. . .. fantastic stuff. the whole "Buyer Beware"/ Teaching Company/Anne Rice collection was fantastic stuff illustrating the skeptics and believers dialectic. . . . i eagerly await your emails, and love the number of related readings that adjoin the principle article. As a high school English teacher, I have difficulty keeping up with my grading, required reading, and supplemental study (i.e., To the Source"), so i typically print materials and keep it in my "To Be Read" folder until I can get around to it. the Evans, Bauckham, Witherington, and Wright texts now offically put me into next summer. Thanks so much to all who contribute to this wonderful resource. Need I ask. . . how can I support? - T.S.

The article on The Teaching Company (even if it wasn't written to us!) is such a great analogy. We need a "truth in advertising" movement. So many opponents of the truth today are drawing the unwary in by their deceitful facade that appears to be Christian. Tothesource does a great service by helping to educate us all. Praise God for the great article in National Geographic, of all places--and thank you for linking it! Blessings - Kathy Gulbranson

This reminds me of what John wrote, "for the time is at hand. He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; he who is holy, let him be holy still." There are many polluters in our nation today, the worse of which are those who pollute HIS Word. HIS wrath is at hand. - jacob

I felt this article a little on the unfair side. I have ordered tapes from the Teaching Company, even professor Ehrleman’s and found them as advertised. The two series that I ordered that the distinguished professor wrote I was not surprised in either by his stand. I understood what I was getting into by reading the promotional material. I also felt I got material from someone who had studied deeply and cared passionately about his subject. His material on the non-canonical gospels was far better than anything I received in seminary. - Doug Van Aartsen

Thank you for addressing this issue. It seems as though those authors, historians and other experts most hostile to Jesus are the ones most often featured in interviews and sound bites....as though this viewpoint has become the norm among the true scholars. Some truth in advertising would be refreshing, and it's not as though there aren't scholars who can speak intelligently on the other side of the issue. - L.H.

Thank you for the article "Buyer Beware" by Dr. Benjamin Wiker. Last month a woman of a congregation I serve read one of Bart Ehrman's books, and asked me to review it so she could discuss what she found disturbing about it with me. Your letter to The Teaching Company summarizes our thoughts succinctly and accurately. Even the recommended reading tracks our thinking (I had recommended her to Dr. Witherington III, and N.T. Wright.) Thank you also for the other two notices. The one about Anne Rice is especially timely and will be helpful in a discussion I am having with a fan of hers that attends my church. In addition, the note about Francis Collins will be helpful in my continuing discussion with another friend of my congregation. Where exactly is the bug you've planted in my study?! Grace & Peace, - Brett Wm. Templeton, Pastor

So likewise if they offered a course on understanding the Koran,would you also expect the teacher to believe in the veracity of the subject matter they were teaching. - M.M.

I would add James D. G. Dunn to the list of acceptable alternatives. Yes? Regards, - Bill

I'm a longtime reader and regular appreciator of much of what you offer - even when I disagree with the author's viewpoint - because much thoughtfulness is usually put into the writing. But this one, "Buyer Beware" doesn't cut the grade. "Buyer Beware" should have been entitled, "Reader Beware." If you're going to offer more articles with such little substantive argument, please expand your ratings scale to include the negative numbers. Thanks, - E.K.

Your article on Bart Ehrman would have far more impact if you gave examples of what he is supposedly doing that is harmful to his own discipline. As it stands, there are only assertions, and the reader can’t tell if the problem is real and serious; or if the author simply has a personal grudge, and the accusations are false. I myself am much concerned about liberal trends in Biblical scholarship, but let’s be sure to discuss these things with integrity and careful scholarship. A good reputation is a valuable asset… - David G. Clark

Thank you for your article. It was very informative, enlightening, and well-researched. I hope that the Teaching Company takes into consideration all that you wrote. - Catrina Russell

I get the catalogue you mentioned, and have never purchased anything from it; my son requested it, I think. I noticed the last one myself, as I know a bit about the New Testament teacher who doesn’t really believe in the reliability of the New Testament. After seeing his name at the masthead of several course offerings, I began to look over some of the other courses. My admittedly largely uninformed opinion is that all the courses offered may be, and probably are pretty liberal, or politically correct, or whatever the correct term may be. Thanks for the tip. I doubt they are interested in having any thing taught by Ben Witherington, or any other orthodox teachers, but wouldn’t it be nice. I hope you are able to get the word out to many, many people about the apparent agenda here. - John Mark Poling

I am a Christian (Lutheran) and a college teacher. I have found some of your messages reasonable and interesting. Your latest petition to THE TEACHING COMPANY targetting Bart Ehrmann's work with them, however, seems to me over the top, unfair, and a misrepresentation of what he stands for, teaches, and is. I've read two of his books, and found them intelligent, useful, and in no way any kind of disrespectful of people of faith, or of the sources of faith. It is true that Prof. Ehrmann writes candidly about his own struggle, and about the kind of faith he was raised in, and no longer holds. Unless you know of some place in his work where he is disrespectful of or unfair to people of faith--and you nowhere say you do, and I don't think you can--I find your campaign against his courses outrageous and unfair. If you think the Teaching Company should add religion courses taught by believers, you'd be on entirely different ground suggesting that . . . when you link such a suggestion to attacking him, and them for selling his courses, you are looking foolish, intolerant, and unfair in the extreme to a careful, honest, man, a rigorous and respected scholar, and man who, I believe, is doing a great deal of good at clearing the air for people of faith. - Don Erickson

Then there are those "scholars" like you who have never been able to think for themselves, whose faith is someone else's, not there own and who are too intellectually lazy and cowardly to question anything. - G.S.

Your email newsletter attacks the integrity of a well-known scholar, Bart Ehrman, by using a silly, made-up story to discredit him. This is unfair and even shameful. Please remove my name from your mailing list. - William Thomas Deneke

On the logic of Wiker's essay, only an Muslim would be qualified to teach the Koran, a Hindu the Bhagavad Gita, a Jew the Five Books of Moses. It is a strange view of scholarship to propose that a scholar must believe in the veracity of that which they are studying. - Dannie Otto

Please see below my email to The Teaching Company in response to Dr. Wiker's posting on ToThe Source. - Richard Petrillo
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I agree with Dr. Wiker of the 'ToTheSource'. I was originally attracted to The Teaching company by the many fine courses available from a wide spectrum of disciplines. I initially thought your company would be an excellent source of in-depth studies of Christianity. With few exceptions, I've found that almost all of your professors share an agenda to debunk the Christian faith. I have purchased Teaching company courses in the past and may or may not in the future. I do know I can't trust the Teaching company to provide solid orthodox courses in Christianity. It may not be your role to provide only orthodox courses but I believe it is your responsibility to offer a balanced selection. It is sad to see The Teaching company being 'used' to promote a specific agenda of a class of academia determined to relativize the faith of several billion of the earth's inhabitants. - Richard Petrillo
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•Hooking Up, Hanging Out and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Mating and Dating Today
•Not Ready for Marriage
•The Experts' Story of Courtship
•Report Calls for Better Scientific Research on Courtship
•A Case for Courtship by Amy Kass
•WHO IS CARRIE BRADSHAW REALLY DATING? Relationshipism
 
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We live complex lives. We strive to sort out priorities that sometimes conflict or seem incompatible. A moral framework is needed to help us understand the reality around us. Our Judeo-Christian heritage provides a framework to help us comprehend the choices we make and the conflicts that arise over them. It is not only the main source of our spiritual values, but also many of the secular values we depend on.

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  Julia Thompson
Julia graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Southern California with a degree in Philosophy in 2005. She is the tothesource roving junior reporter.
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